I thought with all the unsettling news going on in the world
for the past couple months, I would make my last blog post about something fun. We talked a lot about different accents
locally and in the US. I want to talk
about the accents across the pond in the UK.
I did some research on some of the more recognizable accents. RP is Received Pronunciation which is “the
Queen’s English”, or close to it. RP is
the posh British accent that can be heard from Tom Hiddleston. The Geordie accent is very distinctive, but
the debate is whether that is a good or bad thing. On the plus side it is viewed as a very
friendly accent, on the negative many people cannot understand it. Two members, Jade and Perrie, of the girl
band Little Mix are particularly known for their Geordie accent. There
are other distinctive accents such as Welsh, Brummie, Scouse, and Essex, but
the one that really caught my eye is Cockney.
Cockney is an accent particular to East London and is
generally looked upon as a mark of lower class.
One of the most recognizable British accents, Cockney is the accent of
the stereotypical British hitman in movies and TV shows. They do not use "h" and th as in think is pronounced "fink", these are just a few examples of the defining characteristics of Cockney. https://youtu.be/1WvIwkL8oLc
This video demonstrates and explains the Cockney accent very well. The thing about the Cockney accent that
really caught my attention was its Rhyming Slang. I speak English, but if someone was to come
up to me speaking Cockney Rhyming Slang I would understand most of the
individual words being spoken and still have no idea what they were trying to
say. From what I can tell the rhyming
slang involves replacing certain words with other words. The replacement words are a pare of words in
which the final word rhymes with the original word. For instance, “I went up the apple and pears”
or “I went up the stairs”. But wait, it
gets even more confusing as most of the time the second half of the rhyme is
removed. So, you would say “I went up
the apples” instead of “I went up the stairs”.
This was a trend started in the mid-1800’s that continues to this day. This video explains it better than I ever could
https://youtu.be/La7Tg5e547g.
I had never heard of the Geordie accent, so I looked up a YouTube video of it. It honestly sounded kind of Scottish to me, which I was not expecting. Also, the woman was saying that she has had to phase out her accent a bit since moving out of the region in which it is natively spoken. She claimed that the accent can be hard for other people to understand, particularly because of its fast pace. This reminded me of what Jessie said about Chilean Spanish, that it is spoken much more quickly than other Spanish dialects, such that it can be difficult to understand.
ReplyDeleteAlso, Cockney most definitely does get a bad rap. I love old movies, and one good one is My Fair Lady from 1964, starring Audrey Hepburn. (This also ran as a theatre production, which I believe Julie Andrews famously starred in.) The movie starts out with Hepburn being a poor flower seller on the street. She speaks an exaggerated Cockney accent. It ends up being a Cinderella story in which she is transformed into a refined, high-society lady. However, in order to get there, she takes extensive speech lessons to get rid of that pesky Cockney accent. This plot is a "death to Cockney" venture, which definitely shows how it is looked down upon.
I have seen bits and pieces of that movie and the scene that definetly sticks out the most is the "Rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains" scene. The whole concept of the movie fits very well with what we have been discussing in this class.
DeleteThis is interesting! Thanks for reminding us that there are multiple accents in the UK too. Somehow, I can't seem to remember that there are multiple dialects in every place. The rhyming slang is really cool. The video said that it was originally used as a way to not be understood by outsiders. Does this mean that it was specifically invented and did not naturally come about like many linguistic features do? But even though it was specifically made up, it still is a rule that people can follow, so you can at least guess what the phrases mean if you know the rule. But is the rule itself prescriptive?
ReplyDeleteI think it was invented, then adopted, and has since taken on a life of its own.
DeleteThat WAS fun, Morganne! You should stream the British show "Eastenders" -- got to be 15 seasons of it at least by now. Here's another link for Rhyming slang:
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/2HngRt7guls
And just to broaden things a bit, here's a link that talks about Verlan, which is a French thieves' secret language based on saying things backward:
https://youtu.be/FSeEPxLKHNM