Liverpool accent

Learner   Thu Jan 28, 2010 9:19 pm GMT
Is this audiobook narrated in a Liverpool accent? It sounds Liverpool to me, and the narrator, Ken Anderson, was born in Liverpool.

http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/entry/offers/partnerPromotions.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=Yes&productID=BK_TANT_000894
Damian in Edinburgh   Thu Jan 28, 2010 11:20 pm GMT
Learner - are you referring to Ken Robinson? He may well hail from Liverpool, but he certainly doesn't display a recognisably Scouse (ie Liverpudlian) accent - a rather tempered, watered down Northern England accent of sorts yes, but not your honest to goodness thick, throaty, catarrhal, guttural Scousespeak straight out of Anfield or Strawberry Fields Penny Lane cum Liverpool 8 accent.

You can tell his Northern England roots by the way he pronounces words like "ask" and "after" - the giveaway is the short, flat "a" which is very much associated with all of the Northern England accents.

The truth is that there are very many Liverpudlians (ie the terms used for people from Liverpool) who do not have a pronounced Liverpool (Scouse) accent, much like Mr Robinson in this audio clip. Many speak a form of RP but with certain intonations in their accent that identify themselves as being from the Northern part of England, as with the short "a".

The real hard, harsh, thick Scouse accent is, for the most part, associated with what is stupidy called the "working class" element of society, but you get my meaning. I say stupid as I believe that anyone who does any kind of a job or pursues any kind of profession and gets paid for it works for a living, therefore they are "working class". That more or less covers everybody in employment of whatever kind.

Nevertheless, to most people the term "working class" automatically refers to people engaged in manual labour requiring more in the way of brawn rather than brain, and I can't see this perception ever changing really - at least, not hear in the UK which has always been a "class based" society anway - more especially in England I reckon, although in many ways it has changed quite a lot - or has it? Hmmmmm.....not according to an official report issued this week by the National Office of Statistics...

Back to the Liverpool accent.....here we have Cilla Black, from Liverpool, in conversation with another person from the North of England - Michael Parkinson, who comes from Barnsley, in Yorkshire.

Scousespeak chatting with Tykespeak - Tyke being the slang term for a person from Yorkshire.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTZTkUAB0eM&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Damian in Edinburgh   Thu Jan 28, 2010 11:27 pm GMT
***at least, not hear in the UK***

Cursed phonemes! Spot the (not so) deliberate error...
Uriel   Fri Jan 29, 2010 1:57 am GMT
Other than the woman having a certain singsong thing going on with her voice, both of those accents just sound plain old English to me. The only oddity that I picked out was her saying "stook" for "stuck".
Steak 'n' Chips   Fri Jan 29, 2010 11:25 am GMT
James Robinson has a very neutral English, non-rhotic accent, and as Damian says, his northern English roots are only really evident in his flat "a". It's fairly close to RP except for his "a" vowel.

If you want to hear an accent from Liverpool, try the comedy sketch "The Scousers", which is a rather cruel parody of Liverpool stereotypes, but which captures the accent well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIhFwLjsQug

Some other northern English accents:

>>Manchester (a phone prankster, Stone Roses interview)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLqSpqZzBgI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb-qIrdBaFo

>>Bolton (Fred Dibnah, Peter Kay)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3R3-YwDZrzg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaiW-DEy7y8

>>Newcastle (Cheryl Cole talks after audition, Ant McPartlin)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpWus7NUeyY&feature=PlayList&p=1D924888F8D514EB&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=70
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOGTIIIzsBw

>>Yorkshire (two ladies talk about their accents)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNmKmkhF3Vo&feature=PlayList&p=66BAD12FC7D2EF5A&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=10


I imagine many of these accents sound similar to non-Brits, much in the way I find it hard to place US accents (other than a general Southern/Northern distinction) or Australian accents. Of course, this is just a selection of some Northern English accents; Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Southwest English, Midland English and Southern English are even more differentiated.
Damian at Ground Level   Fri Jan 29, 2010 12:39 pm GMT
That YT clip showing the inimitable Fred Dibnah climbing right up to the top of that sky high 19th century industrial chimney in Bolton, Lancashire (his hometown and his accent betrayed that fact) using a ladder with no means of any kind of safety harness whatsoever made me feel really queasy just to watch him....I have no head for heights at all...I get dizzy standing on a very thick carpet.

