Where have all the accents gone?

[packers stem]

I think it's true that there are regions in the UK where the local accent hasn't been lost but has perhaps changed slightly. For example - I believe the Merseyside accent has become more distinctly 'Merseyside' and a little less 'Lancashire' but I could be completely wrong.

Here in the south east - the local accent has been diluted by incomers from London and the London region. I live in Peterborough and have been here 22 years. When I arrived - almost all of the local people had a Fen accent. Today you have to travel out of town a few miles to hear the accent spoken widely.

In a similar way - the traditional working class London accent is heard widely miles away from London - in Essex - Bedfordshire - Hertfordshire and other counties that embraced the London 'overspill'.

I do think it's a shame that some accents have faded as they are certainly an important part of the local culture and tradition.

The scouse accent was created by the influx of irish and welsh into the city port mixing with the traditional accent of the area.You only need to go 8-10 miles east of liverpool to St.Helens to hear something quite different(no-one could suggest that Johnny Vegas sounds remotely scouse).
Some accents are more easily lost than others as well.I remember when one of my best friends on leaving school went to plymouth and joined the navy.He came home 6 months later and i could barely understand a word.
People don't lose strong accents though like scottish,irish,geordie and scouse.

[Limehouse]

I think it's true that there are regions in the UK where the local accent hasn't been lost but has perhaps changed slightly. For example - I believe the Merseyside accent has become more distinctly 'Merseyside' and a little less 'Lancashire' but I could be completely wrong.

Here in the south east - the local accent has been diluted by incomers from London and the London region. I live in Peterborough and have been here 22 years. When I arrived - almost all of the local people had a Fen accent. Today you have to travel out of town a few miles to hear the accent spoken widely.

In a similar way - the traditional working class London accent is heard widely miles away from London - in Essex - Bedfordshire - Hertfordshire and other counties that embraced the London 'overspill'.

I do think it's a shame that some accents have faded as they are certainly an important part of the local culture and tradition.

[macknnc]

It does seem to be happening here in the States too...Regional accents seem to falling by the wayside...I was born and raised in the American South east,home of that famous "southern drawl", and fewer and fewer of us speak it. And no 'transplant' can speak it properly..."Southern" has its own grammer..(most common error: 'You all' pronounced "Y'awl' is always plural, never ever singular...)

But, and I assume this is correct for the UK too, Regional accents are very regional. Go 200 miles away and you find an entirely different accent...

But regional accents are part of our culture and part of our character..It helps makes us what we are...as someone else said.."Long live the Regional accent!"

[AmmanValleyJack]

BUMPED!

only because I found it very interesting, especially Gareth's dissection on the way the Wenglish of South Wales is going. I hope to never lose this accent of mine and I'm to hear such shock in people when I open my mouth in places such as London or elsewhere.

What may sound ridiculous to others I happily embrace!

[DVV]

here here!

and to add fuel to this warming fire..

Godt Nytt År alle sammen! (Happy New Year everybody!)

from minus 22C here in south eastern Norway.

have a good one all

Phil

Bravo Phil!
Amen!
They must come with their languages !

A populu fattu! Corsica!
Osco Manosco! Where's my M16?

[Phil Carter]

here here!

and to add fuel to this warming fire..

Godt Nytt År alle sammen! (Happy New Year everybody!)

from minus 22C here in south eastern Norway.

have a good one all

Phil

[DVV]

To me, this was a most interesting and relevant pub talk, and the question had been worded by Limehouse with great elegance.

Happy new year all, especially those who love their region, town, village, district, neighbourhood, and defend their accents and local culture and language.

In other terms:

Blwyddyn Newydd Dda ! (thanks to Sam...)
Buan' annado, bèn granado ! (this one from Provence)
Melkam addis amät! (ethiopian, specially to Simon Wood))

to Anna : "Ayzosh!" (amharic expression, meaning both: "be strong, and don't worry")

[Celesta]

A striped newt or a spotted one?

[The Good Michael]

According to the Hittite calendar, I was born in the month of Aglympsa which makes me a sand newt. The qualities are: quick, evasive, clever, and low on the food chain.

Mike

[Celesta]

Ah ha! A Leo! I knew it!

I was born in August, too.

David, we are august persons!

[DVV]

Just realised I'm born on 4 Aug like Obama.
And just like him, my mother is "caucasian", while my father is not!
I'm the next French president. No doubt.

[Pippin Joan]

First, I think it's a matter of being a native, nor a natural. Secondly, doesn't America observe the jus sanguinis principle besides the jus soli one? In oter words, don't the children of American citizens born abroad have a right to American citizenship in the same manner as all children born in American soil have that right?

I do think this law needs revision. I imagine that when the constitution was first written, being a born American was an important issue of identity, but people are so mobile today. John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone, which fortunately for him, was an American possession at that time. I remember a presidential hopeful years ago whose parents were diplomats in Mexico when he was born, and from what I recollect, that did not equal "American-born". Arnold Schwartzenegger quipped that he's working on a constitutional amendment to that rule.

[Captain Hook]

Barack Obama's Birth Certificate

In the case of Barack, assuming just for illustrative purposes that he was born in Kenya...

Hello Bodiam,

But Obama was not born in Kenya. He was born in Hawaii, as the certificate below shows. He therefore is a natural-born citizen under the provisions of American law.

All the best,
Hook

[Chris George]

Hi all

I took a private tour of Brooklyn Revolutionary War sites a week ago and could certainly hear the distinctive Brooklyn, New York accent in the voices of several people who spoke to me.

In regard to the diminishment of English regional accents, it would seem to me the Liverpool or "Scouse" accent has not lessened. Just listen to Liverpool FC's Steven Gerrard or Jamie Carragher... or Manchester United's Wayne Rooney, also a Liverpudlian.

Although I am from Liverpool, I have actually lived most of my life in the United States, though still viewing myself as a proud Liverpudlian and Englishman. I was not aware when I lived in Liverpool of the marked difference between the thick accent of the north end of Liverpool (Bootle, Liverpool, and the Scotland Road area) and the milder Liverpool accent of the south end (Mossley Hill, Allerton, Childwall etc). The north end accent actually seems to have been growing more marked rather than less. Carragher is from Bootle and though Gerrard grew up in Huyton, an eastern suburb of Liverpool, I think his family were from the north end of the city.

I am from the south end of Liverpool and probably never did have much of a marked Liverpool accent, not helped by me spending part of my school years alternately in Liverpool and the United States (mostly in Maryland but one year in Connecticut).

The Beatles were also from the south end and I have a theory that they may have accentuated their Liverpool accents as part of their image. John Lennon of course was not the working class fellow he sounded like... though the other members of the group did come more from working class families, particularly Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey), from the Dingle -- he could be excused for having a thicker accent. But even so their accents today sound mild against those of the aforementioned footballers.

All the best

Chris



Ringo's neighborhood in the Dingle, Liverpool: here's my wife Donna with Gerard Fleming who took us on a Beatles tour of Liverpool. This is the pub featured on the cover of Ringo's "Sentimental Journey" LP. The Empress pub is on High Park Street, on the corner of Admiral Grove where Ringo lived as a boy, visible on the right.

[bodiam]

Actually it depends. In the case of Barack, assuming just for illustrative purposes that he was born in Kenya, his mother would have to have lived in the U.S. for ten years after the age of 16 according to the laws in place at the time in order for him to have U.S. citizenship. His mother did not do this thus the controversy. Even children of U.S. servicemen born abroad, while entitled to U.S. citizenship, are not necessarily considered natural born citizens if one of their parents is a foreign national. The laws have changed from time to time.