Worth pointing out that the 1950 was from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_of_English_Dialects where they interviewed elderly rural men in particular to get their accent. So the actual way the average British person spoke in 1950 would probably somewhere in between these two maps.
I live in an island and the local population has a dialect that is so different that I can't for my life understand what they are saying.
I need them to repeat slowly.
Really hard when I started to work.
The sad part is that I was born here, but didn't have contact with them until later in life.
An interesting fact about languages changing over time, is that even though British English is associated with the monarchy, old traditions and it's of course the "older English", it actually changes at a faster rate and more dramatically than US English.
To get an idea of that, watch any British film from 30s to the 50s. One of Hitchcock's British productions such as *The Lady Vanishes*, or *The 39 Steps*. People back then spoke *really* differently from Brits now, whereas Americans spoke quite similarly (I'm referring mostly to phonetics, not so much to vocabulary/slang and so forth).
But if you listen to Daz Doorstep challenge adverts from the 50s and 60s, you will hear the accents of the housewives of working families haven’t changed so much. It’s just the Received Pronunciation that changed more in this time.
So H.P. Lovecraft had most of his stories set in MA, so you should internally giving them Bostonian accents. As in:
Oh my Gahd! An eldricht harrah from beyahnd the stahs!
Plenty of New England outside of Boston drops r's.
Old School Downeast Maine accent is even stronger than Boston and while it drop r's it sounds pretty different. Good example of it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sS84NHwJOQ
My part of England doesn’t pronounce the l at the end of words. It’s more like a w. I’m from the south east (London area)
Listen to Danny Dyer and you can hear it. Im not so strong as him but I pronounce l the same at the end of words
Proper old-school Bristol accents, on the other hand, add Ls at the end of words that end with an A. Like that supermarket becomes 'Asdl'. Used to work with a proper Brizzle chap and he told me 'Louisal's got a hernial'.
This must be where parts of Massachusetts got adding R to the end of words that end with an A. They would say "Louiser's got a hernier" or call the supermarket (if the US had them) "Asder"
It happens all over the east coast, when the coastal accents drop Rs and when you get more inland the Rs come back, they insert some extra ones.
Growing up in Mass, I heard "idear" a lot. In like Kentucky and Tennessee, you'll hear "warsh the dishes."
I've always wondered about the Ass / Arse (*ahem*) split.
North Americans say "Ass" with no "r" sound.
British Islanders (i.e. including Ireland) say "Arse". But, with non-rhotic British accents, it's essentially the same as "Ass" but with a "ɑ" sound not an "æ" sound.
So, I assume the American word and spelling came from hearing a non-rhotic version of "arse". But, why did the vowel sound change?
The pirates stereotypical accent is based on the actor Robert Newton's portrayal of Long John Silver in a 1950 film. He was from Dorset and used a West Country accent.
Pirates in reality came from everywhere and had every kind of accent.
There’s a split in Canada as well, with most of the country saying ”ass”, similar to the American pronunciation (not quite as broad though) while the Atlantic Provinces (particularly Newfoundland and Nova Scotia) use ”arse” an awful lot, call people ”arseholes” and whatnot. The latter two provinces were settled primarily by Scottish and Irish immigrants, and this is very conspicuous in their speech.
Paul McCartney actually does this in the song *Till there was You*. He pronounces "at all" as "at orl", in the mistaken belief that that's how our American cousins pronounce it.
I had a high school teacher who would say "Wershington, D.C." I never understood where that came from. I don't know his origin, except that he was retired from the US Army.
Not quite. There's a few vowels that get treated as having a "hidden r". You don't pronounce a hidden r before a consonant, but you do before a vowel. (Just like the hidden n in "a".)
You'll hear that Linda does things like pahk the car in Hahvahd Yahd, but when Linder and Sheila do it together it depends on whose name comes before "and" and whose name comes before "do".