His accent...typical of the Bolton area of Lancashire, a region of very heavy industrialisation once the Industrial Revolution of the late 18th/early 19th century had taken off in a big way in Britain, leading the way for the rest of the world to follow suit in later years.

Sadly Fred died at the age of only 66, in 2004. No, he did not fall off his ladder and bounce off the pavement below - unfortunately he succumbed to an incurable form of cancer and passed away in the comfort of his hospice bed.

Research shows that Fred was a hero of TV in the UK which regularly ran programs which showed him fearlessly performing all kinds of highly dangerous exploits as an unprotected steeplejack, such as that shown in the clip we've seen.

Here is another lad who comes from Bolton - well, a place called Horwich* actually, which is just outside of Bolton - Vernon Kay, known to most Brits for being the presenter of TV's "Family Fortunes". He really has the purest of Lancashire accents and I Iove the way he pronounces the "ou" sound in wirds like "out" and "about" and "shout" etc....so typical of the Bolton and Lancashire area away from the Merseyside and Greater Manchester metro areas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugeClZotnbs

*Horwich - it's pronounced "HORR-ich", much like the city of Norwich, down in East Anglia, England, is pronounced "NORR-ich", and Harwich, a seaport in Essex, England, is "HARR-ich".....the W is always silent in the "wich" or "wick" suffix of English placenames, something many Americans forget or are unaware of when they come over here.

If anyone remembers the legend that was ADAM who used to haunt this Forum big time (much like I do still I suppose) and who used to flood the threads in here with all kinds of links and inflammatory and controversial comments which, again like myself, had nothing whatsoever to do with the purpose of the Antimoon Forum.

Well, the much, or perhaps not so much missed ADAM (depending on your point of view) is also a son of Bolton, Lancashire, as you may or may not remember.
Damian in Edinburgh   Fri Jan 29, 2010 12:52 pm GMT
The lass from Newcastle-upon-Tyne clearly demonstrated two very different kinds of accent - one in her singing (very Americanised in my opinion) and her normal speech - very Geordie. If she had come on and sung in a Geordie accent the panel would have thought she was taking the piss out of them.

It clearly showed the commercial value and a wider appeal of Brits in this situation forgetting their local UK accents and using an Americanised version instead.

Ant and Dec - as Bill Nighy would have said: - it was either Ant or Dec doing his stuff with the TV weather forecast.....Ant and Dec, true sons of the North East of England, aka Geordieland.
Uriel   Sat Jan 30, 2010 2:51 am GMT
Whoa. She didn't sound even vaguely American to me. Not in the slightest. What features of her speech would make you think she did?
John   Sat Jan 30, 2010 3:01 am GMT
The Liverpool accent sounds horrible.
Damian in Edinburgh   Sat Jan 30, 2010 2:52 pm GMT
Uriel - have we been listening to the SAME lass? Cheryl Tweedie, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, the "capital of Geordieland"? If so then I repeat your "Whoa!" To me her signing accent is straight out of California or somewhere like that......how about the way she pronounces "chance" and "can't"? About as American as applie pie and clam chowder and triple decker cheeseburgers with fries and dollops of mayo as far as I can make out. Come on now, Uriel - don't tease here now!

Her signing accent is from five or six thousand miles to the west of us and her speaking accent is straight from the banks of the River Tyne. Listen up again, please:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpWus7NUeyY&feature=PlayList&p=1D924888F8D514EB&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=70
Damian in Edinburgh   Sat Jan 30, 2010 3:08 pm GMT
John:

I agree with you. In each survey on accent popularity ever conducted among the British public here in the UK the Liverpool accent (Scouse) each and every time comes top of the poll for the most disliked, most unpopular and most grating on the ear of all British regional accents.

