- Why are there so many different accents
in the United Kingdom?
(upbeat music)
Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening depending
on where you happen to be in this big wide world
of ours right now, I'm Julian Northbrook
and this is Doing English.
There's this huge misconception that British people
all speak in the same way and when people who have
only ever learned English from textbooks,
using those awful audio CDs that come with them,
go to the UK for the first time,
they're often shocked and horrified by the range
of different accents they hear, some considerably more
incomprehensible than others.
The question is, of course, is why, why are there
so many different accents in the British Isles?
Well, first off, there are 56 main accent types
in the United Kingdom, and we say main accent types
because actually within each one of those,
there are many sub-accents, meaning the range
of accents that you could potentially hear
in the United Kingdom in the British Isles is
absolutely enormous.
But these regional differences, in terms of accent,
of course, but also in terms of dialect,
because in different parts of the United Kingdom,
we use different words, different phrases,
different expressions, different idioms,
there are slightly different ways of speaking aside
from the simple accent, but these regional differences arose
because of the historical way
that the English language itself developed over time.
You see, if you go back far enough,
different people around the United Kingdom actually spoke
very different types of English.
People in the north spoke Northern English,
which was derived from Northumbrian Old English,
people in the East and West Midlands spoke a variety
of English derived from Mercian Old English,
people in the southwest, a variety of English derived
from West Saxon, and people in the southeast,
a variety of English derived from Kentish.
From around about the year 1500, the variety
of English spoken in the London area began
to emerge as the dominant form of English
and eventually become the standard,
but as all of the other varieties of English began
to merge together and become a single English language,
people from different areas retained
their idiosyncratic ways of speaking
and the different ways that they used English persisted
over the centuries, which is why even today you can tell
with a pretty high degree of accuracy where somebody comes
from in the United Kingdom based on their accent
and their dialect that is the way that they speak.
Can you tell where I come from based on my accent?
If you said London, you are wrong, wrong, wrong.
I actually come from around the southwest of England,
I say around the southwest of England
because we actually moved around quite a lot.
I lived mainly in Devon when I was younger
near a city called Exeter, but I don't think I ever picked
up any specific area's mannerisms or way
of speaking because, again, we moved around quite a lot.
I have a relatively neutral accent, but I do come
from the southwest, and I do speak,
generally speaking, like people from the southwest
of England, although, of course,
I've lived in Japan for 12 years as well,
which also flattens out your accent somewhat.
If you're learning English because you live in the UK,
because you want to live in the UK,
or you're simply interested in British English
and British culture, I recommend you check out
my best selling course, British Stories,
and because it's so much easier just
to show you what British Stories is all about
than it is to explain it to you in words,
I'm giving away a first lesson
in the course for free, just head over
to britishstories.com or click
on the link in the description.
Before I go, here's another little bit
of trivia for you, did you know that London is the city
which has the highest number of different languages spoken
within it in the entire world?
Meaning if you go to the United Kingdom,
you go to London, yeah, you're gonna hear a lot
of different ways of speaking,
not just that BBC announcer accent
that you are used to hearing in your textbooks.
Right, that's it from me today, this is Julian Northbrook
signing off from another lesson.
Check out the first lesson of British Stories,
link in the description or britishstories.com.
If you've found this video interesting and useful,
give it a thumbs up, if you watched all the way
to the end but absolutely hated it, too bad,
hit that thumbs down button now.
If you're new to the channel, subscribe and you'll get
a new video from me every single day at 7 p.m.
Take care, don't get caught doing anything
that I wouldn't do, and I'll see you same time,
same place, in tomorrow's exciting video, goodbye.
How does culture play a part in speaking English naturally?
Watch this video for discussion on that based
on my recent trip to Manila in the Philippines,
and if you want more information
about what British Stories is and what it includes,
watch this video here.