Old, Traditional British Accents (South East)
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- Опубліковано 24 жов 2020
- Audio extracts from the Survey of English Dialects showcasing the vernacular speech of South-East England. These audio files were recorded between 1958 to 1964
Audio gathered from: sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dial...
East Kentuckian here. That first recording is absolutely crazy. It’s so similar to what my grandparents and old people sound like around here with obvious exceptions but wow
Isle of Wight native here! Many American accents are heavily influenced by old Southern English. Ockrocoke(sorry if that's spelled wrong) island especially sounds very west-countryish. Unfortunately our native accent is all but extinct (certainly nobody my age or younger I know has one) thanks to our population largely being retirees and holiday makers from the rest of the UK, so chances are older people around you sound closer to a Caulkhead accent than islanders do now.
The guy from Sussex at 4:57 sounds so much like what I hear in Georgia, it’s crazy!
@@machotransandyravageamazing stuff innit?? ;)
@@machotransandyravage that’s pretty wild to think about. I’m 31 and the way we talk sounds different to our grandparents due to the internet but it’s still similar the pronunciation of the “r” is what gets me the most. The way the lady in the video says things like “round the corner” or “there was a great big pond”. If you take out some of the way the syllables are expressed and speed them up you basically have a southern American Appalachian accent. My grandparents would even use words like a “poke” of candy. Poke being a reference to a bag which from my understanding is either old Gaelic or old Norse or a combo of the two.
@@benkenobi4453what are the differences?
Fascinating that the first woman sounds almost like someone from the American South!
She really does!
Look up the accent of Smith island Maryland it's a weird mix of american south and the first women they have a accent more similar to the first american accent
Yeah, it's really fascinating
so does the man
Also a little bit of Irish
It's a common error that when people hear what they would describe as a pirate accent or a farmers accent, that they ascribe it to the south west of England. In fact subtle variations of that speech sound has equally existed in the south and south east as well as Essex and East Anglia. Sadly the movement of Londoners into Essex, Kent and Sussex, has pretty much seen off the true accent of those counties.
It's what happened to us on the island, Queen Victoria made it a holiday destination and boom our dialect was gone just like that
But even then London around the time of Shakespeare sounded closer to the old south east dialects, but people from all over England would come into London and mixed together, which I guess evolved into the London accent we all know and love today.
You are right
Cornwall to Norfolk used to be a dialect continuum until the turn of the century when the Home Counties accent became dominant
You see where a portion of the American accent comes from
I find these accents far easier to understand than many of the current English accents noted for being especially distinctive.
1:12 "Boy, that's right!" Just that phrase alone sounds very southern American, like "Yeah, boy, let me tell you..." or "Boy, howdy!" Can't wrap my head around an English person using that word in that way. Pretty fascinating.
0:14 - Mr and Mrs Sheath, Whitwell, Isle of Wight
3:29 - C. M. Shepherd, New Alresford, Hampshire
4:57 - W. Glapson, Horam, Sussex
6:46 - Harry Prior, East Harting, Sussex
7:55 - Mr Baker, Thursley, Surrey
9:51 - unidentified coal miner, Staple, Kent
5:00 you can hear the beginning of the American accent in his voice
You’re not kidding. He sounds similar to people from the Southern Appalachian mountains.
I always thought of American accents as sounding so different from English ones that it was hard to figure out how American accents originated. This video makes it clear however that American accents are probably more than 90% derived from historical English accents, with only minor influences attributable to non-English sources.
Accents in England have evidently changed a lot over the last couple of centuries, and most Americans are probably much closer than the English to the pronunciation of Shakespeare's time.
No, not at all. The closest accent in terms of pronunciation that exists today is probably the South-West English accent.
@@MBKill3rCat There are many West County accents, many American accents and there were many accents in Shakespeare's time. However, it seems that American accents, on the whole, are more conservative than English accents, and have preserved more archaic features.
Regarding West County accents, many versions in the UK have been watered down by Estuary English. Go to Devon, Cornwall, Somerset etc. and only rarely will you hear a strong regional accent, which is partly what I referred to in my original comment.
Yes and no, and no and yes. This is only true if you ignore the English spoken in the Midlands and Northern England.
If you listen to old recordings of Northerners from this survey you hear that not that much has changed, but then listen to southerners from this survey and it's completely different from what is spoken today.
