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Origins of the Brummie accent

  • Thread starter Thread starter Seabird
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Seabird

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I have always been fascinated by accents, and what has influenced them.

For instance, have you ever noticed the strong Irish influence in the American accent? Or the Italian and Jewish influence in the New York accent? I can hear a bit of East Anglian in the Aussie accent (perhaps more criminals were transported from there!) I'm sure I can detect a slight Nordic lilt in the Geordie accent, and I love the way they speak round Monmouth - the lovely Hereford drawl with a bit of a Welsh lilt.

My theory on the upper class clipped accents used by the BBC in the 50s is that it is traced back to the German influence of the Royal family in Victorian times. After all, they say that the lisp in the pronunciation of some Spanish words can be traced back to a prince with a lisp, so all the courtiers thtarted thpeaking with a lithp!
Anyway - so what, if anything, has produced the Brummie accent?

One would think it would have absorbed the country accents of all the incomers during the Industrial Revolution but doesn't seem to have done - it has remained quite unique.
There is a theory that Shakespeare would have spoken in an accent very close to Brummie - so what I'm asking is:

Do you think that Brummie is the true, unadulterated English accent?
 
Many years ago I read a book (I can't remember it's title) but it clearly stated that many words and phrases and pronunciation used within the Birmingham Area, are very close to the traditional Saxon. This was because the Saxons had nearly 500 years of constant settlement within the area and any invaders or invading influences took such a long period of time to reach the heart of the country that we were slow to change or adapt and by the time we had caught up new influences were upon us.
This may not be the only factor to our accent but it would certainly play a large part toward it.
 
I believe like the Liverpool accent Brummie is a newer mixture of the influences it has absorbed.
Birmingham is in the center of where the southern and northern accents meet.Add to this the influence of the Welsh who came with their animals to sell,and you have the basics of the west midland accent.

Go to Coventry and you find the start of the east midlands accent.Warwickshire was traditionally the start of the southern accent.

For more info

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_accent
 
Accent wise, as so geographically too, Brum is about at the fault line between the Northern and Southern tongues. However, phonetically, it is closer to the Northern strain; but as Wessex says above, the Welsh influence has moderated the tonal quality somewhat. Just a few miles North, in the Black Country, the Welsh influence is less evident, and the accent more Northern, harsher perhaps. Whereas, the East Midlands accent has a greater Viking influence.
 
Not sure about Brum accent, I reckon in older people you can still often tell those who grew up in Aston from, say, Small Heath.

Slightly off topic, but I reckon theres an Italian influence in a Dudley accent, but nobody else seems to agree.
 
If its good enough for old Willie Shakespeare.... then it will do fine for me,,,,,

Cheers all,,, John Y from Aston-juxta-Birmingham fer 200 proven years
 
Anyone who ever tried to wade through Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" in the original Middle English might be interested to know that according to some scholars this was essentially a West Midlands dialect. Chaucer could only approximate in the written word the pronunciation of the dialect he was writing. I did spend a couple of years at college studying English Literature, especially older literature, and our lecturer used to recite Chaucer in a distinctive Brummie accent, and it sounded great. How authentic this was, of course there's no way of knowing.

It always annoys me when non-Midlands people confuse the Brummie accent with Black Country, which as JohnO says is harsher than Brummie. I think that there is a distinctive difference in accents north and south of the Trent, which in earlier times was the effective border between Danish and English (Anglo Saxon) peoples. North of the Trent you feel like you're in Yorkshire (even though you might be in Nottinghamshire), whereas south of the Trent you know you're getting closer to home and Villa supporters.

Big Gee
 
col h said:
Not sure about Brum accent, I reckon in older people you can still often tell those who grew up in Aston from, say, Small Heath.

Slightly off topic, but I reckon theres an Italian influence in a Dudley accent, but nobody else seems to agree.
Click to expand...

You may be right - weren't there Italian immigrants working in the glassmaking industry around Wordsley?
 
All I can say on the matter is that as a Brummie in exile here in Wales, I like nothing better than hearing a voice from Brum out of the blue. I warm to them straight away, and want to know where they come from and if they remember so and so, or such a place. I love the countryside around, and consider here as home, but still there is the yearning......
Lynda
 
I can tell you off hand that accents or dialects are born in close knit communities, those that had little contact with other communities. Here in Flanders almost every street and certainly every town has its own accent or dialect. This diversity and lack of country wide unity happens because the Flemish people are very honk fast and don't like to move around all that much.