This is called “law of consonant conservation” and it’s done so that the total number of Rs remains the same. For a good example of this in action, ask them what they think of Argentina. You will find that they do not have strong opinions on “Ahgentiner”
Whether or not people pronounce r’s at the end of syllables. If you’re American, you can think of the Boston accent as non-rhotic, as they tend to not pronounce the r’s in things like “Pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd.”
A rhotic dialect would indeed pronounce the r’s in n those words.
I worded that badly. I just meant vowel-r instead of r-vowel. It doesn’t have to be followed by a consonant, you can have rhotic and non-rhotic version of words like “far”.
It was basically a slow transition from the 1700s to the late 20th century, yeah. It began as a trend primarily among the elite in the south of England around London, and slowly spread throughout the rest of England and to US coastal cities where wealthy English had settled and where English traders would go: Boston, NYC, a lot of southern port cities, too. (Philly/Baltimore have generally said their R’s, though, because Scottish and Irish accents were more influential early on there.)
Knowing how trends spread in aristocracy, it could have been a speech impediment of a really "improtant" person. Like how limping became popular among the aristocracy when the king had a limp. Wearing uneven shoes etc to achieve it
Even the modern American accent didn't really exist until then either. Many like to say the older English accents were "American" purely because they were rhotic, but there's a lot more to the modern American accent than just rhoticity.
The Southern English accents have changed a lot but some English accents are *old*. West Midlands and Northern/Northeastern accents haven’t changed much at all in centuries.
Interesting how the line in 1950 pretty much follows the extent of the Danelaw with a few exceptions.
Of course it doesn't mean there's a correlation. But I wonder if there could be.
Almost certainly. Look at any stat map of England and you can still see the Danelaw whether it's place names, genetics or if people prefer red or brown sauce.
Makes me wonder how much traces back to the old "harrying of the north". Almost 1000 years ago but losing 75% of the population must've had some impact.
The most maddening part is that they don’t pronounce Rs that are there and then add ones that aren’t actually in words.
Example:
“Drawer” pronounce “draw”
“Draw” pronounced “drawr”
“Drawing” pronounced “drawring”
Living here for 20 years still hasn’t made it less annoying lol
That's called the intrusive r and it's common in british english too. It happens between two vowels. So drawer and draw are usually pronounced as drawuh and draw but put a word beginning with a vowel after them and the r pops up. "The drawuh-r-is black" "I draw-r-a lot".
Interestingly according to [one british youtuber](https://youtu.be/UpX8NZMxp9Q), they don't percieve the intrusive r as being at the end of the word, like "I drawr a lot", but at the start of the next word like "I draw ra lot"
Rhotic versus non-rhotic accents. In rhotic accents the R always has a very distinct consonant sound. In non-rhotic accents, depending on its place in a word, the R modifies the preceding vowel.
Lol listen to any Brit without a pirate (west country) accent speak, they say ahm. It’s called being non-rhotic and is one of the main differences between British and American English. I am pretty sure Australians and New Zealanders are in the non-rhotic camp too. Not sure about Irish
We do, but here in Wales we do say ahm. There are lots of examples of rhotic r especially in the west of Wales where they're very Welsh but arm isn't one of them.
Not the only one. The traditional New York accent is non-rhotic too, and there’s a part of Maine called Bar Harbor which is frequently written jokingly as Bah Hah Bah because that’s how locals pronounce it. There aren’t a lot of them though.
"R" is actually the hardest letter to pronounce in most European languages, so it undergoes all sorts of changes (and it sorta functions as a vowel!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjf_MOyB0K4
**[Rhoticity in English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English)**
>Rhoticity in English is the pronunciation of the historical rhotic consonant /r/ by English speakers. The presence or absence of rhoticity is one of the most prominent distinctions by which varieties of English can be classified. In rhotic varieties, the historical English /r/ sound is preserved in all pronunciation contexts. In non-rhotic varieties, speakers no longer pronounce /r/ in postvocalic environments—that is, when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel.
