Different Native Accents In Your Area/Town/City

[Treffie]

I've always been interested in different native accents so I thought I'd ask you guys if there's different variations in a relatively small area. As for the UK, there is a remarkable variation in accents in such a small piece of land.

If I take my immediate region for example, (area approx 225 sq m, population approx 285,000) I can identify 5 or 6 different accents and each one is native to the area.

1) Swansea `Jack` accent. I can only describe this accent as being a working class accent, this is usually on the east side of the city where I live. It's a distinctive Welsh accent but maybe regarded as `common` In this area, the question `Do You?` is more like `D'wiw?`

2) South Gower accent. This is spoken in the south west of the area which I live. It's hardly a Welsh accent at all, but very similar to a West Country `burr` - almost Devonian.

3) Swansea West accent. Hardly an accent at all, neutral with no hint of Welsh. It's in an affluent area.

4) Swansea Valley accent. A deep accent in the north of where I live. Influenced heavily by the Welsh language where it is predominant.

5) The `Bont` accent. North-West. Another deep accent, but deeper again than the valley accent - it's in an area where Welsh is predominant.

6) Standard Swansea accent. To me this just sounds like a generic Welsh accent, but quite distinct from that of the accents of Cardiff and Newport.

I'd like to know about the different accents in your areas, I know that there is a great variation in the UK but I'd like to know from all of you.

[Beorn]

Although you are hard pressed to find the old accents in local areas of England, the accents are still alive and can be heard.
It's a shame that the inclusion of the television in recent years throughout Britain's homes has transformed the accents of England forever.

Here's my home town accent.

[Barreldriver]

The accent around my area is Midwestern:

Midwestern speech is not as distinctive in its differences as that of New Yawkers or ya’ll down South, it does have things which also make it unique. It cites examples of these regionalisms, including that Midwesterners say Dawn and Don in the same fashion rather than as two different words. Apparently, while we are not without an accent, we are considered to have the most neutral sounding one.

My personal accent is a mix of the above mentioned Midwestern and the Southern American accent, the Southern American accent that I used to have in full and now partially have is specifically one from the hills in Tennessee that seems to be isolated within my family, the accent is most noted in one of my aunts.

Basically the accent is characterized by its swift usage, very rapid speech, a sample sentence:

Yuh aurta go n git that ur yu'll be hangin' upside down by yer toenails.

also, instead of "Ya'll" we tend more towards "Y'll", basically Ya'll minus the "a".

In both my home and Tennessee and in Ohio I'm am viewed as having a foreign speech, down south my accent sounds midwestern, in the midwest my accent sounds southern.

also I am guilty of the typical Ohioan grammar sins, for instance:

Refer to a soft drink of any kind as "pop." "If you live in Northeast Ohio, you "warsh" up for dinner using a "warsh rag."

I say pop and warsh, I also am guilty of this:

End your sentences with an unnecessary preposition. For example, "When you run to the store, I'm coming with," or "Where'd you guys eat dinner at?

[Paleo]

in Dundee we speak Dundonian
(the upper classes look down on it though, but f*ck them!)


http://www.dundonianforbeginners.co.uk/


my favorite
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/M.../magdundee.htm

its a form of English although some consider it language on its own.

[Osweo]

My own immediate nuclear family has as many accents as members, near enough. I have spent most of my life around a certain nine mile long road between Manchester and one of its satellite industrial towns. Due to different circles of friends and activities, my sister speaks more like the people at the end of the road, my brother like the central Mancunians, and me like those in the small town in the middle that still just about maintains its identity despite its two large neighbours. And that's in NINE miles! My parents speak the version of Mancunian associated with the little suburb about two miles out of the centre, too, but with slightly different sociolect influence, my mother sounding slightly posher. Russian friends with near perfect English don't understand my father to save their life! Even I have to think twice at times.