Some years ago while I was in hospital a Flemish farmer was brought in for a heart op and none of the nurses or doctors could understand a word he said. After a few days I got the hang of his dialect and he told me he had lived on the same farm for over 70 years and never before been off the property! Because of this isolation he and his family had retained a very old dialect or I think they developed their own.

Graham.
 
The Birmingham accent is heavily influenced by the accents of people who originally moved in during the industrial revolution i.e. from surrounding areas rather than other parts of the country.

I have always been fascinated by the accents of old folk from around Stratford-upon-Avon. As Brummie as it gets.

I recently read a book on Shakespeare by Michael Wood the historian ( https://amzn.to/XLnZhu ). In it he covers some of the language that was used back then.

Suff - Drain

Miskin - Dustbin

"Getting on a line "with someone - getting annoyed (from an agricultural term for ploughing)

mizzling - light rain/drizzle

Also the architect and commentator Jonathon Meades who is a fan of the area, once said that Shakespeare is best spoken with a bRummie accent as the intonation and pace is perfect. Just try saying

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry."

For fun here is a link to one of Jonathans videos - on Brum

​https://bit.ly/XLoCYu

And another where he is at the Crooked House at Himley https://bit.ly/WzXC1L

Funny.
 
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I've always been facinated by English accents, especially how they could change within a space of 5 -10 miles.
When we came over to Australia we found the Aussie accent was much the same all over Australia. There are certain regional words and folk from the "outback" had a stronger "strine" but nothing like the dialects of the UK. I miss this and over the years I find I've lost my "ear" to pick the differences!
My husband's family came from the North East and you can also tell what part of Durham or Newcastle they grew up in by their dialects.
I've found this thread most interesting thanks to all who've posted!
 
I think it was on a Michael Portillo Railway programme that someone said that the Scouse accent stops right at the Liverpool city boundary and even oposite side of a street can have people on the Liverpool side speaking scouse with those on the other side speaking with a Lancashire accent.

As for how Shakespeare spoke have a look at these three lines from his Sonnet No 94

Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:

A sonnet has a very strict rhyming scheme and if it does not match that then it is not a sonnet. Now who but someone from the West Midlands could rhyme Die and Dignity?
 
DavidGrain said:
As for how Shakespeare spoke have a look at these three lines from his Sonnet No 94

Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:

Now who but someone from the West Midlands could rhyme Die and Dignity?
Click to expand...

I know a few Scots who can David !
 
This is a very interesting thread I have only just seen.

I think the Midlands must be the most diverse area for accents in the UK. In a radius of 50 or 60 miles they are so different.
The Birmingham and Black Country, the Nottingham and Leicester, the South Worcestershire and Cotswolds/ Gloucestershire, all very different.

Like the Australian poster said, an American colleague tells me that there are far fewer regional accents in the USA, apart from the obvious southern states and the Brooklyn type twang etc.
 
Upon trawling this site I have also come across - [h=2]Alleyways Gulletts and Snickets[/h]
Names for passageways and alleys. Great new Brummie words to keep.
 
King Richard III was 'a brummie'

Best I can do. These is a video clip but I don't know how to copy that.

King Richard III would have spoken with a Birmingham accent, according to a language expert.






By Telegraph reporters

2:02PM GMT 05 Feb 2013



Dr Philip Shaw, from the University of Leicester's School of English, used two letters penned by the last king of the Plantagenet line more than 500 years ago to try to piece together what the monarch would have sounded like.

He studied the king's use of grammar and spelling in postscripts on the letters.

The university has now released a recording of Dr Shaw mimicking King Richard reading extracts from those letters.

Despite being the patriarch of the House of York, the king's accent "could probably associate more or less with the West Midlands" than from Yorkshire or the North of England, said Dr Shaw.

"But that's an accent you might well see in London - an educated London accent," he said.



