Today, English accents may not be clear to everyone. There are countless of them in the UK. The emergence of such linguistic diversity is associated with the development of society. Accents and dialects of the English language depend on the social stratification of British society.
Until quite recently, the birthplace of an Englishman could be determined by the way he speaks. Now as many as 80% of young people use simplified English and do not use dialectic phrases.
Features
Despite the fact that English accents are not very popular among young people, they nevertheless have a huge cultural significance in Britain. For decades, dialects have changed under the influence of various factors, including the development of television.
There was a period when the English preferred more melodious speech. Most likely, this is due to the fact that the telephone began to become popular, and therefore employers wanted to communicate only with those who had a pleasant accent.
A special feature is that the English accents are colored emotionally. Some are sarcastic, some are ironic, condescending orarrogant. How many accents of the English language, it is difficult to determine. Here is a list of the most popular.
Cockney
The history of this dialect is very interesting. Cockney was formed in the middle of the 19th century in the East End. It was jokingly thought that a real cockney was someone who could hear the bells of St. Mary-le-Bow.
This dialect was used by the lower strata of society: workers, merchants, artisans, thieves and swindlers. The peculiarity of this language was its complexity. It was difficult for a visitor to understand cockneys, and they, in turn, could deceive tourists or whisper behind the backs of the police.
Cockney became a kind of culture that influenced not only pronunciation and lifestyle, but also paraphernalia. To this day, representatives of this dialect wear hats with feathers on holidays, and their costumes are embroidered with mother-of-pearl buttons.
The famous Bernard Shaw wrote the play "Pygmalion", which tells the story of a cockney girl. In the dialect, in addition to the characteristic pronunciation and distorted grammar, there is the principle of rhyming phrases.
In turn, relatively recently, a "child" appeared in cockney - wet. This artificial accent was born to make fun of Cockney speech. Today there are many such imitators. These include the famous chef Jamie Oliver, and the popular Mick Jagger.
Estuary English
The dialect is quite young and dates back to 1984. This speech was formed by the inhabitants of the South East of England and those who live in the estuaryThames. A feature of this dialect is that researchers are currently finding it difficult to find the boundaries of Estuary English with the famous Cockney.
Mostly young people use this dialect, but despite the fact that many consider estuarine speech to be characteristic of the working class, its speakers are not only hard workers. Many people are said to use an Estuary accent to blend in with the crowd or pretend to be working class.
Yorkshire
The location of this dialect is not difficult to determine - it is Yorkshire in the north of England. The dialect itself is pleasant to the ear, but extremely difficult for classical speakers to understand.
This accent appeared in the 19th century, and immediately became quite popular. Now the inhabitants of Yorkshire have not changed the dialect and continue to use it. Yorkshire speech has been influenced by television and education, which changes the pronunciation to the traditional form.
Yet Yorkshire is still considered to be a conservative form of English. Its pronunciation remains short, staccato. Vowels do not have the usual stretch, they are short and clear.
Northern Irish
Northern Ireland is geographically separated from Britain, but is part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. The dialect was formed as a result of the division of Ireland into two parts. Northern Irish received features of Irish speech andclassic English.
Over time, the language began to change, and there were also Ulster-Iranian and Ulster-Scottish dialects. Northern Irish speech began to differ in phonetics and spelling. Only 13 consonants are used in the original pure speech. The remaining letters are only in loanwords.
At the same time, pronunciation also played a huge role. Some sounds change under the influence of nasal timbre and speech output simultaneously through the nose and mouth. Some vowels sound more open and longer.
From a grammatical point of view, there are issues with irregular verbs. If the English can still guess some of the variations, then someone who learned English and ended up in Northern Ireland might get pretty confused.
Scottish
The Scottish dialect appeared due to the fact that Scotland was previously an independent kingdom, and despite the fact that it is now part of the UK, it still has its own autonomy. Here people use three dialects: Traditional English, Anglo-Scottish and Scottish Gaelic.
The Anglo-Scottish dialect has become the most common in Scotland. There are over one and a half million native speakers of this language. Very few people know pure Scottish. This language belongs to the Celtic group, and now no more than 50 thousand people know it.
This is due to the fact that Gaelic is difficult for the English to understand. Here nouns also change by gender, there are 4 cases in the language, as well asagreement of nouns with adjectives.
Scottish dialect is distinguished by peculiarities in phonetics and intonation. In pronunciation, swallowing of some sounds or their reduction is observed. You can also find a rolling "r" here, which is not found in traditional English.
Geordie
Jordi's dialect has already experienced many dialects. Its location is North East England. Thanks to the Anglo-Saxon settlements, it was decided to use this particular dialect. This is due to the fact that a single traditional English language did not yet exist. The Saxons, Jutes and Angles found in the Geordie dialect an intelligible speech for all nationalities.
There is also an exact indication of the origin of this accent. The territory of Tyneside Northumberland became the "base" for speakers of this dialect. Researchers believe Geordie is the closest dialect to traditional English.
The peculiarities of the language were the substitution of sounds and the preservation of archaic forms of words. Jordi has long been considered the language of the working class. English society considered those who spoke Geordie to be uneducated and unsociable. Over time, this opinion became radically different, and jordi became the historical and cultural pride of its bearers.
Brummy
This accent originated in the West Midlands. It is not the only one in this territory, but sometimes it becomes the name of other languages. The expression of the accent is quite uneven. myth canconsider that all residents of Birmingham use brumies.
It is worth noting that, despite all the features of this accent, they are not all used in the speech of one brummy. An interesting fact was that, according to a survey conducted in the UK, the owners of the brummes were the most stupid, taking first place from the bottom. This was due to the classic stereotypes that plague most dialects of the English language.
Liverpool
All the accents of the English language were formed under the influence of any factors. The popularity of this accent is associated with The Beatles, who conquered the whole world with their songs in the 60s. Like many other English accents, Liverpool was immediately classified as low-grade. But the work of the musical group popularized their speech.
A feature of this accent is the nasal tones of hard pronunciation. Some call the dialect "cold". Nevertheless, the language is not without dynamism and emotional coloring.
Different accents of the English language have experienced many changes and criticism in their time. Some are still in use today, some are dying. There are countless dialects in the UK, and their diversity sometimes amazes even the British themselves.