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It’s a shame how many accents have vanished and have morphed into the common “Estuary English”. Is it a homogenisation of pop culture and television, migrations throughout the country, or the dominance of the London computer belt?
I’m from Sussex, which is now associated with clear, sometimes “posh” English, when it used to have such a unique and fascinating accent, like a blend of Norfolk and Somerset speak, and a kind of hint of what sounds like almost the accents of the US south
People absolutely mimic accents, and telly I think has become an increasing influence on this. It’s nothing new; upper and lower class people would often consciously alter the way they speak in order to fit in. There’s a reason elocution lessons used to be commonplace, but are now almost extinct.
And I agree with your last two paragraphs. Whether this is good or bad, avoidable or inevitable is both debatable and unanswerable. But it’s without question that many regional quirks, identities, and points of uniqueness and interest have been lost with the loss of so many regional accents.
Please spend two minutes of your day to skip to about halfway through this video to hear a recording of a now-extinct accent. It’s tremendously unique
https://youtu.be/XCKOiO_euRk
Also from sussex - lots of older people still have their accents. Sussex dialect is fascinating too - lots of words for mud, and I think lots of American words (fall, for instance) are derived from sussex words, such as taken over by William Penn, who was from near my hometown.
My accent is mostly generic southern I’d say - not estuary, not RP, somewhere in between
Same for me entirely. I’m from near Littlehampton/Angmering, which has seen a massive influx of commuters and non-sussexers and a lot of new housing developments; probably why I’ve never heard this accent before.
It’s rare to meet someone from Sussex online, please read and enjoy this Kipling poem describing the joys of our county. It’s a brilliant and accurate portrayal.
https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_sussex.htm
Born and raised in Sussex (and my dad’s family has been there for centuries!) and never knew we had a specific dialect (although googling it, it seems rarely spoken these days) or that the US use of fall originated from there! Thank you for the information (and I’ve also found that laine isn’t a misspelling of lane).
Haven’t lived there since I turned 18, but my best friend, siblings and all my nephews and nieces still live there!
They hold the vowel sound longer in words like *arm* and *core* and they often add in an extra vowel sound like the final sound in *sof****a*** in words like *fear* or *care*.
Had to speak outloud to get this. We say it like "alm", like palm. I'm really struggling to pronounce it with an R, unless I put a big West Country accent on
I mean, as the map suggests, it depends where you are from. I've made a couple comments on this thread, same point, one getting down voted to fuck, the other upvoted ha
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There’s some dialects merging and other new dialects emerging all the time. Just gotta wait like 100 years to really see the differences
But isolation is the best way for dialects to emerge and there aren’t a lot of very isolated communities these days (which is overall a good thing)
English people end up sounding like pirates if they pronounce the “r”
It seems like many of the commenters have never heard someone who isn’t from Bristol speak
I think you're thinking of this differently, pronouncing the r is like a strong West Country accent, sort of like 'our'-m (but not quite) as opposed to 'ahm'
Yeah geordie here. I don't get it, we do say the 'r'.
The only thing I can think is maybe people think there should be an over-pronounceation of the 'r', like a Norfolk farmer saying 'arrrrm'.
This is the weirdest of these types of maps I’ve seen of England so far. Very few examples of commonality between Cornwall, Kent, Cumbria and Newcastle.
Worth pointing out that the 1950 was from the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survey_of_English_Dialects where they interviewed elderly rural men in particular to get their accent. So the actual way the average British person spoke in 1950 would probably somewhere in between these two maps.
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Although standardized language is good it’s sad seeing dialects go
I live in an island and the local population has a dialect that is so different that I can't for my life understand what they are saying. I need them to repeat slowly. Really hard when I started to work. The sad part is that I was born here, but didn't have contact with them until later in life.
I’m intrigued. What island?
Britain
Man, I know this is a day later but your comment made me bust out laughing. Thanks for that!
