What English do you read, write, speak?

[Cyril Haearn]

I speak Oxford English, or I used to, not been there for a while, I speak mostly German now, my English is not quite right any more, people notice that occasionally

Wikipedia alleges that Liverpool and Middlesborough have similar accents because many Irish people settled in both cities, can that be right?

The Corby accent is Scottish-ish because of migration

What English do you speak?

[reohn2]

I speak naturally in a Lancashire dialect from around the Wigan area which is very flat in tone that cut words short to suit the cadence.
It varies locally sometimes very locally,but I modify the way I speak depending on who I'm in the company of as I'm aware I can be illegible to people from other parts of the country and they needn't be too far away either to not understand me if I'm speaking to another local.
I've had people tell me they couldn't understand a word I've said .
Mrs R2(who is cultured ) is used to me after 40 years

I can pick up an Irish influence in Scouse,but Scouse can vary considerably depending on where in the Liverpool area.

PS,Lancashire dialect joke alert.
Two Wigginers join the Coldsteam Guards and are on parade.
As they're stood to attention on the parade ground the Sergeant Major barks at one of them
"THAT MAN WHERE'S YOUR BELT",
The Wigginer answers in a meek voice "please sir, 'ave geet no (k)nown"
The SM shouts down his ear "GEET KNOWN,GEET KNOWN,WHAT'S THIS GEET KNOWN".
The second Wigginer says to the SM "please sir, 'ee means ee's baet"

[Tangled Metal]

You mean you don't change your English depending on who you're talking to?

Seriously everyone has a posher telephone voice or a banter with the lads on the shop floor voice. Or a rough area of a northern town sort of voice. You get my drift.

Personally I range from a grammar school well spoken English to a kind of mixed east Lancashire through a west country, Liverpool and west Lancashire accent. I have even picked up a kind of English meets far southwest Scottish accent. Then Holland I once answered a question from a Dutch man speaking English with a strong accent by accidentally copying his accent. I was so embarrassed by that because it just came out.

My point is everyone has an accent built up on where they've lived and their influences. It is influenced by where you're speaking / social context. I bet an expert could work out where you lived from how you talk. Complete with a social context of your life.

My accent range is down to not having a true home. I don't feel I come from anywhere so neither does my accent.

[reohn2]

You mean you don't change your English depending on who you're talking to?

Seriously everyone has a posher telephone voice or a banter with the lads on the shop floor voice. Or a rough area of a northern town sort of voice. You get my drift.

No I speak in dialect,its different.

Personally I range from a grammar school well spoken English to a kind of mixed east Lancashire through a west country, Liverpool and west Lancashire accent. I have even picked up a kind of English meets far southwest Scottish accent. Then Holland I once answered a question from a Dutch man speaking English with a strong accent by accidentally copying his accent. I was so embarrassed by that because it just came out.

My point is everyone has an accent built up on where they've lived and their influences. It is influenced by where you're speaking / social context. I bet an expert could work out where you lived from how you talk. Complete with a social context of your life.

My accent range is down to not having a true home. I don't feel I come from anywhere so neither does my accent.

Accent is only part of dialect.

[Paulatic]

I speak Oxford English, or I used to, haven't lived there for a while and I speak mostly German now, my English is not quite right any more, people notice that occasionally

Wikipedia alleges that Liverpool and Middlesborough have similar accents because many Irish people settled in both cities, can that be right?

The Corby accent is Scottish-ish because of migration

What English do you speak?

I hear no similarities between the Boro and Liverpool. I was born in Stockton on Tees from stock who were McKenna from Ireland but came to the Tees shipbuilding after living and working in the Clyde yards. My Great Grandma had to walk, and cadge lifts, from Glasgow to Middlesborough with two young children as only the men were given their fare to get over.
The Teeside accent is one that television often fails abysmally and think Geordie is close enough.
I’m usually fairly good at guessing locations from accents once though I was wildly out. After talking to a guy for a while I offered a guess that he was from Whitby. Wrong! He was from Maryport. Small and coastal but completely opposite side of the country.
Myself I think I speak With a Yorks/Durham accent. Having lived in Scotland longer than Yorkshire and constantly doing business with Cumbria and Lancashire I know I no longer speak true Yorkshire. The revelation came one day when I was at St Johns Chapel buying tups (rams). A farmer asks me, "Are you from over the border?" From that moment I realised I’d picked up some Scots toungue also.

[meic]

My English accent was picked up in Derbyshire and even though I left thirty five years ago, the accent just will not leave me!

[661-Pete]

RP

[reohn2]

RP

Meaning?

[old_windbag]

Meaning?

I took it he meant Recieved Pronounciation. Or you might hear him narrating the old pathe news reels or reading the news on BBC R4( but in the old days perhaps ).

Edit: Basically Posh .

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Whats queer is that children today speak posh queens English, but their parents can sound quite common.

A strong South Devon farmers accent is as difficult as Glasgow / North England as any I have herd.
Mines easy its mild Devon.
Cornwall claim to have their own language so over the border in the woods and valley their plainly alien

[old_windbag]

Whats queer is that children today speak posh queens English, but their parents can sound quite common.

I think Nigel Kennedy the professional fiddler went the other way and morphed into a chirpy "cor blimey me old cock sparra" cockney, .

[colin54]

This thread reminds me of the old joke about an interviewee up for an officer selection interview at Sandhurst.

He was asked these three questions by each of the board members in turn.

'Can you say 'air'?

Replies, (slightly bemused) , 'Air'.

'Can you say 'hair'?

..'Hair'.

Can you say 'lair'?

...'Lair'.

The board members all reply as one voice,

'Air hair lair, welcome to Sandhurst'.

I'll get me cape, ( written in a Hertfordshire accent).

[Vorpal]

I speak a well enunciated blend of American and British.

Carefully enunciated because I work mostly with people who speak English as a second language. The blended comes from having lived and worked in both countries. For some reason I acquire accents easily, so I tend to gradually sound more and more like the people I am speaking with. I'm not always conscious of this.

Americans say I sound British and Britons say I sound American. People who speak English as a second language often ask because they can't identify my accent. Norwegians sometimes think I am Australian, but if I ask why they thought that, I usually get something like, 'I've never heard an accent like yours before'.

They invariably tell me though that they understand me much more easily than either my British or American colleagues. I sometimes have to translate for a couple Scots who work here.

[reohn2]

Meaning?

I took it he meant Recieved Pronounciation. Or you might hear him narrating the old pathe news reels or reading the news on BBC R4( but in the old days perhaps ).

Edit: Basically Posh .

Ah I see,I've never heard the term before,perhaps I should get out more in the wider population

[tatanab]

Having moved around the country a lot, both in childhood and adulthood, I have no easily defined regional accent which leads people to assume "you are not from around here".

I spent some years living in the USA and found that whilst I did not adopt an American accent of any sort, I had adopted usage of words and phrases. That was long enough ago that I have reverted to English usages.

I appreciate regional accents but sometimes find it difficult to understand the modern "universal English" as spoken by many people under 30. This version has the rising inflection (adopted from Australian TV), the glottal stop (adopted from UK TV with estuary English), and the little sobbing sound in every other word (adopted from east coast American TV).