talk to me about accents

[stripeypillowcase]

I am curious.
what is it about a strong accent that make people think the speaker is not very bright/uneducated? especially rural accents?

I have a strong accent myself, speak 3 languages fluently, went to university, have a good job...

I have a strong accent and whenever I hear someone from my region on TV I cringe. It's also easily picked up when we're abroad. We say 'book' instead of 'buck'

I also come from a high Leave area (capital of Brexit leavers) so everyone thinks we're all a bit dense.

I'm a teacher and my DP says I sound posh.

MissConductUS - I was listening to a podcast, Dolly Parton's America, and the journalist who made it interviewed a group of students from one of the Tennessee universities who said that they have ended up changing their accents (or softening them to the point of making them almost invisible) because the stereotypes about backward hill folk and stupid Southerners are so ingrained .

I love accents and dialects I find it fascinating.
For such a small island we have loads of variations.

Lilot - apparently we have the most diverse accents in terms of our population size/geographical size of anywhere in the world. Our dialects tend to be limited to a few differences of words though.

@ChinookPilotsGoVertical I only found out a couple of months ago - on mumsnet funnily- that 'outwith' wasn't a regular word 😆

It fascinates me how many more miles you have to go in the USA before the accent noticeably changes.

This video is worth listening to if you are interested in accents

I have a really strong Essex accent (ugh I know!) but have an honours degree and 2 Masters degrees. I'm also a bleach blonde with big knockers. People often behave like I'm a bit slow until they've spent more than 5 minutes in my company. I find it hilarious.

I live in Barnsley, need I say more...
(I say this with love of course, we Dingles are a lovely bunch)

I have a strong Yorkshire accent and I cringe if I hear it on the telly. We do sound a bit thick unfortunately. I love it though, there are loads of different accents within accents and I think it's quite cool that you can tell exactly what village someone is from

I wouldn't judge anyone based on their accent or local dialect, as English is my second language I might (might) have to ask people to repeat themselves but that usually only happens with very thick accents.
I live in London and you hear accents from all around the world.

In Germany it is more dialects rather than accents, if talking to customers on the phone or in person I do speak "proper" German, when with family I speak our local dialect but it does take a few days to get back into it.
But dialects vary quite a lot and often be almost a language of their own. So much so, that I sometimes have trouble understanding people who live 150km from the area I grew up in.
What I found that quite often I can tell where someone German is from (at least roughly) when they are talking in English. Last summer I asked a customer from the Munich area whether he was originally from XY area close to my hometown and he said "Yes, how could you tell?", it was just the fact that his local accent carried over into English.

I grew up in a 'deprived' area and didn't go to University. I worked hard and to pull myself up in the world and now work with world leading professionals in a certain field.

I never shifted, or even tried to get rid of my very 'common' / broad accent and when some people first meet me in person and hear me speak I can see them making an automatic judgement on my level of intelligence. I think it gives me a bit of an edge as it makes certain people under estimate me.

My husband has noticed that the posher someone speaks to me the broader my accent gets.

@happycamper11 - Outwith is a real word, it’s in the Oxford English, it’s just a bit old fashioned and rarely used outwith God’s country. 😁

I have a mild regional accent - I have lived in London and found it a big conversation starter there, especially in interviews. Having said that, people often can't quite put their finger on my accent so maybe that's where the interest come from. I don't feel it's ever held me back, but I do regularly hear 'catchphrases' from the area I'm from in response to me saying 'I'm from such and such area'

I dropped my (broad) accent in three weeks flat when I got to uni. If I hadn't, I would have been the stereotypical Northerner the whole time I was there. I had people tell me I talked like Coronation Street (I don't. I'm from Yorkshire) and there seemed to be an expectation I'd behave in a particular way. Like Bet Lynch, maybe. A colleague from Durham once told me she thought the way she spoke had held her back professionally.

I have a bit of this - I live in a middle class area with mainly neutrally accented people and I can tell they assume I’m a bit thick because of my broad northern accent. I just enjoy proving them wrong or seeing their puzzlement when they realise myself and my dh are very successful.

Funnily enough some of the people I get on best with/have made friends with are properly posh people, from wealthy, privately educated backgrounds. I find the posher you are, the less you give a shit - or maybe it’s a shared sense of humour. It’s the insecure, lower middle-class types who are snobby.

@everythingcrossed That's true, there are "accent coaches" who work with people to soften or eliminate their regional accent. It's often done for entertainers and actors but I've no doubt that ordinary people do it too. There is also a range of accents, some stronger than others, depending on where in the south someone grew up - Atlanta vs rural Tennessee for example.

@SisterFarAway that must be weird.

Interesting though. I find this stuff fascinating.

I learnt Danish for a few years (still shit at it) but I can catch/understand just as much Norwegian if not more than I can Danish, because the norwegian words sound like how how I badly pronounced the Danish word in my head. Which turned out to be closer to the Norwegian pronunciation than the Danish.

Hope that makes sense.

I've never made assumptions from a Scottish, Yorkshire, Welsh, Scouse, Brummie or West Country accent. I cannot, however, help but assume that Russell Brand must be a bit thick just going by his voice, before even considering what he is actually saying (which usually confirms my prejudice). It must be all of the missing letters.

I'm an ordinary person and I have thought about accent coaching because when I left Ireland in my early 20s I had a lovely accent. Very neutral. After a decade in the UK it is a hybrid. Irish people think I'm affecting some Anglo Irish accent. I would love to get back the accent I had at 22.

I have a Suffolk accent, in a professional job where accents are not prevalent. Being a rebel I refuse to lose mine, as well as having purple hair, tattoos and being female it's actually worked in my favour. Oh you're not like stuffy grey suits we are used to! No I'm not 😁

I moved from North London to Hertfordshire, at school they all decided I came from the East End because of my "London^ accent, and they decided that I lived in the worst area.
In fact selling our London home had enabled my Father to buy a large house in the best area. They were all surprised when they found out.
So they did make an assumtion based on my accent.

I have a midlands accent but not particularly strong. However the number of southerners who like to comment along the lines of "wow you have an accent but it's not very strong" 🤷‍♀️ I'm not sure if they mean it as a backhanded compliment or what. My husbands family (southern) all poke fun at him and say he was a Midlands accent now, he truly does not. People are very weird about things.

I do admit that I sometimes judge based on accent and get really cross with myself. However it only lasts a minute at two before I get over myself.

I had a Czech au pair once and was watching a programme with a very strong accented excitable Geordie. He asked what language it was and when I confirmed it was English, he was stressed that he couldn’t understand. I had to admit I couldn’t either. 😂

@gingerchaos I LOVE that woman off youtube doing all the different accents. She's so cute and funny and her accents are very good.

I am from the west midlands, and have a bit of a 'midlands' accent (but not super strong as I grew up on the border of Warwickshire.) DH's is from the outskirts of Birmingham, and his accent is quite strong... sounds a bit like Frank Skinner.

Although, thanks to the wonderful Peaky Blinders, the Brummie accent is cool... AT LAST!

By the way, you Northern folk, (Lancs and Yorkshire,) you do NOT sound 'thick' . I LOVE the accents up there. (Geordies too!)

I love the RP accents too, and could listen to Princes Harry and William (and other people with accents like this,) all day long.

I also like a nice cockney accent, and a scouse one too.

I don't judge people on their accent at ALL, but I know some people do... From assuming someone with a Wolverhampton accent is thick, to assuming someone who sounds like Joanna Lumley must be an over-privileged snob. Very unfair!