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Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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In Wells' 'Accents of English' he describes how Received Pronunciation, or 'Queens' English' or BBC English had changed even in 1981 when the series of books were published. For instance, in old school RP 'Africa' would be pronounced like 'Efrica' while already by then the polite standard was something like 'Ufrica', formerly considered vulgar. Even if you listen to posh accents today, it seems they're coalescing more with general London English. The Princes and even some of the older royals are examples. It's even been said Her Majesty's accent has changed, although if you listen to her speeches prior to the 1980s, or old actors like Noel Coward and many of those black and white English movies you'll hear the old school posh Etonian accent.
Firstly, how common is RP these days? It seems most of the new aristocracy - businesspeople, entertainers.etc speak more with their regional accents than they used to. In the past accent indicated class but not so much anymore. It seems RP is almost archaic. Is it still common to hear it in the halls of old Oxford or Cambridge, or in smart Kensington? Or has it given way to a more droll SE English 'Estuary'?
Have you noticed that the RP that remains has changed greatly from the 'old style' way that English gents and ladies used to speak? It seems that accent in particular is pretty rare these days.
Not common. Even over the last 15 years there has been a dramatic evolution of the accents of inner city younger demographics, particularly in London, and to a lesser degree other urban areas. As a result you will frequently find even white-caucasian fairly well educated kids, teens and twenty somethings talking with an accent that is a hybrid of the traditional London accents, mixed with afro-carribbean / south Asian twangs. Popular urban culture has played a large part in the accents propogation.
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Quote:
Originally Posted by StuPod
Not common. Even over the last 15 years there has been a dramatic evolution of the accents of inner city younger demographics, particularly in London, and to a lesser degree other urban areas. As a result you will frequently find even white-caucasian fairly well educated kids, teens and twenty somethings talking with an accent that is a hybrid of the traditional London accents, mixed with afro-carribbean / south Asian twangs. Popular urban culture has played a large part in the accents propogation.
So even in Eton, Harrow or Rugby, you'd hear some of these 'Jafaican' accents?
Posh (Marlborough educated) twenty something stand-up comedian Jack Whitehall, has a few jokes in his routine at his own expense about how he used to adopt the urban London accent socially, to appear more cool and 'street'. He mentions it in this interview:
At primary school I spoke English with a heavy local accent (As did everybody else) but in secondary school - where I mixed with both local children and children from a number of other countries) my accent changed. There was no pressure to change it.
I suppose it became 'RP' but neither my friends nor I spoke about 'thighsands and thighsands of pyends' and although the letter 'e' was the most common letter in our alphabet too, we felt under no compulsion to replace the letter 'a' with the letter 'e'.
That was that. - Not thet.
A number of people have told me that I sound generally 'southern' or 'home counties' but they have difficulty in identifying my accent and can't identify what part of England I come from.
I usually tell them: "That's because I am not English. - Nor am I Scottish, Welsh or Irish."
The accent I speak with seems to be fairly common. I have a few friends who were born and grew up in Scotland but no longer have Scottish accents. - Their accent is very much like mine.
Many of the people I worked with have accents which are very similar to mine. - We come from 'all over' and although some people have retained (to some extent) their original accents, most seem to have adopted an accent which is not readily identifiable as belonging to any particular region.
The term 'Oxford English' makes me smile.
If you want to hear some genuine Oxford English, go and have a chat with Pam Ayres.
Hardly anybody still speaks like Brian Sewell (whos voice I'm convinced is highly affected).
Imagine having to listen to this drawl on a day to day basis:
Why would you care what sort of accent somebody else had? (Provided, of course, you could understand him.)
To say I care is far too strong a description. Its just I find Brian Sewell very grating and tedious. After about 2 minutes all I hear is blah blah blah. Come on Brian, get on with it.
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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I've actually come to find old style RP a bit charming, but it's toffiness and class associations are still there.
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