It's so easy to understand just why when you are having to listen to it. I mean no disrespect to our Irish friends at all - no way - but the origins of the Scouse accent as it developed from the mid to late 19th century onwards was heavily influenced by the huge migration of Irish people into the Liverpool area as a result of the terrible potato famine at that time. As a result the Scouse accent turned out to be what we hear today - so many true Scousers seem to be suffering from a permanent problem of catarrh or a disorder of the adenoids or more likely - both.

Many Irish people also fled to the Glasgow area in those days, and this too influenced the Glaswegian accent over time, too.

Maybe it's no co-incidence that Glaswegian regulary comes secondf in the ratings for the most "disagreeable" of all British accents in the opininion of all those British people who partook in those accent surveys.

Following on behind the Glaswegian? Brummie - the Birmingham accent, taking in the neighbouring so called "Black Country" - the black having nothing whatsoever to do with race - more to do with the fact that this area of the West Midlands was the first in the entire world to witness the dawn of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century.

And at the top of the popularity stakes regarding British accents in the UK?

Standard RP and, I am proud to say, the Edinburgh Scottish accent. ;-)
Learner   Sat Jan 30, 2010 3:19 pm GMT
I'm new to this world of British dialects, but if I had to pinpoint one dialect that sounds to me like nails down a chalkboard that would be Cockney and its ugly cousin Estuary. Liverpool can sound strange but I like that Irish musicality, and given that I have heard a fair amount of Irish English, Scouse it's more understandable to me than Cockney, with its glotal stops and Australians qualities.
Damian in Edinburgh   Sat Jan 30, 2010 3:31 pm GMT
Reuters report issued last November:

http://smallbusiness.uk.reuters.com/2009/11/25/queens-english-is-perfect-call-centre-accent/

This proves my point that so called "Estuary" will never become a successor to basic standard RP English here in the UK - especially in those areas of England, particularly, where a sort of bastardised form of Mockney Cockney developed into what is now Estuary.

As I said before, those people from the London and South eastern and southern areas of England who use Estuary socially will, as of necessity, replace it with a more acceptable form of basic EERP if they are to prosper with employers and the general public at large.

Incurable Estuary speakers will probably be confined to those forms of employment where accent and presentability are not considered important, or, of course, to those who "prefer" to languish on the unemployment rolls leeching off the backs of the rest of us who choose to graft for a living.

However, the days of "languishing" look set to end very soon.....Hallelujah! Praise Be!
Uriel   Sun Jan 31, 2010 2:47 am GMT
Whoa -- I guess I missed a couple intervening posts, Damian! I thought you were talking about the Cilla person sounding American. My mistake!
Aldwinkle & Bullwinkl   Sun Jan 31, 2010 3:21 am GMT
"the W is always silent in the "wich" or "wick" suffix of English placenames, something many Americans forget or are unaware of when they come over here."

......................................................................................................

You are lying, infact W is pronounced in 'wich' and 'wick' in lots and lots of English place names. A few examples: You mention Norwich in Norfolk and Harwich in Essex but yet you somehow failed to mention that Ipswich in Suffolk isn't Ips-ich but Ips-wich, Walberswick in Suffolk isn't Walbers-ick but Walbers-wick. Dunwich in Suffolk is Dun-wich not Dun-ich. Gippeswyk Park in Suffolk isn't Gippes-ik.

Down the western side of England, Warwick in Warwickshire (War-wick-shire) is War-wick not War-ick. Droitwich in Worcestershire is Droit-wich not Droit-ich and Netherwich is Nether-wich. In Cheshire, Leftwich, Northwich and nantwich and Middlewich all pronouce the their Ws.

You mention Horwich near Manchester but yet fail to mention Prestwich next door where the W is ponounced.

In Yorkshire it's Heckmondwike not Heckmond-ike.

Berwick Northumberland might be Ber-ick but Alnwick Northumberland is Aln-wick not Aln-ick.

In London, W isn't prounced in Chiswick and Greenwich and Woolwich etc but W is pronouced in Aldwych etc.

In Kent Sandwich is Sand-wich not Sand-ich.

Swanage in Dorset use to be spelt Swanwich.

Stevenage in Hertfordfordshire use to be spelt Stevenwich.