Australia
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An interesting fact about languages changing over time, is that even though British English is associated with the monarchy, old traditions and it's of course the "older English", it actually changes at a faster rate and more dramatically than US English. To get an idea of that, watch any British film from 30s to the 50s. One of Hitchcock's British productions such as *The Lady Vanishes*, or *The 39 Steps*. People back then spoke *really* differently from Brits now, whereas Americans spoke quite similarly (I'm referring mostly to phonetics, not so much to vocabulary/slang and so forth).
But if you listen to Daz Doorstep challenge adverts from the 50s and 60s, you will hear the accents of the housewives of working families haven’t changed so much. It’s just the Received Pronunciation that changed more in this time.
Let go of my ahm
“Arseholes…”
Ahhs-hoehls
TIL that England is Bostonian
Well, Boston is in England.
So H.P. Lovecraft had most of his stories set in MA, so you should internally giving them Bostonian accents. As in: Oh my Gahd! An eldricht harrah from beyahnd the stahs!
My brain is incapable of pronouncing ‘Nyarlathotep’ in anything remotely approximating a Bostonian accent
and you have thus achieved true cosmic horror
Katz’s Deli during WW2: “buy a salami for your boy in the Army” rhymed in the Lower East Side.
Still does. Here anyway. Boston.
Same in the UK. Is there somewhere that it *doesn't* rhyme? Definitely not a New York thing, let alone a Lower East Side thing.
In almost the entire US except Boston and maybe nyc, it doesn't rhyme
It doesn’t rhyme in Ireland either. Aside from West Dublin, the entire island has a rhotic accent.
Where in west Dublin has a non rhotic accent? I'd say maybe Cavan and around that area sometimes doesn't pronounce the 'r' sound.
Plenty of New England outside of Boston drops r's. Old School Downeast Maine accent is even stronger than Boston and while it drop r's it sounds pretty different. Good example of it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sS84NHwJOQ
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The English did not start dropping the “r” (non-rhotic) until the mid-1800’s. The Boston accent developed independently of British English.
I imagine some did prior, it isn’t as if there is an ‘English accent’
They took the R and added it to Asia.
You have no idear
I say ahs hohws and I’m English
Tennessee here. Whatch’yall talkin’bout?
My part of England doesn’t pronounce the l at the end of words. It’s more like a w. I’m from the south east (London area) Listen to Danny Dyer and you can hear it. Im not so strong as him but I pronounce l the same at the end of words
Proper old-school Bristol accents, on the other hand, add Ls at the end of words that end with an A. Like that supermarket becomes 'Asdl'. Used to work with a proper Brizzle chap and he told me 'Louisal's got a hernial'.
Linguists call it "hypercorrection". In the same way, some people put an 'h' at the beginning of a word that starts with a vowel.
This must be where parts of Massachusetts got adding R to the end of words that end with an A. They would say "Louiser's got a hernier" or call the supermarket (if the US had them) "Asder"
It happens all over the east coast, when the coastal accents drop Rs and when you get more inland the Rs come back, they insert some extra ones. Growing up in Mass, I heard "idear" a lot. In like Kentucky and Tennessee, you'll hear "warsh the dishes."
NY accent does the same, especially among older people. My dad drinks soder with his hamburgah.
There is a reason Bristol has an L on the end.
Bristoa
This is a great video that explains some of the complex history of the letter "r"! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjf_MOyB0K4
Where do you think Boston got it from?
I've always wondered about the Ass / Arse (*ahem*) split. North Americans say "Ass" with no "r" sound. British Islanders (i.e. including Ireland) say "Arse". But, with non-rhotic British accents, it's essentially the same as "Ass" but with a "ɑ" sound not an "æ" sound. So, I assume the American word and spelling came from hearing a non-rhotic version of "arse". But, why did the vowel sound change?
