How to speak British, course 201:

Any discussion of British English would be incomplete without a look at the different accents and dialects in the many disparate regions where English speakers live. We will leave the United States and its variations of American English for a later article.

Consider the breadth and depth of the following areas of the world who speak English, but their own version of the world’s family of English dialects. English has ~450 million native speakers, but as a second language, that number rises to ~2 billion. 39% of the world’s nations list English as one of their official languages. There are >160 different English accents. The King’s English had a heavy German accent for most of the 18^th century. King George III–the monarch against whom the American Revolution was fought—spoke only German. Edward III–who spoke French as his primary language–was the king to issue the Statute of Pleading in 1362, a law that required English to be spoken in the courts because otherwise the vast majority of the population would not understand what was going on.  Mandarin Chinese is second with ~1,138 billion speakers.

List of English language dialects and accents:

In England:

• The King’s English or RP [Received Pronunciation] is the English spoken by the Royal Family, the upper class, Downton Abbey, and the BBC. For example, they lengthen the final “i” sound to “ee”, as in “lovelee”, “happee” and “empathee”. “Concision”=a technical meaning in theology, “to which it may well be left”; but “concision” in today’s RP is a common synonym for “conciseness”. Finally, by eye dialect “shouting”=shiteing, “family”=fear-mealy, and “taxi”=tex-yah.
• Cockney accent–the dialect of East London, which has been around since the mid-19^th century–is characterized by dropping the letter H [‘orse, ‘ouse, ‘orrible] and using rhyming slang. For example, “bottle and stopper”=copper, slang for a policeman; “apples and pears”=stairs; “butcher’s hook”=have a look; “army and navy”= gravy; “basin of gravy”=baby’ “bees and honey”=money; and “borrow and beg”=egg, etc. . To speak or write it requires an intimate knowledge of London’s east side people, history, buildings, and streets. Some say it was devised by criminals to trick the police, and others say that it developed as a secret language to confuse non-locals passing through, or traders among traders to bargain without the customers’ knowing.
• Brummie accent–the accent of Birmingham—is often considered unattractive or unintelligent. Brummie is a very difficult accent to master, even for native English speakers. It may sound similar to other accents in the West Midlands but is quite distinct. Brummie features a downward intonation at the end of each sentence. This causes the accent to lack vibrancy and is a somewhat monotone accent. the accent of the television series, Peaky Blinders, and of Ozzy Osbourne. Examples of such speech are: “Alright, Bab.”=Hello, Mate, and “Can I borrow some shrapnel for a cob?”=Can I lend some money for a bread roll? Five and like are pronounced as foyve and loyke; hut becomes hoot; pit=peat; hat becomes ‘at; goat sounds like gout; Ameri-can “bath” becomes bauth; “brummies” is pronounced brummizz.

·         Scouse accent–the accent of Liverpool–influenced by Irish and Welsh immigrants. It has a fast pace and high pitch. Think, the Beatles. A Scouse accent has three very distinctive consonants: “t”s [take what?], “k”s [backtrack] and “r”s [rarity]. “G”s are often dropped [ nothin’ doin’]; h-dropping [‘ard ‘at, ‘ouse, ‘orrible, ‘appy] and plosive “th” soft sounds [those things]. Examples of the dialect are: “You’re noth thath good you know!”, “You whath?”, “Tea, talk, and witty” sound something like teats, talkts, and wittsy. “Rick’s always on a break, he’s never working!” and “Look who’s talking!” sound like, Rickx always on a breakx, he’s never workxing!” and Lookx who’s talkxing!”.  “Fly, buy, tight” become floyt, boyt, and toyt.

• West Country accent–the accent of South West England [southern counties of Devon, Somerset, and Cornwall]–with a distinctive rhotic sound—strong “r” and a drawl. The dialect is not–as some people suppose–English spoken in a slovenly and ignorant way. It is the remains of a language—the court language of King Alfred. You run into such oddities as: cheerzen for thank you [a holdover from “cheers, then”], chinny reckon for I do not believe you in the slightest [from old West Country English, ich ne reckon], chine for steep wooded valley, or in Dorset, “chiggy wig” for wood louse].