Anyway, Shakespeare was from the Midlands, he sounded like a rhotic Brummie.
The south western English accent in Bristol is sort of a pirate accent and that has a big influence on American accent and also same with Irish
Shakespeare’s accent sound much more like a Pirate Accent. His name might even been pronounced like “Shaq-Spare” instead of “Shake-Spear”.
That Isle of Wight accent is so lovely
I always thought my grandad from Worcestershire (God rest his soul) had an accent between West Country and Black County/Birmingham, yet I can hear some of that in these south east dialects. What's crazy is I'm in Kent, and nobody speaks like this down here anymore.
This is exactly what people in the south west of England still sound like.
Yer I came from the Channel Islands and have picked up a devon/dorset twang to my voice
This is what my nan sounds like
My family are from Southampton and they really sound close to this
Not exactly, not the younger generation atleast
Can you help me please? ,, Is Southeast england accent considered as Cockney or Estuary or something else ? I'm confused!.
Ive lived my whole life in the south east and while estuarine and RP predominates you can hear softer versions of these accents in rural parts, especially berkshire, hampshire and east sussex.
As an American who would some day like to move to England, this is very interesting. So much of this accent just sounds like an elderly person living in the American south, but not necessarily the “Deep South”. As an American in England, it seems this area would offer a nice respite from the exhausting work of having to “adjust” my American accent all the time. This sounds so relaxed!
These are old Accents, none of these places would have many who'd sounds like these people unless they were olders, you might find a bit of kinship in the West Country though, all Rhotic speakers really.
@@lazlow9640 sure you go to some rural sussex farms you might still find a bit of this kinda talk…..of course like you said it’d all be geriatrics but they all still work the farms so they cant be getting on that much
these accents are all long dead. you might hear a few people with watered down versions of this accent in bristol or cornwall
@@issness_god they’re not though
@@comically_large_cowboy_hat3385 it's true though. dialects are dying everywhere in england and in the north we also used to speak in rhotic accent but not anymore apart from a few old people if you go to Birmingham no one there speaks with rolled r which is how they would have spoken 100 years ago.
WHAT?! That lady sounds as American as apple pie! WTH?! So this is what people who came to America from her area of England sounded like 400 years ago? Blew my mind!
Apple pie is British… makes sense
@@Aaron-lr1di Lol
@Aaron-lr1di Dutch but yes true
I don’t understand how it changed so much so quickly in just two generations
In the 19th century it was the railways and the massive overawing power of London. The invention of the radio killed off what was left.
After the windrush generation landed and wealthier Londoners started to move to the rural south east ie;Surrey,Sussex,Essex and Kent killed the accents
because the people interviewed are all old. the local accents are much weaker among gen z and millenials. probably cus of tv, radio, easier to move around, etc?
These Accents are what the Colonists and the Founding Fathers probably would have sounded like bearing in mind the Mayflower and many of the other ships sailed to the New World from ports in the South West of England such as Plymouth , Southampton and Portsmouth.
And back then the whole of England (including London) was rhotic. The southwest has simply retained it while most other places have lost it
Accents developed during the industrial revolution in England. Most of our founding so called fathers scoundrels more like it.Anyhow most were born in the Colonies save a very few.
My friend in England sent me this because she said my voice was similar. I am from Western Maryland, the only sections of Maryland part of Appalachia. My Pappy spoke very similar to this lady, especially words like house and out. People even today still speak similar. This is wild.
I wish RP was rhotic like this. Pronouncing 'r' makes it easier to differentiate words and isn’t confusing like the modern intrusive 'r'.
The Rhotic R is popular in America due to a lot of the first colonies (Massachusetts) being founded by people from the south west. The “West Country” accents talk with a poetic accent. They use the Rhotic R. They founded a colonies on the east coast hence why Americans still sound like that today whilst it’s largely disappearing. The accent (Rhotic) used to define a border in the south east and south west. Now say for example the word Arm is pronounced “Am” instead of “aRm”. Fascinating in my opinion. I’m guessing it’s largely in part to the movement of people in the modern world
@@rosssandeman6883 most people weren't from the west country
You want to go to a buth day potty with me🤣🤣🤣🤣RP is ridiculous.
@@gjfkhvjzjsxbq Most were that came to the North American Colonies were from Northern England. People believe to much of the made up cock and bull stories they teach in U.S. history.