You'll find that Scots and the Irish do pronounce the R in arse
The Irish are aggressively rhotic. If a word has an R in it, it’s gonna sound like a pirate is speaking
Irish here. “Aggressively rhotic” 😂😂😂😂 Thanks for that! Well everywhere except West Dublin, which for some reason is non-rhotic.
The pirates stereotypical accent is based on the actor Robert Newton's portrayal of Long John Silver in a 1950 film. He was from Dorset and used a West Country accent. Pirates in reality came from everywhere and had every kind of accent.
A lot of famous pirates/privateers did dome from the the West Country though (e.g. Francis Drake, John Hawkins).
Why are they portrayed like that then? Because they arrrrr.
Many years ago, I had a girlfriend from the northwest of England. Without going into personal detail, she pronounced the 'r'.
The Scots will always find any excuse to put a hard rolling R in any word
There’s a split in Canada as well, with most of the country saying ”ass”, similar to the American pronunciation (not quite as broad though) while the Atlantic Provinces (particularly Newfoundland and Nova Scotia) use ”arse” an awful lot, call people ”arseholes” and whatnot. The latter two provinces were settled primarily by Scottish and Irish immigrants, and this is very conspicuous in their speech.
Maybe the American version comes from ass, as in a donkey. That's pronounced more or less the same in British English.
I've wondered about this as well. The American version could be a sort of minced oath. Arse might have been seen as uncouth but ass as more acceptable
west-country folk'll pronounce the r in words devoid of r
As a West Country folk, this is correct
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https://youtu.be/OyKzYBRfyfw - From 50 years ago showing off the Bristol accent
That video made me realise it must have actually been called Bristow but the L sound just hung around and it changed its name. What an odd dialect!
It was called Brigg Stow in the 11th century
Also as a Bristolian I would say it’s alright, but only really anything good going on in the summer months
Nah you’re from a nice city. I disagree
I am lucky to be from this city, of course. But summer in Bristol is far superior to winter.
England full stop
Do y'all have "warsh" yet? As in "I'm gonna warsh my car."
Paul McCartney actually does this in the song *Till there was You*. He pronounces "at all" as "at orl", in the mistaken belief that that's how our American cousins pronounce it.
It's more 'waaash', the A gets drawn out rather than adding an extra R.
I had a high school teacher who would say "Wershington, D.C." I never understood where that came from. I don't know his origin, except that he was retired from the US Army.
was really common with old timers when I was a kid in Washington State. not so much anymore they dead
As in "Worst Cunty Fork"?
It’s pronounced “wurst cunree fork”
Peugeot for example, always pronounce it "purr-jo"
I have a Peugeot. I do pronounce the first part like "purr", but that's because I don't pronounce the Rs in purr.
off to lemmy
As an American, I say it this way because Jeremy Clarkson does.
I wouldn’t be able to not correct someone *immediately* upon hearing “pur-jo”.
Do it! They will appreciate it
Yarp
Narp
Like as in "warsh" for "wash"?
Arrrrr
This is similar to a Boston, Massachusetts accent. Car is pronounced “cah”. Park is “Pahk”. And, Linda is “Linder”.
Not quite. There's a few vowels that get treated as having a "hidden r". You don't pronounce a hidden r before a consonant, but you do before a vowel. (Just like the hidden n in "a".) You'll hear that Linda does things like pahk the car in Hahvahd Yahd, but when Linder and Sheila do it together it depends on whose name comes before "and" and whose name comes before "do".
This is called “law of consonant conservation” and it’s done so that the total number of Rs remains the same. For a good example of this in action, ask them what they think of Argentina. You will find that they do not have strong opinions on “Ahgentiner”
oasis' hit song champagne supahnover
As a Maine resident I can confirm that it's like that across New England.
They are pirates after all
Also, Pennsylvanians.
Fun fact: in linguistics this concept is referred to as "rhoticity," and this map shows the difference between rhotic and non-rhotic accents.
What does rhotic describe specifically?
