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I find accents fascinating and it's a little sad to see that some regional accents are in decline in the younger generations. Particularly rhotic speakers that emphasis the R in words in some northern regions/the South West.
Interesting in another way, as I assumed American accent dominated YouTube etc would have the opposite effect on younger generations if anything.
'Strong r' in danger of disappearing across North of England, study finds
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lancashire-67832377
It's interesting. I'm from Bolton, my wife, Blackburn (although we met in Edinburgh). I said she didn't sound like she was from Blackburn as she didn't roll her rs as in carrrrr parrrrk like I was familiar with people from Blackburn doing. She thought I was talking bollox, but I think it was because she went to school in Samlesbury and Preston so wasn't exposed to the full fat Blackburn/Accrington soundscape.
Which is how I imagine @Cougar speaking.
It’s ok, southerners are doing their bit to keep it alive, in words such as ‘bath’
And when they mow their grarrrse
I think they’ve been shipped the short distance from East Lancs to Manchester where they’re being used for r kids
as she didn’t roll her rs as in carrrrr parrrrk like I was familiar with people from Blackburn doing
It’s a very specific Blackburn thing that you don’t seem to get anywhere else in East Lancs, to pronounce certain specific words like they’re from Bristol
We always like to play the 'Where in the Northwest?' accent game listening to folk on the telly - trying to unpick all the blended accents circling Manchester and stretching over the Pennines towards Yorkshire. It's interesting to spot the accents which have stayed more distinctive because their communities are self-contained and people aren't mixing so much with nearby areas. Wigan and Bolton in particular.
The Burnley/Blackburn split mentioned above too. If there is a rivalry between two close towns, the accent won't get as corrupted by mixing.
Err nerr!
Don't worry, we've got Rs where the Os should be.
This is going to turn into a two Ronnie's sketch isn't it?
kormoran
Free Member
This is going to turn into a two Ronnie’s sketch isn’t it?
Given time, it'll turn into an argument if anything. Lol
That's not my intention I should add!😃
Love regional accents and dialects. I particularly like the fact that very small distances can see distinctly different accents.
I grew up in Chester but have family from Wrexham about 12 miles away. The two accents couldn't be any different. A fierce rivalry between the two and an 'international' border are probably factors. The Chester accent is much more influenced by Liverpool which is twice the distance away.
I now live in South Shropshire which has a very different accent than the nearby West Midlands and Black Country. It's more akin to a South Western accent to my ear.
I think Nelson to Burnley is 4 miles
There was a marked difference in accents when I was a kid
not to mention 'she a gate' - anyone from that area care to translate for the others
And I do recall realtives from Blackburn with the rrrrrrr thing and also Buzzes rather than Buses
wasn’t exposed to the full fat Blackburn/Accrington soundscape.
Which is how I imagine @Cougar speaking.
Not a million miles off.
But I'll be schooled when southerners can manage "th" and the hard "g." "Nuffink" makes you sound like an idiot. 😁
Mention of calling a bus a buzz above took me back. That was certainly a thing in Chester when I was a kid. Also people saying 'chimley' instead of 'chimney'.
Buzzes rather than Buses
Boltonians say that too. I cringe when I recall it.
I'm just jealous I can't compete with a Hull accent.
joshvegas Free Member
I love the concept of Yorkshire and Lancashire being northern.They’re Midlands at best.
I've seen folk from Newcastle abusing those from Gateshead for being Southern - and folk from Inverness giving a colleague from Fort William similar treatment.
Maconie's book - Pies and Prejudice never quite changed the landscape
from Bristol
Ah, I mean Arrrgh! the famous Pirates of Blackburn.
Ah, I mean Arrrgh! the famous Pirates of Blackburrrrrn.
