The Queen's English is no longer so posh

[dirtydog]

LONDON (AFP) - Queen Elizabeth II's famous cut-glass accent, the Queen's English, is now sounding less upper-class, a scientific analysis of her famous Christmas broadcasts found.
Researchers analysed each of her messages to the Commonwealth since her 1952 accession using digital technology to track the shift in her pronunciation from the aristocratic Upper Received to the less plummy Standard Received.
Jonathan Harrington, professor of phonetics at Germany's University of Munich, wanted to discover whether dialect changes recorded over the past half-century would take place within one person.
"As far as I know, there just is nobody else for whom there is this sort of broadcast archive," he told AFP by telephone.
He said the aristocratic way of pronouncing vowels had gradually ceased to be a class apart over the decades.
"Her accent sounds slightly less aristocratic than it did 50 years ago. But these are very, very subtle and slow changes that we don't notice from year to year," he explained.
"We may be able to relate it to changes in the class structure."
He told The Daily Telegraph newspaper: "In 1952 she would have been heard referring to 'thet men in the bleck het'. Now it would be 'that man in the black hat'.
"Similarly, she would have spoken of 'the citay' and 'dutay', rather than 'citee' and 'dutee', and 'hame' rather than home. In the 1950s she would have been 'lorst', but by the 1970s lost."
The queen's annual broadcast is a personal message to the Commonwealth.
A Christmas institution, the 10-minute broadcast is televised at 3:00 pm in Britain as many families are recovering from their traditional turkey lunch.
The results were published in the Journal of Phonetics quarterly magazine.

The Queen's English is no longer so posh: researcher - Yahoo! News

[watterinja]

Splitting image of my mum

[stroller]

professor of phonetics at Germany's University of Munich

What would ze Krauts know about ze British accent?

[kingwilly]

at 3:00 pm in Britain as many families are recovering from their traditional turkey lunch.

aint that the truth......

[barbaro]

Great OP.

I've always been interested in the the many British accents across England, and the rest of the UK.

A mate of mine tells me that he can tell a sailor from say, a barrister.

I know they have different accents, but can someone from the UK tell exactly what the accent is that they hear?

Can anyone compare the different vowel sounds?


Thanks.

[risktohimself]

"Similarly, she would have spoken of 'the citay' and 'dutay'

Like they do in Dudley?




Milkman, the accents are quite distinctive for an island so small. Some are more distinctive than others, and, therefore, more easily recognised...


Scousers, Geordies, Scots...




...dare I say it...Welsh?

[stroller]

Uhh, there are so many different accents, as well as localised slang language.
My humble observation is that the further North, the more gutheral the sound - listening to a Scotsman speak at a distance could be mistaken for German.

In South-Yorkshire, where I lived for 3 years, neighbouring villages had slightly different accents - and they'd pick a fight on this basis.
In Yorkshire generally, the 'u' sound, as in "bus" sounds more like a short 'oo', the 'a' in "grass" sounds like the 'u' in "bus".

[dirtydog]

I think the Queen is married to a german or a greek, cant remember which but he aint like a proper english person

[stroller]

They're all French or German, Brit aristocracy are.

[risktohimself]

I think the Queen is married to a german or a greek, cant remember which but he aint like a proper english person

He is rather eccentric though, DD.

[slimboyfat]

i blame eastenders

[Little Chuchok]

Uhh, there are so many different accents, as well as localised slang language.
My humble observation is that the further North, the more gutheral the sound - listening to a Scotsman speak at a distance could be mistaken for German.

There is a huge difference in Scotland.Some of those Glaswegians have got an accent that rivals geordies IMO.Where as the Edinburgh folk seem to have a much softer accents.

[barbaro]

I notice very, very, different accents from London (within London) Manchester, Liverpool (Scousers) and Scotland.

But I usually cannot pinpoint someone's location alone.

[ChiangMai noon]

I know they have different accents, but can someone from the UK tell exactly what the accent is that they hear?

Can anyone compare the different vowel sounds?

I can pinpoint a Welsh accent to a 12 mile radius.
seriously.
every time I meet a welsh person i can tell exactly the nearest town that they come from.
I think it's because Welsh people rarely leave their village but the difference in say a Cardiff accent and a pontypridd accent is staggering... they are only 15 miles apart.

[klongmaster]

Splitting image of my mum

I always though the quote was 'spitting image'...

but then I'm a kiwi so that might account for a few things...

wait...according to Non-Errors

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earlier form was "spitten image,” which may indeed have evolved from “spit and image.” It’s a crude figure of speech: someone else is enough like you to have been spat out by you, made of the very stuff of your body. In the early 20th century the spelling and pronunciation gradually shifted to the less logical “spitting image,” which is now standard. It’s too late to go back. There is no historical basis for the claim sometimes made that the original expression was “spirit and image.”

[risktohimself]

Some of those Glaswegians have got an accent that rivals geordies IMO.

Documentaries featuring Glaswegians speaking usually contain subtitles.

Mind you, I saw a programme about the King of the Chavs, Michael Carroll, which had subtitles. He's from somewhere in Norfolk. Every time he spoke, it was like a baby with a dummy in its mouth.

[barbaro]

Thanks for the info all of you and Chaing Mai Noon.

I like the accents of the Welsh, Scots, and English and Irish.