Tuesday, 19 February 2013

FMP - Brief 3 - Accent origins


Newcastle - Geordie

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordie

In more recent times, the Geordie accent has been popular within British media due to its friendly appeal alongside it alien dialect.

Deepending on the person using it, the catchment area of ‘Geordie’ can be as broad as the North East of England, or as small as the borough of Tyneside.

The history of the Geordie accent is derived from and in direct continuation and the development of the language spoken by the Anglo-Saxon settlers of this region. The Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that emerged during the Dark Ages spoke largely mutually intelligible varieties of what is now called Old English, each varying somewhat in phonology,morphology, syntax, and lexicon.

This Anglo-Saxon influence on Geordie can be seen today, to the extent that poems by the Anglo-Saxon scholar the Venerable Bede translate more successfully into Geordie than into modern English. Thus, in northern England, dominated by the kingdom of Northumbria, was found a distinct "Northumbrian" Old English dialect.

A number of rival theories explain how the term came about, though all accept that it derives from a familiar diminutive form of the name George, "a very common name among the pitmen" (coal miners) in the northeast of England; indeed, it was once the most popular name for eldest sons in the region. Another explanation for the name is that local miners in the northeast of England used Geordie safety lamps, designed by George Stephenson, known locally as "Geordie the engine-wright". Geordie was given to North East pitmen.


Liverpool - Scouse

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scouse

Scouse is an accent and dialect of English found primarily in the Metropolitan county of Merseyside, and closely associated with the city of Liverpool and in the more urban parts of the neighboring metropolitan boroughs of Sefton, Knowsley, and Wirral.

Inhabitants of Liverpool are called Liverpudlians but are more often described by the colloquialism "Scousers". The word "scouse" is a shortened form of "lobscouse", derived from the Norwegian lapskaus and Danish labskovs, a word for a meat stew commonly eaten by sailors. In the 19th century, people who commonly ate "scouse" such as local dockers, families and sailors became known as "scousers" especially in the north end of Liverpool and the "Wallasey Pool".

The Scouse accent is highly distinctive, and has little in common with those used in the neighbouring regions of Cheshire and Lancashire. The accent was primarily confined to Merseyside until the 1950s when slum clearance in the city resulted in migration of the populace into new pre-war and post-war developments into surrounding areas of what was informally named Merseyside and later to become officially known as Merseyside in 1974


Scouse is notable in some circumstances for a fast, highly accented manner of speech, with a range of rising and falling tones not typical of most of northern England.

There are variations on the Scouse accent, with the south side of the city adopting a softer, lyrical tone, and the north a rougher, more gritty accent. Those differences, though not universal, can be seen in the pronunciation of the vowels.


Birmingham - Brummie

Source: http://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=33677

Brummie (sometimes Brummy) is a colloquial term for the inhabitants, accent and dialect of Birmingham, England, as well as being a general adjective used to denote a connection with the city, locally called Brum. The Brummie accent and the Coventry accent are also quite distinct in their differences, despite only 17 miles ( 27 km) separating the cities.

The strength of a persons' accent varies greatly all across Birmingham. Like most cities, the accent changes relative to the area of the city. A common misconception is that everyone in Birmingham speaks the same accent. As with all English regional accents, the Brummie accent also grades into RP English.

A study was conducted in 2008 where people were asked to grade the intelligence of a person based on their accent and the Brummie accent was ranked as the least intelligent accent. It even scored lower than being silent, an example of the stereotype attached to the Brummie accent

Many words and phrases and pronunciation used within the Birmingham Area, are very close to the traditional Saxon. This was because the Saxons had nearly 500 years of constant settlement within the area and any invaders or invading influences took such a long period of time to reach the heart of the country that we were slow to change or adapt and by the time we had caught up new influences were upon us. 


Yorkshire

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorkshire_dialect

The Yorkshire dialect refers to the varieties of English used in the Northern England historic county of Yorkshire.
Those varieties are often referred to as Broad Yorkshire or Tyke. The dialect has roots in older languages such as Old English and Old Norse

Yorkshire is generally not as stigmatised as other dialects, and has been used in classic works of literature such as Wuthering Heights. Studies have shown that accents in the West Riding (that is, mostly, modern West and South Yorkshire) are generally popular and are associated with common sense, loyalty and reliability.

Some features of Yorkshire pronunciation are general features of northern English accents. Many of them are listed in the northern English accents section on the English English page. For example, Yorkshire speakers have short [a] in words like bathgrass and chance. Kellett (1992) suggests that consonants in Yorkshire dialect are pronounced more emphatically than in Standard English.



Ireland - Irish

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiberno-English


Hiberno-English, or Irish English, is the dialect of English written and spoken in Ireland. English was first brought to Ireland as a result of the Norman invasion of the late 12th century

By the Tudor period, the Irish culture and language had regained most of the territory initially lost to the colonists: even in the Pale, "all the common folk … for the most part are of Irish birth, Irish habit, and of Irish language". However, the resumption of English expansion following the Tudor conquest of Ireland saw a revival in use of their language, especially during the plantations. By the mid-19th century, English was the majority language spoken in the country

Dublin has a number of dialects which differ significantly based on class and age group. These are roughly divided into three categories: "local Dublin", or the broad-working class dialect (sometimes referred to as the "working-class", or "inner city" accent); "mainstream Dublin", the typical accent spoken by middle-class or suburban speakers; and "new Dublin", an accent among younger people (born after 1970)

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