What really constitutes Standard British English? Or is it just a myth?
What really constitutes Standard British English?
Anything called "Standard English" is simply a "useful fiction."
The Queen no more speaks "Standard British English" than I do.
The Queen no more speaks "Standard British English" than I do.
there is no Standard British English. In Britain there are 1 million accents. The educated one is estuary spoken around London. The redneck Brit ones are in the North.
What about RP
I always tought Lord Mountbatten spoke with a great accent.
I always tought Lord Mountbatten spoke with a great accent.
*** In Britain there are 1 million accents. The educated one is estuary spoken around London. The redneck Brit ones are in the North***
A slight under-estimation - there are at least 2 million! :-) You've overlooked Cambuslang! No that isn't just an accent it's the actual name of a Scottish town....just south of Glasgow, over the border in Lanarkshire. Don't forget, in Scotland with the word "shire" (meaning a county) we say "shy-urr", not like the English who say "shuh" at the end of the county name. We say "York-shy-urr" and the English say "York-shuh" - refrring to Yorkshire, of course.
London Estuary educated? Are you seriously serious? It depends how Estuaryised it is.....over Estuaryised and it's an abomination on the ear.
Lord Mountbatten was killed by an IRA bomb in 1979. He was already very old by then so he belonged to a generation long since defunct, with values similarly defunct and an accent now mostly heard only in old black and white films and newsreels.
The term "redneck" is not used in the UK - we do have people who could fit that description to varying degrees (but without the extreme religiosity of the American versions) but they are not necessarily confined to the North (by that I assume you mean the North of England?)
To us Scots the term "North" means just Scotland - when we say "we are going South" we could mean anywhere in England, whether it's north, south or somewhere in the middle....even Berwick, just over the border in North East England, and which is further north than much of South West Scotland.
There really is no Standard British English. As we've said countless times before in this Forum many people abroad simply think that English English RP is SBE. Trust me - it ain't! It just ain't!
A slight under-estimation - there are at least 2 million! :-) You've overlooked Cambuslang! No that isn't just an accent it's the actual name of a Scottish town....just south of Glasgow, over the border in Lanarkshire. Don't forget, in Scotland with the word "shire" (meaning a county) we say "shy-urr", not like the English who say "shuh" at the end of the county name. We say "York-shy-urr" and the English say "York-shuh" - refrring to Yorkshire, of course.
London Estuary educated? Are you seriously serious? It depends how Estuaryised it is.....over Estuaryised and it's an abomination on the ear.
Lord Mountbatten was killed by an IRA bomb in 1979. He was already very old by then so he belonged to a generation long since defunct, with values similarly defunct and an accent now mostly heard only in old black and white films and newsreels.
The term "redneck" is not used in the UK - we do have people who could fit that description to varying degrees (but without the extreme religiosity of the American versions) but they are not necessarily confined to the North (by that I assume you mean the North of England?)
To us Scots the term "North" means just Scotland - when we say "we are going South" we could mean anywhere in England, whether it's north, south or somewhere in the middle....even Berwick, just over the border in North East England, and which is further north than much of South West Scotland.
There really is no Standard British English. As we've said countless times before in this Forum many people abroad simply think that English English RP is SBE. Trust me - it ain't! It just ain't!
"What really constitutes Standard British English? Or is it just a myth?"
The features of the language you can find all over the UK but not in America. For example if you look at the Cambridge dictionary on line, you will see a lot of words with the labels UK or US. That strange symbols mean that a particular word or expression is not international English.
The features of the language you can find all over the UK but not in America. For example if you look at the Cambridge dictionary on line, you will see a lot of words with the labels UK or US. That strange symbols mean that a particular word or expression is not international English.
Standard British: Take the stereotypical British english you hear on American films, dumb it down a bit (make it a little less posher), and voila, there you have it!!
Standard British English, aka "Oxford English" is the English that Germans speak. Just ask one of them if you don't believe me
That's the thing - to me, many Germans speaking English sound rather silly - not because of German accents at all but rather because they often speak what sounds like a practical caricature of how British people speak to me. They make me think of stereotypical Britons like Hugh Grant and the Queen, or more the typical American conception thereof. To me such often seems rather, well, over the top, making me wish they would speak more like actual Britons than the American stereotype of such (if they are to speak like Britons rather than North Americans).
There really is no standard British, but it does seem like Estuary is spreading like wildfire. In fact, I would say that England in the past twenty years has been going through a dialect levelling similar to the spread of GenAm after WWII. And I would assume the reason is pretty much the same, increased social mobility and the general collapse of regional industrial economies.
But I might be biased since I'm in my twenties and live in New York. Amost every young Brit I've met came here via London, regardless of whether they grew up there. Hence I know twentysomethings from from Nottingham, Chester and Birmingham who all sound pretty much like Londoners.
But I might be biased since I'm in my twenties and live in New York. Amost every young Brit I've met came here via London, regardless of whether they grew up there. Hence I know twentysomethings from from Nottingham, Chester and Birmingham who all sound pretty much like Londoners.
Hollyoaks is supposedly set in Chester - many of the outdoor scenes are shot in Chester, but indoor scenes in nearby Liverpool.
Very few of the actors have accents which come anywhere near the North West England accents - Merseyside/Liverpool/Merseyside - in fact, the actors in Hollyoaks actually come from all over the UK - the Scottish and Northern Irish guy are easy to pinpoint, as well as two of the genuine Liverpudlians, and one genuine Lancastrian, but the rest are more or less as you say - Estuaryised RP (or RP Estuary - take your pick) London/South East/Midlands/Southern/South West - all in England, and this type of accent is pretty well general across the board for people under 30 across most of England except the North and North East.
There are plenty of people living in Edinburgh - English immigrants! ;-) who speak English English RP (some of it a wee bit Estuaryised) - I work with quite a few of them, and we have a fair number living in our immediate neighbourhood. We're being over run with them! ;-)
Very few of the actors have accents which come anywhere near the North West England accents - Merseyside/Liverpool/Merseyside - in fact, the actors in Hollyoaks actually come from all over the UK - the Scottish and Northern Irish guy are easy to pinpoint, as well as two of the genuine Liverpudlians, and one genuine Lancastrian, but the rest are more or less as you say - Estuaryised RP (or RP Estuary - take your pick) London/South East/Midlands/Southern/South West - all in England, and this type of accent is pretty well general across the board for people under 30 across most of England except the North and North East.
There are plenty of people living in Edinburgh - English immigrants! ;-) who speak English English RP (some of it a wee bit Estuaryised) - I work with quite a few of them, and we have a fair number living in our immediate neighbourhood. We're being over run with them! ;-)
The term "redneck" is not used in the UK - we do have people who could fit that description to varying degrees (but without the extreme religiosity of the American versions" Damien
I don't associate "redneck" with "being religious"...
I don't associate "redneck" with "being religious"...
Rednecks are not religious.
Where do you Europeeons get such funny ideas?
Where do you Europeeons get such funny ideas?