@@rosssandeman6883 New England was mostly East Anglian, Virginia and the Carolinas were mostly West Country and South Eastern. Though this was initially, later, folks from all over England began moving over.
I’m from New Jersey and live in NC. This is what the south sounds like to me
Mr. Baker from Thursley, Surrey sounds like a lot of the elderly in our community here in Texas!
My first thought from this is that maybe American Appalachian is misattributed to Scotch-Irish. My aunt, from Pulaski, Virginia, sounds similar to Mrs. Sheath. She might not agree, but I'm just struck by the mannerisms in the speech.
ua-cam.com/video/mNqY6ftqGq0/v-deo.html
Whats her surname? Not 100% but a good indicator.
My family was of Scotch-Irish descent, finally settling in Georgia. One came directly from Cork County, Ireland. Another traveled from Scotland into England and stayed for a few generation, then from London to America as an indentured servant. The ones of my family still living isolated (in the backwoods) talk much like the first lady and men of Sussex. So fascinating.
@@kaitlyndouglas2581 no such thing as scotch Irish lol
@@kaitlyndouglas2581that accent is gone now so sad😭
My Great Gran was from Sittingbourne, Kent and spoke in a similar way to the last man from Staple, Kent.
My old neighbour from near Lenham used to sound quite like that miner. I remember thinking when I was young she sounded a bit like the woman from the Tom and Jerry cartoons.
My grandmother from North Carolina would fit right in with these people.
ua-cam.com/video/zDuIpQ5dlDs/v-deo.htmlsi=WdQ9_lmTnfJ-LCKc probably this one too😂
Amazing how American this generation sounded
RP is younger than American English actually.
@@K-Viz RP?
@@awesomefrankrapid Received Pronunciation
@@MBKill3rCat what does it mean?
@@awesomefrankrapid posh English
When I grew up in Kent in the 1970s there were a few old people with the really old Kent accent which sounded like West Country.
Cockney had almost superceded it even then. But the country Kent accent is still a much softer cockney with more of a country lilt to it.
I'm fascinated by where the cockney accent originates.
I can detect a lot of Jewish Yiddish type inflection in it, and also a lot of East Anglian.
If you had told me the man from East Harting in Sussex was American, I would have believed you. He sounds very much like the people in Utah where I grew up used to sound. It still sounds very familiar to me. But it is interesting, that the man from Horam also in Sussex sounded so very different.
By the way, as a Utahn, I did a genetic test, and I came back 100% Great Britain. When it said 100%, I had to laugh, because that matches my records, but I thought there would be something from somewhere else because I hadn't seen anyone else not have something from somewhere else before. My ancestors were from England, Scotland, and Wales. There is only a couple of English counties that I don't have an ancestor from. My maternal great grandparents were Danish, and that didn't show up anywhere. It did say 3% Orkney, and none were from there. So I think that is where it interpreted the Danish in me to. I look very Scandinavian.
You are 100% Great Britain because all of you are descended from Joseph Smith and other old English colonists who moved to Utah to practice Mormonism.
There is no such thing a 100 percent anything, except being 100 percent human unless you're a knuckle dragger.People from Utah definitely don't sound like that to me but then again I have never lived in Mormonland. People of UK including Celtic descent and Scots-gales share DNA with North Germanic Norsemen (Norwegians) and most what are know as British shares DNA with west Germanic Angles Saxons Jutes and such. Danes and some what Swedes. So technically North Germanic and West Germanic. I guess you were always told you a half-blood Scots-Irish Cherokee 😂. Which so called Scots-Irish are not part Scots and part Irish. They were Scots that were transplanted to work on plantation farms in Ireland. Which of Course you have to different countries that are on the Emerald Isle Northern Ireland and Èire.
People of Orkney are Norsemen decent. These DNA companies such as 23 are a crock of manure. If the origin man BS was true no matter what skin tone we have. According to that lie then we are all Africans.
@@JohnSmith-ys4nl They are a new race called Mormonites. Actually the Mormons went there to practice incestism.
good to hear that, but you would probably be aussie or Kiwi if your ancestors weren't mormons😂, since most british migrated in the late 19th went to Aus & NZ
First women sounds like my grandma, she’s from Colchester in Essex
Interesting! To my Australian ear, Mr Baker (the farmer from Thursley, Surrey) and especially the unidentified miner (from Staple, Kent) sound very similar to Australians, especially my grandparents' generation (born in the early 20thC, after radio but well before the influence of television).