If you’ve not read it, this is a fantastic, unromanticised book which has a lot on why regional dialects in Northern places close together are so different and also a lot on the rabid regional rivalries you get between places like Burnley and Blackburn
That bill Bryson book, Mother Tongue, is a good read if you are interested in English and all it's myriad variations both at home and abroad
Lots of old words that have disappeared or reappeared, perfect for a forum discussion sorry squabble
I worked in bacup for a year, shared an office with a guy from waterfoot and a girl from oswaldtwistle...they had to get someone from rawtenstall in to translate and mediate from time to time. Wasn't just the accent, they had clear ideas about pies that were incompatible.
And obviously, Big Barm has an interest in keeping our communities divided.
Those are (mostly) all different things.
It’s ok, southerners are doing their bit to keep it alive, in words such as ‘bath’<br />
its Baff, not Barf 😁
........the rabid regional rivalries you get between places like Burnley and Blackburn.......
There is no rivalry.
Burnley is a proud, litter free rural paradise populated by pleasant, friendly folk.
Blackburn is a shithole of a slum disguised as a one way system, populated by neanderthals who wouldn't know how to use a bin even if they could be taught how to spell it.
It’s ok, southerners are doing their bit to keep it alive, in words such as ‘bath’
No - that is a non-rhotic R sound. The article is about the disappearance of the rhotic R which you will recognise mostly from a west country accent.
My rs has been non-erotic for years.
Technically correct pronunciation comes from the people who live there. Since most people in Bath are from the Home Counties, I think you'll find it's pronounced 'Barth'.
@plumber- he or she 'a gait' means he or she says or said. I still know a couple of people who use that. It appears to be specific to Nelson and Colne. Danish. Probably. There are quite a few phrases and words you don't hear anywhere else but Pendle, or maybe West Yorkshire. One of my Grandmas spoke with a real Lancashire accent and dialect, she was born in Burnley but lived most of her life in Nelson. She left school at 12 to work in t'mill in the 1890s.
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=94920 "Clogs" a poem by a chap called Harvey Kershaw.
Barth would be pronounced differently in different parts of the UK (which is what this thread is about). I'd probably go with Baath, but this is why we have a phonetic alphabet. The three options listed in the OED are bɑːθ, baθ and bæθ.
https://www.oed.com/dictionary/bath_n1?tab=pronunciation#26237523
That map omits breadcake which seems to be the preferred term in sheff.
Also, Birmingham.
I’m still a bap man.
No, that was Bruce Wayne.
he or she ‘a gait’ means he or she says or said.
It also means going somewhere or doing something in a broader sense. "Weez tah getten agait?" - "ah's bin t'pitchers."
It's surprising how the accents differ so much within, say a 10 mile radius in Lancashire.
Blackburn, Bolton, Preston all have distinctive accents of their own.
Burnley (Or Bonleh) as the locals say it, well, that's just a small, shitty town, with a crap football team.
At a Ramsbottom v Burnley cricket match, I heard Rammy supporters taking the mick out of the Burnley accent. Which is about 10 miles up the road.
Widnes and Runcorn had a similar "tradition" with the added amusement that each side referred to the bridge over the Mersey between the two towns as "theirs".
The Widnes Bridge / the Runcorn Bridge.
I think Nelson to Burnley is 4 miles
There was a marked difference in accents when I was a kid
Same with Sheffield and Barnsley when I was a student in Sheffield. Also marked change going south to Derbyshire too. It's all about Isogloths. Great radio programme by Ian McMillan from some years ago - The 'arse that Jack built One of the experts is a bloke I used to run into now and then. A broad Yorkshire linguist!
All these towns are way down south 🙂
*awaits posts from highlanders*
Do you still get rrrray guns in Burnley?
It also means going somewhere or doing something in a broader sense. “Weez tah getten agait?” – “ah’s bin t’pitchers.”
My Father and his late Father, both originally from New Bury 😳 near Bolton, use the phrase ‘let’s get agait’ to mean get going.
