Have you been watching the Olympics? Have you seen Yorkshire fly?
Did you know I am from Yorkshire and couldn’t be prouder of my northern heritage right now!
So what fab timing to introduce James Christie, writing on behalf of the wonderful craft company Baker Ross, who looks at whether having a regional accent will affect a child’s life chances ……..
The other day something strange happened. My four-year-old nephew Charlie expressed a wish to have a bath – an unusual enough occurrence in itself – and he pronounced the word ‘bath’ with a Yorkshire accent. Charlie’s mum, my sister Jolene, like me, was born and raised in Brighton, on England’s south coast so I had rather presumptuously assumed that when he started forming full sentences he would speak with a southern accent. It is at this point that I should explain that Charlie’s Yorkshire pronunciation of the word ‘bath’ (think of how Geoffrey Boycott might have intoned the word before his voice broke) is not entirely mysterious. You hear of people banging their head and suddenly speaking with a French accent even though they have never been to France but this isn’t the case with Charlie as I am sure that his Yorkshire accent is related to the fact that his Dad comes from Yorkshire. However, as Charlie’s Mum comes from down south in Brighton, his Dad comes from Yorkshire and they all live in the Midlands I would have thought that there is a 33.33 recurring chance that his accent would be southern.
But does it really matter what accent a child or adult has – Britain has many different regional accents and surely we should celebrate the differences in dialect? Well, according to a fascinating news article posted on the BBC website in February 2012, children’s pronunciation of words can affect their learning opportunities. The report highlighted how a primary school in Basildon, Essex, is currently teaching its children how to talk ‘posh’ and pronounce words without dropping vowels as many Essex people do! These elocution lessons are nothing to do with snobbery and everything to do with improving the children’s spelling as it has been found that many children spell words as they say them. So, for instance a child will spell the word ‘think’ as ‘fink’ if they pronounce it as ‘fink’. Or, to give a northern example, the word ‘graph’ will often have the incorrect spelling ‘graf’ if pronounced that way.
There is certainly a good case that being capable of pronouncing a word in the Queen’s English (like a BBC newsreader from the 1930s or like Prince Charles does today) can help children’s spelling – even if children still choose to speak in their regional dialect. But does it really affect your life chances if you speak with a regional accent? I would think that this isn’t the case and that the important thing is not what accent you have but how clearly you can make yourself understood. I know people with a Brighton accent who, because they mumble or speak quietly, are harder for me to understand than people with a broad Scottish highlands accent who speak at a good volume and express themselves well. The only time I can imagine a regional accent affecting someone’s chance of success at a job interview is if someone applied for a job as a newsreader or radio or television presenter. The BBC doesn’t seem to insist on its serious news presenters having an identical accent but it does seem to have a list of regional accents which are deemed acceptable and one which is deemed unacceptable. The soft Welsh accent of newsreader Huw Edwards is clearly on the approved list but it is still hard to imagine a time when the broad Brummie accent of Adrian Chiles will read the headlines after the chimes of Big Ben on News at Ten.
Television clearly had and still has a big influence on the way we, and our children, speak. Was it really a coincidence that after Australian soap operas arrived on British TV in the 1980s, many younger viewers started saying sentences which rose in pitch at the end as if every utterance was a question? For instance a statement like “its five o’clock” would, when given the imported Australian inflection sound like a query: “It’s five o’clock?” I wonder if Chinese soap operas had become popular in the 1980s whether more of us would be speaking with Chinese accents. From my experience, language and accent seems to be very elastic. I know many Southern people who pronounce the word ‘past’ with a Northern accent. and the Northern pronounciation of the word ‘bastard’ has been popular for many years in the South for reasons I’ve never quite fathomed out! It seems that many modern young Britons pronounce words according to how pleasing they find the sound of the word. So, if you are a young southerner but prefer the sound of ‘graf’ to ‘graph’ then that’s often how you will say the word. A bath might look much the same in Yorkshire as it does in Brighton but isn’t it nice that young kids have the choice of how they pronounce it!
James Christie writes Baker Ross. You can find some great craft ideas for kids here.
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Im from Bolton and always tend to spot celebrities from there. Vernon Kay, Sara Cox and Peter Kay all hail from there and have fairly strong accents. They’re also very successful and two of them are in radio. I actually thought there was a growing trend to move away from presenters using the Queens English. I don’t think I have that strong a Bolton accent but definitely say “bath”, “grass” etc. in a very northern way and I don’t think it’s ever affected my chances in life. Interesting article, you’ve for me thinking now.
I love Vernon!
I think our kids are a little bit bi-lingual. Northern kids being raised in a city witha very strong region accent by very southern parents! when they are with their friends our kids slip into the sing song accent with its northern vowels and at home and particularly with my parents (from
Brighton) they drop into southern ways. Maybe you can have a bit of both?
My accent is awful, I am a mongrel…..
Its definitely to do with how clear you speak rather than your accent. No one likes listening to a mumbler!!
Good point
My sister’s children have posh little accents and they are as northern as I and she. When she took him to the opticians last week, we laughed ( laffed) for ages as this cute little three year old told the nice lady that he’d broken his glarrrrses!!
Mine get told off for pronouncing glarressss
Very interesting, especially the connection to spelling. The first person I thought of when I read the title was Cheryl Cole who very rightly, in my opinion, stuck to her guns in the states and refused to work on her accent! There are many different accents here in Ireland too and although I am a northide Dubliner who traditionally have strong accents (think The Commitments) I don’t. Not a conscious decision I just don’t, it’s probably because I worked for many years with people from all over Ireland. I do remember being taught the correct pronunciation of the word ‘crisps’ as a 6 yo in school. I am thankful that I never ever called them ‘crips’ (as is prevalent in Dublin) again!
xx Jazzy
Now need a soundbite of correct way to say crisps
As a lurker Southerner I felt I had to comment! As you very astutely pointed out, a southern accent does not make you easier to understand- one of my workmates mumbles so badly I have yet to understand an entire conversation!
And “Bastard” with a northern twist never sounds like swearing to me! It definitely sounds more pleasant…
A lurker? And I agree…..
My children adapt their accents according to their circumstances. I’m English but lived in Scotland from age 9 to 32 (most of the time). I say some words with a more English accent and others with a Scottish slant. Then we all left Scotland 8 years ago and came to Germany.
My kids (the youngest was 4 when we left) all have a Scottish accent with the odd English twang, but interestingly when they speak English with their peers they take on a German accent. When they play they generally switch to an American dialect (I blame Walt Disney).
The younger two, who were never taught to read and write in the UK have definite spelling problems that I can easily see comes from accent.
My fourth child has only ever lived in Germany. But she can copy an accent really well.
It must sound like a real mesh!!!! xxx
When I first moved to Berkshire from the west country where us loikes to excenda ower vowals, the new abreviated language took some understanding “aint gok no ot wo oa ” was foreign to me sorry to say my accent was lost in an attempt to communicate without being a carrot crunching farmer.
You have a reading accent now! x
it does matter – it’s about having the right regional accent. I’d say Southern was about the best quality – narrow that down to South London and your on to a winner.