Very true mate youre probably not the only one thinking that, I have a kentish accent and get mistaken for Australian, not to often tho as alot of London has influenced modern day kents accent but the remnants of old kentish is still very much present still and thus we still get mistaken for australian, it doesnt help we also use "mate" too much lmao
yea mr baker says certain things just like australians
I'm from Kent and I have had multiple people say I sound Australian. Once a man on a train insisted I must be. He asked where I was from and I said, 'Here,' as we were in my home area at the time. He said, 'No, originally.' I replied again, 'Here.' He seemed a bit frustrated and said, 'Where are your parents from?' I repeated, 'Here!' but he seemed adamant that I must be Australian. When I went to Australia everyone thought I sounded like a Londoner! My Dad apparently has an old Kentish accent. I've only ever met one other person with it, who remarked on Dad's way of speaking.
The man from the third clip sounds like my mother’s eastern kentucky relatives. So bizarre!
Absolutely fascinating
Amazing how different the old Surrey accent was to todays stereotype of Queen's English (although I suppose now it's King's English?).
It's almost a delicate Sussex accent/modern Cornish
Now I know where many Americans originated from in England
Nope. American accents come from Northern England, save for New England, which comes from East Anglia
@@xxjoeyladxx Even here it sounds like the US accent especially the South.
@jasonpalacios1363 Yorkshire and Lancashire accents are probably a better comparison
My kids often take the mickey out of me for my kent accent. It's quite faint most of the time, but when I'm tired or stressed it comes out. I grew up in 1970's -1980's in rural kent. X
All the folks here are saying these accents sound Southern US English. Don't hear that at all, Southern US English comes from Northern English anyway. The first recording sounds more like New Zealand if anything.
Fascinating
I don‘t know why this Scots-Irish influence myth is still cultivated. The Appalachian accent bears practically no similarity to speech patterns from Scotland or Ireland, just listen to their accents. The south of England is the true ancestor of southern US accents.
True
Wrong, they do in fact pronounce some words like Irish and Scots for example school is pronounced skuul like Irish also there are phrases such as crackers that come from the Irish word craic also there is a strong Irish influence in traditional southern music
@@gjfkhvjzjsxbq You're completely wrong. "Craic" is an English word, coming from the middle english crak, and traditional southern music doesn't have any irish influence at all
@@sneedsfeedandseedformerlyc3751 why are you so mad? Lmao It is a well known fact the word craic comes from the Celtic languages deal with it oh and also you must be deaf if you can't here the strong Irish influence in southern music go listen to some southern and Irish folk songs then come back to me you doofus
@@sneedsfeedandseedformerlyc3751 haha You still haven't provided any evidence to back up your claims yet, I knew you were trolling funny man
Wow! That first woman sounds almost like she could be from the Appalachian Mountains.
Well how did I end up here
The East Sussex accent sounds almost exactly like the Southern accent of the backwoods.
i’m from east sussex and you can still find some people that speak like this (exclusively farmers, elderly people, and elderly farmers)
@@comically_large_cowboy_hat3385 few old boys in horsted Keynes speak like it, never left the village
Most English settlers were indentured servants from the countryside in England to the Southern states!
@@Bella-fz9fy not most….a very small amount….especially compared to indentured servants from the north and ireland and scotland….and especially compared to all the african slaves
@@comically_large_cowboy_hat3385 Yes most,even early on,75% of immigrants to America from England were indentured servants,often distant relatives from family members already there!
The Rhotic R is popular in America due to a lot of the first colonies (Massachusetts) being founded by people from the south west. The “West Country” accents talk with a poetic accent. They use the Rhotic R. They founded a colonies on the east coast hence why Americans still sound like that today whilst it’s largely disappearing. The accent (Rhotic) used to define a border in the south east and south west. Now say for example the word Arm is pronounced “Am” instead of “aRm”. Fascinating in my opinion. I’m guessing it’s largely in part to the movement of people in the modern world
They weren’t all from there. Myles Standish and many others weren’t. Bear in mind the whole of England was rhotic back in the 1600s.
it’s popular because almost all english speakers spoke with a rhotic R at that time not because the colonists were from the west country…..british english mostly lost its rhoticisity due trends in formal speech which radiated outwards from london and downwards from the upper class
The guy from Surrey sounds a bit kiwi
Or the Kiwi's sound a bit like the guy from Surrey
Josh Stabler
0 seconds ago
Here’s something: I’m from Eastern Pennsylvania in the U.S., and a few times while in England, my “adjusted-for-England” American accent drew questions about whether I was from New Zealand. It gets exhausting trying to tone down a U.S. accent, annunciating every word so carefully.