The history of the language contributes a significant complexity: There are Celtic, Low German [with retention of four genders usage—he, she, it, they—with their different pronunciations, spellings, and usage–the pronunciation of “s” as hard “z” is similar to Low German. The Anglo-Saxon for “worm” is wyrm. Polite English pronounces “wasp” as wosp; the Anglo-Saxon word is wops and a Somerset man says wopse. The verb “I am” is used in the old form, I be, Thee bist, He be, We be, Thee’rt, They be. “Had I known I wouldn’t have gone”, is “If I’d a-know’d I ‘ooden never a-went”.  “Not” is nawt. For example, imagine a pirate saying, “arrr” or “arrrg” as in “ooh arrr, me ‘earties”? Also complicating the accent is the occasional use of standard or King’s English, Welch words and construction, Cornish words [e.g. “to be” becomes bos], and even Brythonic languages  [old and middle English]. If you do not come from there, I suggest you avoid any significant amount of West County accent by your characters; it is too difficult to learn and even worse to write.

• Mancunian [or “Manc”] accent–the accent of Manchester—which has a nasal tone and a glottal stop. Examples are “’ospital”; “our kid”=younger brother; (h)angin(g)– nasty, disgusting; the plural of “you” as youse/yous, “buzzing”=extremely happy; “cock”–generic term of friendship, like mate or pal; dead–an emphasis marker like bloody and like [dead busy and dead friendly]; the dibble=the police; gaff=a residence, house, or flat; ginnel=an alleyway; madferit [mad for it]=full of enthusiasm; mither=[to moan or to whinge], to irritate, annoy, or bother; muppet=ignorant, foolish; safe=to be on good terms, also used to mean “okay” and as a greeting, etc. If you plan to have characters speak with the Manc accent, buy a book listing the new vocabulary and meanings, or just vow to be sparse in its use.
• Geordie–is a nicknamefor a person from the Tyneside area of North East England [especially Newcastle upon Tyne] and the surrounding areas. The word “Geordie” often refers to a fan of Newcastle United. In popular culture, the miner and the keelman became icons of the region. It is also the dialect—largely arising from Old English–used by its inhabitants–Tyneside or Newcastle English. The accent of Newcastle has a strong “R” sound and a rising intonation. It is a unique dialect, vocabulary, and pronunciation; almost a new language.

Examples of Geordie language usage, include the nouns, bairn=child; and clarts=mud; the adjectives canny=pleasant; and clag=sticky; the imperative verb phrase howay=hurry up!/come on!; and the verbs gan=go—[associated with the modern German gehen]. From everyday language, one hears, “I went doon the toon and bought a shirt”=I went to the center of town and bought a shirt; “Gey it some welly!”=Put some effort into it; “A ye gannen the match?”=Are you going to the match?; “A divven knaw.”=I don’t know; “Wor lass is a bonny bairn.”=Your daughter is a pretty child; “Gan canny or we’ll dunsh summick.”=Drive carefully or we’ll crash into something; “Me da’s in good fettle today, like.”=My father’s in a good mood today.

• Yorkshire accent is a direct, no nonsense, manner of speaking. For the uninitiated, it is English, but nearly unintelligible. The Norse–who primarily lived south of the River Tees–affected the language in Yorkshire but not in regions to the north.

Examples: “reet”=right; “tha”= the’ “Ey Up”=Hey Up/Hey; “Be reyt”=Be okay; “Ow much?”=How much; “Owt”=Anything; “Nowt”=Nothing; “Luv”=Love; “’ows the sen?”=How is one’s self?; Nah then=Now then/Hello/Hi; “Faffin”=Messing about–directed to someone who is not concentrating and causing a distraction; “Dinner and Tea=Lunch and Dinner=food; “Ta”=thanks; “Summat”=Something; “Put wood in t’hole”=close the door; “Ee By Gum”=Oh my god; “Gander/Goose”=Have a look; “Sound”=That’s good; “Ta’rra”=Goodbye, “Whats tha’ got t’ do wi’ price o’ fish?=
What has that got to do with the price of fish?/I don’t see how that bares any relation to the topic we’re discussing; “wazzock”=idiot; “gormless”=someone who is clueless.