Widnes and Runcorn had a similar “tradition”
Always competitive as to which could pump out the most toxic chemical stench too
I live in a Pennine village that is literally a 5 min drive to the next village only between us we have a watershed and what is (now) the Yorks/Greater Manc border. The difference in accents is astounding, literally darkest W. Yorkshire vs quite a broad Owdham / Lancashire accent. Ironic given that 50 years again it was all W. Yorks and officially still is the W. riding.
It’s ok, southerners are doing their bit to keep it alive, in words such as ‘bath’<br />And when they mow their grarrrse <br /><br />
It’s for this reason, plus so many incomers into the West Country that the rhotic ‘r’ is disappearing - actual locals get really pissed off with assholes constantly making Wurzels comments. 😖
As part of the Yorkshire Ripper enquiry they had a analysis of the Wearside Jack hoax tapes done and narrowed it down to a small part of Sunderland. Enough to interview a few thousand blokes.
That's how local accents can be.
I've always considered the 'clientele' of STW to be a bit intercity if you know what I mean. More rundown urban landscape should my feelings be known on the matter.
The map also misses "morning roll" as we get in Edinburgh. I have never seen evening rolls on sale ( but I seem to remember they are a crusty roll?) Its never just a "roll" - its always a "morning roll"
Having been bought up as a forces brat I don't have an accent, or if I do its something approaching RP I guess. The only time I picked up any accent at all was when we were stationed in Lossiemouth, I fell in with a wee bunch of naer-do-wells and scallywags and was soon speaking like them as well. My mum was horrified.
I'm Indian born, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Cumbria as a child, Liverpool for Uni, south Scotland, Sheffield and Central Scotland since then.
I've no idea of what accent I have, or how my pronunciation and accent goes apart from 'not southern'....
As a Darrener myself (yes this is a test to see who knows what that means) I think the way we pronounce the R in words is possibly stronger than Blackburn folk.
Also as someone who works in Burnley, I can confidently say both Burnley and Blackburn are equal levels of shithole 😄
also Buzzes rather than Buses
All of my extended Brummie family say this too.
As a Darrener myself (yes this is a test to see who knows what that means)
OK I'll have a go. Are you from Darwen?
As a Darrener myself (yes this is a test to see who knows what that means) I think the way we pronounce the R in words is possibly stronger than Blackburn folk
It most definitely is. Mrs Binners lived in Darren when I met her. I was baffled by the whole West Country ‘rrrr’ thing as I’d never really heard it before
'Appen it is. Reet.
I've asked for it to be reopened.
Indeed, deepest darkest East Lancashire scum town of Darwen.
I lived in Sheffield for a few years whilst at uni and regularly got called farmer by the southerners.
My other half is from Burnley and we like to mock each others accents.
It’s ok, southerners are doing their bit to keep it alive, in words such as ‘bath’
It's "shower", baths are for dirty northerners 🙂
Not a Northern thing, a very specific East Lancs thing. A bloke I knew from over therrr pronounced an iPad an Ar-pad. Woulda caused Apple brandists a cardiac arrest.
My other half is from Burnley and we like to mock each others accents.
@keefezza - if a bloke from Darren and a woman from Burnley can have a harmonious marriage, do you both fancy having a crack as a negotiator with this whole Israel/Palestine thing? You'd get it sorted on no time
It helps that neither of us really care about football to be fair, as that seems to be the only reason for rivalry 😄
sad to see that some regional accents are in decline in the younger generations
Agreed. Kids have better career and life prospects without them though, so it's no surprise that people (few I know) are teaching theirs to speak with a less pronounced accent.
So what area does the woman that was on I'm a Celebrity come from, she's on day time TV I think?
I can't decide if it's West country or east Anglia.
Don't stone me!
I'm born and bred in Nelson and back in the day could easily distinguish between if someone was from Burnley or Colne (about 3 miles away in opposite directions).