I'm from Surrey and whenever I go anywhere around the world or sometimes just in England I always get mistaken for an Australian !
damn, mr glapson sounds just like rural american accents
I‘d say he is from the southern US before watching this video😂
Second one is very similar to how my uncle speaks
9:51 personal reference
Can you help me please? ,, Is Southeast england accent considered as Cockney or Estuary or something else ? I'm confused!.
The working class within the South-East of England will likely to have a cockney accent, but not always. Middle class is typically Estuary
Nowadays, Estuary is a spectrum of accents, because of social mobility or Office work etc, you will have speakers who speak more toward the working class "Cockney" accent (Which is really a very specific accent that natural speakers would be able to pickup on whether you spoke it or not) and the more proper, or lets say, Middle class way of speaking.
My family is from the East End, Bow, Poplar or myself from Hackney (spoken in the East End fashion sounds like "Acne") so I know what the accent sounds like spoken proper, however, I don't speak it myself truly, because of the blend of the accents, you might learn it from school, or the telly, or you have better pronounciation because of professional life (people tend to code switch in work situations and don't adhere to the speaking patterns of the accent, compared to if you were in a social situation)
My Mums from Bow, born in the 50s, she's lost most of her accent in day to day parlence, doesn't mean she doesn't fall back into it when she's talking to the family. I also fall into it as well sometimes, because I spent a lot of time with my Nan growing up, so picked up a lot of the Cockney mannerisms as a child.
I grew up in East Kent in the '70s and the really old locals spoke with what sounded like a West Country accent.
My Mum grew up in the Weald of Kent in the 1930s and '40s and grew up with that accent, but had it shamed out of her at the grammar school.
90% of people I grew up with spoke extremely broad cockney, and the Kent country accent had morphed into a softer version of the cockney accent.
The cockney accent itself is fascinating, with a lot of Yiddish inflection, and a lot of East-Anglian, to my ears.
When I was back in North Carolina, I thought htere had to be something more Appalechian than that and here it is 🤣
Used to?
Yes
Some of these people sound like Boomhauer.
The third interviewer sounds like George Harrison
the man speaking from 5:00 sounds like someone from the deep south U.S.
8:20
Wow, not that far from an Appalachian accent.
Kent sounds so American
So Southern Americans sound more English, than the English........
NO
No, unsurprisingly the southern American accent derives from the southern English who settled there. Shocker
@@ms_publisher7143 I think he's referring to the fact that modern English accents have changed a lot from historical English accents, while American accents have retained many of the historical features.
@@ibrahimsulaiman9047 True. If one wants to hear older English accents, they usually can be found along the North Carolina coast.
@Vincent Liang mix that with a little northern irish and youve got the southern accent
They sound slow af omg I’m glad I’m not from there time
if you read the text at the beggining it explains these were farm labourers as their accents had changed the least because of urbanisation. So these were likely home schooled or just schooled until age 8-11, with most of their time spent working on the farm. They had a hard life. many of my ancestors are from these areas ( i stil live there and stil have a similar accent to many of these) . Yet I qualified for a full scholarship to private school through my entrance test score.
So they arent dumb or slow, just uneducated in the traditional modern academic sense. However, remove all technology and we would die, these people would thrive. They are highly educated when it comes to living off the land and would make you look stupid real quik if you tried to do even the most basic of tasks on a farm.
Also, I bet their mental arithmetic is leagues better than 90% of people today who never use that skill. There werent even any calculators back then.
They don't sound "slow", they're just reminiscing and because they are trying to record their accent, they most likely told them to speak slower.
@@SparkThaMetal Hear, hear! 👏👏👏
DeoSiege, if the state of your written English is an example of how you speak, you certainly have no right to be critical of others!
By the way, it's 'they're' (not, 'there')... I bet those who you say, "sound slow af", would have known that!
Diversity would change everything for a town like this.
If the windrush never arrived then the white working class wouldn’t have moved out of London to the surrounding countryside and we would have still had these accents
@@that1ginger22I should've added that it wouldn't change anything for the better. Diversity = anti-white