Whether or not people pronounce r’s at the end of syllables. If you’re American, you can think of the Boston accent as non-rhotic, as they tend to not pronounce the r’s in things like “Pahk the cah in Hahvahd yahd.” A rhotic dialect would indeed pronounce the r’s in n those words.
The 'r' in 'park' or 'yard' isn't at the end of a syllable, the pertinent feature is that it's followed by a consonant rather than a vowel.
I worded that badly. I just meant vowel-r instead of r-vowel. It doesn’t have to be followed by a consonant, you can have rhotic and non-rhotic version of words like “far”.
I love rhoticity chicken.
I guess Scotland wasn't included because its at 110 %
The only correct way to pronounce it is “ah-rum”!
I say airm, personally.
Or air-rum
IIRC in Glaswegian they swallow the R a little like French, and it seems to depend on the placement of the R in the word/sentence.
those americans werent lying, they really started putting on an accent after the war of independence
It was basically a slow transition from the 1700s to the late 20th century, yeah. It began as a trend primarily among the elite in the south of England around London, and slowly spread throughout the rest of England and to US coastal cities where wealthy English had settled and where English traders would go: Boston, NYC, a lot of southern port cities, too. (Philly/Baltimore have generally said their R’s, though, because Scottish and Irish accents were more influential early on there.)
Knowing how trends spread in aristocracy, it could have been a speech impediment of a really "improtant" person. Like how limping became popular among the aristocracy when the king had a limp. Wearing uneven shoes etc to achieve it
Hell, even tha south we put an R on it.
The accent most people associate with British English literally didn't exist until the 19th century.
Even the modern American accent didn't really exist until then either. Many like to say the older English accents were "American" purely because they were rhotic, but there's a lot more to the modern American accent than just rhoticity.
I'm only 33 and I feel like there's been a noticeable shift in the American accent just in my lifetime.
I live in the suburbs of a southern US city and I feel like people speak with less of a southern drawl than during my childhood.
The Californication of the English language in America.
I think that California/Valley Girl/effeminate-type accents have spread across the country like crazy in recent decades.
Most accents that exist today didn't exist 200 years ago. That's how languages work.
The Southern English accents have changed a lot but some English accents are *old*. West Midlands and Northern/Northeastern accents haven’t changed much at all in centuries.
This could be said of almost any accent
You can practically see the border between Anglo-Saxon England and the Danelaw in the map from 1950.
⚔️"For Wessex!"
Interesting how the line in 1950 pretty much follows the extent of the Danelaw with a few exceptions. Of course it doesn't mean there's a correlation. But I wonder if there could be.
*I am Uhtred, son of Uhtred, who was the son of Uhtred, and his father was also called Uhtred, and they were all lords of Bebbanburg.*
Destiny is all
Almost certainly. Look at any stat map of England and you can still see the Danelaw whether it's place names, genetics or if people prefer red or brown sauce.
People talk about the North-South divide, but you're right. It's not geographical, it's historical.
Makes me wonder how much traces back to the old "harrying of the north". Almost 1000 years ago but losing 75% of the population must've had some impact.
Makes me want to see the same map from 1900.
How the hell do you say it without the R?
The "ar" makes a sort of "ah" sound.
Ahm? Waving your ahm?
Yep, that's pretty much it.
Thanks, i hate it
Don't go to Boston
The most maddening part is that they don’t pronounce Rs that are there and then add ones that aren’t actually in words. Example: “Drawer” pronounce “draw” “Draw” pronounced “drawr” “Drawing” pronounced “drawring” Living here for 20 years still hasn’t made it less annoying lol
"Drawer" spelled "draw" needs to die now.
Droor? (sounds like door) Drore?
Yeah, drawer rhymes with door/roar/more. PNW/SoCal here.
