I just love how the brits speak.

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that is akin to saying "i wouldn't piss on 'im if he was on fire!"

There seemed to be FAR more accents and dialects in England than the whole of the US.

Accents in England seem to almost change when moving to the next zip code.

The most unintelligible accents I remember were (in no particular order)

- Birmingham (except for the 'posh' areas, where they get out of the bath to have a pee)
- Newcastle

The most unintelligible accent I ever heard in the US was in Kentucky. I hitched a short ride there and during my 40 minutes or so as a passenger, the only part of the driver's diatribe that I could understand, is when he mentioned that 'The Lord' had saved him!

Last edited by Blindspot149 on 05 Jun 2010, 8:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

I notice that I actually sound like The Kinks, when I speak, which is my natural speech pattern. I did before 2007. I sounded pretty gruff and thick in my punk days, and than in Late October, I began sounding like that familiar Kinks fan, again. After roughing it for a few years, my true voice came back. You've got to imagine how angry I was, as a punk, as most punks are.

There's loads of accents in the UK. You have:

Cheshire
Cumbrian (Cumbria including Barrow-in-Furness)
Geordie (Newcastle upon Tyne)
Lancastrian (Lancashire)
Scouse (Merseyside)
Mancunian-Salfordian (Manchester & Salford)
Mackem (Sunderland)
Northumbrian (rural Northumberland)
Pitmatic (Durham and Northumberland)
Yorkshire (also known as Broad Yorkshire or Tyke)
In the far north, local speech is noticeably Scots in nature.
East Midlands
West Midlands
Black Country English
Brummie (Birmingham)
Potteries (north Staffordshire)
Received Pronunciation
Cockney (East London)
East Anglian (Norfolk, Suffolk and North Essex)
Estuary (Thames Estuary)
Kentish (Kent)
Multicultural London English (Inner London)
Sussex
West Country
Scottish English (this varies widely, from the harsh-sounding "Glasgae" accents to the more gentle Edinburgh and Highland varieties to name but a few)
Welsh English
Cardiff
Mid Ulster English
Manx English
Guernsey English
Jersey English

That's most of them - but they have lots of variations even within these regions.

It does, or at least identical to Michigan (and whatever else may be beside it). I gotta say I don't like it. I want a unique accent!

That would be mine I suppose. Living in America I feel more conscious of it than ever, but I still get asked from time to time where I'm from. I'd have thought it would be obvious from the moment I open my mouth, but I guess maybe I mumble too much or something.

I also cringe a bit every time people say "British accent" when they really mean something along the lines of "General English accent". It's like saying "I like the European accent".

I'm from Bedfordshire so I fall close to this as well, Americans ask where abouts in the UK I'm from because they find my accent isnt the queen's english but a rather flat accent, compared to say Cockney/Scouse etc. The yankie ladies still love it tho hehe

i like the way the comedy team Flanders & Swan spoke in their routines, especially in "The Reluctant Cannibal."

Quite.

The following is at a slight tangent, but really needs to be appreciated when discussing "British" accents.

Quick primer on the UK for foreign devils:

1) Great Britain is the name of the big island on the right of the group of islands which lie off the northwestern tip of Europe. It's called "Great" because it's the big island.

2) England is the country on the bottom right of the big island. The people who live there are English. There are lots of them.

3) Scotland is the country at the top of the big island. It is about half the size of England in land area, though closer in size by extent. The people who live there are Scots (or Scottish).

4) Wales is the country at the left of the big island. It is small compared to England and Scotland. The people who live there are Welsh.

These countries, together with Northern Ireland (too complicated and annoying to get into explaining) and a few other bits and bobs, form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This composite is the country referred to as Britain or the UK. The people who live there are British. It is a country containing several smaller countries, similar to the way that America or India are big countries containing smaller states.

The upshot is that: someone who is English is British, in roughly the same way that someone who is Californian is American. But someone who is British is not necessarily English (though there is a good chance, as there are lots of English and not so many Scots and Welsh), in roughly the same way that someone who is American is not necessarily Californian.

Whether people identify themselves firstly as English, Scottish or Welsh, or identify first as British, varies from place to place and time to time. It often reflects a person's view of the benefits or drawbacks of the Union between the countries. Many (but not a majority of, though poll results vary widely and there is probably a slow rise in all places) English (~30%), Scots (~40%) and Welsh (~20%) people would prefer to be fully independent of the other countries (for that matter, there are parts of England where there is sentiment for independence from the rest of England) and there has been a gradual loosening of the Union in recent years. It's probably for the best.

So ultimately there is no British accent, because even leaving regional variations aside British people come from different countries, but there are many British accents.

Simples!

You left out Northern Ireland. There are a range of identities in Northern Ireland but most people identify themselves as Irish, British, Northern Irish or one or more of the three.

I think it's funny but when you hear people talking from other parts of the country you sometimes can't understand a word they're saying.
If you cross the street from where I live people would probably talk different because there's quite a few yuppies.
I find it amusing watching sitcoms where people talk with mainly upper-class accents. Like my favourite, One Foot in the Grave

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLNrLI3OBwg[/youtube]

"I don't believe it!"

I always love accents and I am utterly fascinated with British accents and with the country as a whole. It have always been like that and that has gotten a thousand times stronger now that i have found a wonderful East London girl from Newbury Park(not cockney although she's taught me a few words), giving me a ringside seat.

I DON'T BELIEVE IT?

Me ol' china, put yer ones and twos on the table and have a cup a joe.

I had a cup of joe once. He didn't like it.

Me old china. Not as good as the new. I went up the apples and pears and came down the bananas a bit fast and broke my bacon and eggs. I got on the dog and bone but he went crazy and bit me boat race off and now I'm brown bread.

You want to come up and see us northern scum.