Don't get me started on Barnoldswick...!😅😅
Brizzle mate, gert proper bird like
Ah!👍
I’m also a Darrener (not from birth though). We moved here from Bolton when we got married and I have to say that people are starting to accept us and talk to us a bit now. We celebrated our 35th anniversary in November… 😉
I might ask my Blackburn mates if this ‘rrr’ thing affects words like ‘Rovers’, ‘manager’, ‘rubbish’, ‘relegation’ and ‘fodder’…
"A bloke I knew from over therrr pronounced an iPad an Ar-pad. Woulda caused Apple brandists a cardiac arrest."
Oh, PLEASE make this real.
Reet. I'm off to catch my buzz tshop tget barm cakes for mi dinner.
(From the superior, left hand side of the Pennines).
And for them darn sarf, PLEASE note that what comes out of a tap is waTer, not waaaw-arrr. the letter
The first time I met my late father in law I could barely understand him. He was born and lived all his life in a small suburb between Sheffield and Rotherham (not far from Orgreave for those that remember it), about 10 miles from where I was born and brought up.
I could barely understand my grandad and he came from the same Darwen I came from 🤣
He had the proper local dialect which he could switch on/off at any moment, and used that often to wind people up. Top fella.
@MrSparkle I think the word relegation might be more apt for our Burnley neighbours!
Also I think locals would never class you as a Darrener, especially coming from Bolton 😄
I find the subject of local identity fascinating. As someone born in the East End, I'm technically possibly a 'Cockney' (depending on which 'Bow Bells' you choose for the purpose of the definition). However, this is a cultural identity that I do not personally identify with, largely because of my own roots. As to the accent itself; it is largely a thing of the past, and very few people who actually live in the East End still speak it really. As I was growing up, the accent was changing anyway as the influx of various migrant groups, particularly West Indians and Bangladeshis, saw the dialect morph into a new form. Social media is awash with various characters reminiscing about bygone times, and lamenting the loss of the Cockney identity. But this is almost always from people who aren't actually born in the EastEnd; most are the descendants of people who moved out into Essex and other home counties, the 'White Flight'. The 'Cockney' accent was fading when I was a very small child. That itself was influenced by various other migrant communities; particularly the Jewish migrants who settled in the East End. Words like 'shmutter', 'shmooze', 'glitch', 'nosh' and 'schtum' are all Yiddish words which were assimilated into the local vernacular. There's also Irish, Chinese and French influences of course. But sadly, some of those who talk of their 'proud Cockney' heritage talk also of a distorted, revisionist ideal of the East End that is more down to mythology and folklore than reality. So you end up with bullshit about the Krays and Guy Ritchie movies that overshadow the real, far more interesting history of the area. I've been told that I'm not a 'proper' East Ender by someone born and living in Essex, as though half a century of experience of a place counts for nothing. There is often a racist undertone to such rhetoric, and you get idiots claiming 'nobody speaks English anymore' and such rubbish. But places and language evolve, and nothing is ever set in stone forever. And now, we see people claiming to be 'true Cockneys' actually speaking what is now recognised as 'Estuary English'. As for myself; it's kind of poignant now that I don't even hear the accent I grew up with, so much. And when I do, it's often spoken by middle aged black and brown folk like myself.
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
And you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'
Dialects and unique local lingo have been fading out for a very long time. As a little kid in the early 60s in W Yorkshire village I could hardly make any sense of what the old folk were saying, they almost seemed to be speaking a foreign language.
Agreed. Kids have better career and life prospects without them though, so it’s no surprise that people (few I know) are teaching theirs to speak with a less pronounced accent.
Which is just ****ing sad if I'm honest.
Maybe they should focus on teaching their kids how to give a quick backhand slap to the scrotum.
actual locals get really pissed off with assholes constantly making Wurzels comments. 😖
Aye, it's like the usual original thinkers who think they're ****ing hilarious blurting out 'PURPLE' and 'MURDER' in a Mike Myers accent.