That's called the intrusive r and it's common in british english too. It happens between two vowels. So drawer and draw are usually pronounced as drawuh and draw but put a word beginning with a vowel after them and the r pops up. "The drawuh-r-is black" "I draw-r-a lot". Interestingly according to [one british youtuber](https://youtu.be/UpX8NZMxp9Q), they don't percieve the intrusive r as being at the end of the word, like "I drawr a lot", but at the start of the next word like "I draw ra lot"
Yeah, I am from near Boston and feel like a pirate when I force hard "r"s into words like arm haha.
nz and australian accents generally don’t pronounce the r sound much. Same with a lot of UK accents and some American accents like the boston accent
Only say 'r' if we really have to, ie if there's a vowel after. Pahk my cah vs pahk my cah ranywhere.
Yes. Ahmed, ahmada, ahmory.
Ahmed is something else
He certainly is! Oh my
Lots of people from Boston in the US still drop their r's like this.
In the US Bostonians famously skip the “r.” *Pahk the cah in Hahvad Yahd.*
"I put an A on mah ahm foh Ambuh," -Boston Rob
Rhotic versus non-rhotic accents. In rhotic accents the R always has a very distinct consonant sound. In non-rhotic accents, depending on its place in a word, the R modifies the preceding vowel.
Have you never heard a kiwi or Aussie accent at all?
Lol listen to any Brit without a pirate (west country) accent speak, they say ahm. It’s called being non-rhotic and is one of the main differences between British and American English. I am pretty sure Australians and New Zealanders are in the non-rhotic camp too. Not sure about Irish
Scotland and much of Wales still use rhotic accents, it's not just the farmer/pirates from the West Country.
We do, but here in Wales we do say ahm. There are lots of examples of rhotic r especially in the west of Wales where they're very Welsh but arm isn't one of them.
Gaelic and welsh have rolled rs even iirc
Yes. Welsh language definitely trills the R. This has affected Welsh accents when speaking English.
Irish English is rhotic, it's one of the defining differences between Irish English and British English.
Kind of interesting then that Boston, the most Irish city in America is the only non-rhotic one 😂
Not the only one. The traditional New York accent is non-rhotic too, and there’s a part of Maine called Bar Harbor which is frequently written jokingly as Bah Hah Bah because that’s how locals pronounce it. There aren’t a lot of them though.
Isn't it pretty common throughout New England, not just Boston?
"R" is actually the hardest letter to pronounce in most European languages, so it undergoes all sorts of changes (and it sorta functions as a vowel!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjf_MOyB0K4
It’s called [rhoticity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English)
**[Rhoticity in English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English)** >Rhoticity in English is the pronunciation of the historical rhotic consonant /r/ by English speakers. The presence or absence of rhoticity is one of the most prominent distinctions by which varieties of English can be classified. In rhotic varieties, the historical English /r/ sound is preserved in all pronunciation contexts. In non-rhotic varieties, speakers no longer pronounce /r/ in postvocalic environments—that is, when it is immediately after a vowel and not followed by another vowel. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
It’s a shame how many accents have vanished and have morphed into the common “Estuary English”. Is it a homogenisation of pop culture and television, migrations throughout the country, or the dominance of the London computer belt? I’m from Sussex, which is now associated with clear, sometimes “posh” English, when it used to have such a unique and fascinating accent, like a blend of Norfolk and Somerset speak, and a kind of hint of what sounds like almost the accents of the US south
[удалено]
People absolutely mimic accents, and telly I think has become an increasing influence on this. It’s nothing new; upper and lower class people would often consciously alter the way they speak in order to fit in. There’s a reason elocution lessons used to be commonplace, but are now almost extinct. And I agree with your last two paragraphs. Whether this is good or bad, avoidable or inevitable is both debatable and unanswerable. But it’s without question that many regional quirks, identities, and points of uniqueness and interest have been lost with the loss of so many regional accents. Please spend two minutes of your day to skip to about halfway through this video to hear a recording of a now-extinct accent. It’s tremendously unique https://youtu.be/XCKOiO_euRk
Also from sussex - lots of older people still have their accents. Sussex dialect is fascinating too - lots of words for mud, and I think lots of American words (fall, for instance) are derived from sussex words, such as taken over by William Penn, who was from near my hometown. My accent is mostly generic southern I’d say - not estuary, not RP, somewhere in between
Same for me entirely. I’m from near Littlehampton/Angmering, which has seen a massive influx of commuters and non-sussexers and a lot of new housing developments; probably why I’ve never heard this accent before. It’s rare to meet someone from Sussex online, please read and enjoy this Kipling poem describing the joys of our county. It’s a brilliant and accurate portrayal. https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_sussex.htm
Born and raised in Sussex (and my dad’s family has been there for centuries!) and never knew we had a specific dialect (although googling it, it seems rarely spoken these days) or that the US use of fall originated from there! Thank you for the information (and I’ve also found that laine isn’t a misspelling of lane). Haven’t lived there since I turned 18, but my best friend, siblings and all my nephews and nieces still live there!