"Possibly even a northern one but there are no northern symptoms, so there's nothing to suggest a Yorkshire accent in the way that he writes, I'm sorry to say for anyone who associates him with Yorkshire."
The first letter was written in 1469 before Richard became king - and well before his death at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 - and is an urgent request for a £100 loan, while he rode to put down a rising in Yorkshire.
The second letter from 1483 was written following his ascent to the throne, penned during a rebellion by the Duke of Buckingham.
Dr Shaw said although some of the writings would have been done by secretaries, the "quirks" of King Richard's added notes provided an insight.
He said: "Like today, there were various dialects around the country.
"Unlike today, individuals were more likely to spell words in ways that reflected their local dialect.
"The language shows no evidence of northern English dialect features, largely reflecting the relatively standard, London-derived spelling system also used by Richard's secretaries.
"However, there is also at least one spelling he employs that may suggest a West Midlands accent."
 
Hi

It seems King Richard 111 spoke in Brummie. Clearly the answer lies in the Northern ees and owws etc from
another contibuter. The original dialects many times due to the various tribes and battles.
No the answers is ee bahh gun ows and ees owers ow from King Richard 111.
Its a very enjoyable accent plenty of fun. All the attempts to remove it from the scene have clearly
failed. Dialects within themselves are not popular by Middle and Upper Classes and are frowned upon.
English speak the stiff upper lip is their method of mumbling on. How on earth are you expected to formulated
the whole of your jaw mouth and lip structure and blurt out this form of speech is beyond me.
Lets keep the natural dialects flowing

Tarah for now

Mike Jenks
 
HI COLIN H
As an olden i intend to agree with you also no matter where i go i can hear the mother tonuge from people ;
like most people including myself i have travelled around and i myself cannot lose my brummy accent no matter where i go or how long i have lived in the part of the country i have lived along side of the thames for years ; i have lived in wales ; and afew other parts of the globe , but i can never lose my accent
but i am very proud of it ;on the subject of the hi ties italians i do beleive they started and congregated in digbeth ; deritend many years ago ;
the early settlers ;and then branched out in a wider circleation [ which of courrse as we all know is brum .
now we are multi nationioal just like our comrads the yankies ;[ americans ] and what ever way you look at the americans we are directly
following into there style way of a city ;slowly but surely we are going there ;there way of life is slowly becoming our way of life if you was to step back
and see what we are doing ;
sorry if i was waffling on abit colin ; but our history and accents are changing rapidly and our older generation are sadly passing away rapid
so eventualy the brummie accent will disapearone day but may or not may in our time so lets try and keep our brummy hearitage alive just like
carl says ;
lets get our family lives and the storie behind them to get them recorded no matter where you are from in birmingham;
best wishes astonian;;
 
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Years ago I attended a day school class at Birmingham University about the Brummie accent. The tutor said that in the late middle ages when Latin and Norman French was giving way to English in legal matters there was as yet no universal English spoken throughout the country. Every region had significant variations. So the Midlands dialect situated as it was between north and south became adopted as the compromise in what became known as Chancery English from its legal use.
 
I listened to the link of the Richard III speech on the Metro newspaper's website yesterday morning but I didn't think it sounded Brummie.

To me it sounded more like the East Midland accent, Leicester or Nottingham.
 
Astonion, he was not buried on a car park site - he was buried, hastily, within the Greyfriars monastery church. It's just that the monastery was demolished and the car park eventually took its place. I am constantly amazed, when watching things like Time Team, just how near to the surface some foundations of ancient buildings are. It seems that excavations for later buildings often did not go as far down as one would imagine. Apparently Richard III is to have a proper, Kings burial in 2014 at Leicester Cathedral, although York want him too!
 
when you say the brummie accent the birmingham area is quite big when you consider the outer suburbs. moving around these suburbs i could pick out dialects so different say from harborne and aston which had a very distinct brummie accent. then go only as far as dudley tipton and what was known as the black country and i found i had to really listen hard to understand them. this i find very unique for such a small country having so many dialects.
 
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Hi

Yep quite true the further you move out from the Centre the accent will change.
Although the huge re-housing and new towns around Birmingham moved the accent
all over the place. I shop quite a lot with the Redditch area and often smile when I hear
the full blooded Brummie. Clearly his or her Family moved to what became Redditch New
Town in the 50,s. We are everywhere.

Mike Jenks
 
Just heard Noddy Holder on Radio 4 reading from a Richard III speech. Surprisingly seems to work!! Viv
 
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