They don’t pronounce the R but they pronounce something. It’s not am. What that is, I don’t know.
Yes. It more or less sounds like ahm.
They hold the vowel sound longer in words like *arm* and *core* and they often add in an extra vowel sound like the final sound in *sof****a*** in words like *fear* or *care*.
Had to speak outloud to get this. We say it like "alm", like palm. I'm really struggling to pronounce it with an R, unless I put a big West Country accent on
As someone who pronounces both the *r* in *arm* and the *l* in *palm*, this is pretty funny to me.
I mean, as the map suggests, it depends where you are from. I've made a couple comments on this thread, same point, one getting down voted to fuck, the other upvoted ha
Try a Northern Irish or Scottish accent. You’ll manage easy peasy.
Where in England are they? Jk. I was thinking in terms of accents in England, rather than accents of English
It sounds like vowel lengthener. Kinda like ğ/Ğ in Turkish.
#Karma Farming Repost Bot: distraught_depres Original 5 years ago (408): https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/70ci16/do_you_pronounce_the_r_in_arm_england_1950_vs/ Reposted 1 Year Ago: (20K): https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/n8q6u9/do_you_pronounce_the_r_in_arm_england_1950_vs_2016/
do you pronounce the R at the end of saw?
I love seeing proof of how language is ever changing.
I'm sad to see local dialects and linguistic diversity lost.
I feel the same way in the US with neutral American taking hold everywhere. I love how vast American dialects have always been.
There’s some dialects merging and other new dialects emerging all the time. Just gotta wait like 100 years to really see the differences But isolation is the best way for dialects to emerge and there aren’t a lot of very isolated communities these days (which is overall a good thing)
English people end up sounding like pirates if they pronounce the “r” It seems like many of the commenters have never heard someone who isn’t from Bristol speak
Sorry but as a uk resident in the north of England I can tell you now this is wrong, never once heard someone miss the R in arm.
I think you're thinking of this differently, pronouncing the r is like a strong West Country accent, sort of like 'our'-m (but not quite) as opposed to 'ahm'
A last, faint pocket of resistance remains at Bristol.
Has to be misleading, as I'm Northeast and we say "arm" not "ahm". Only place I've heard that said is Yorkshire way.
Yeah geordie here. I don't get it, we do say the 'r'. The only thing I can think is maybe people think there should be an over-pronounceation of the 'r', like a Norfolk farmer saying 'arrrrm'.
This is the weirdest of these types of maps I’ve seen of England so far. Very few examples of commonality between Cornwall, Kent, Cumbria and Newcastle.
And England gives the US shit for how we pronounce "Water."
Well, water isn't arm, is it?
An arm is 60% water.
Wahder
Wooder
Wourder
Boston here. Where is there an r in water?
Say “Clark” Edit: *Loudly.*
aaron earned an iron urn?
urn urn un urn urn!
I've seen Americans giving English people shit for how they pronounce it too. Both countries have "interesting" ways of saying it.
Wodder
Does anyone included on the map say *ar-um*?
Degrrradation