A question of accents

[dtcoulson]

Hi people,

Having grown up in New Zealand, I am not familiar with the spread of accents across England.
So I have this question to ask:

One of my ancestors is said (by my mum, who is quoting her Dad) to have spoken with a "Devon brogue" (which I take to mean the accent of people from Devon). My research however shows that she grew up in the Isle of Wight before marrying and relocating to Kent.

My question, therefore is whether people in IOW speak with an accent distinct from the accent spoken by people in Devon? Is there any way that the accents would be confused?

Secondly, I am following a clue that my ancestor's own grandparents came from Devon. Is it too much to expect that a little girl in IOW would speak with the accent of her grandparents?

Thanks
-DC

[KGarrad]

Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight, have their own accent, which is distinct from a Devon accent.

However, there are similarities! And a degree of cross-over?
An East Devon accent isn't as "thick" as a West Devon accent.

Hampshire and Devon accents are about as similar as NZ and Australian?!

[joboy]

In my 90 years I think accents are 'thinning' if I can use that word.
As a child in wartime London I was evacuated to Bampton  Devonshire and the accent was so thick there and it took a while to understand but like all kids they 'latch on' pretty quickly usually by mixing with the local kids in their school also with the people who took them in.
I do converse with people from that area today and a lot of the thickness has gone I think.
Of Australia,where I am now,the accent when I first arrived was slightly different from my North London accent and I was very rarely 'picked' as such.
Michael Caine when he came here some years ago said that he imagined that the Australian accent was not unlike the way the English spoke 200 years ago and I guess there is some merit in that comment.
I have a 'Geordie' living close and I asked is he losing ever going to lose his accent?... he was furious and his answer I could not post.
Joe

[dowdstree]

My paternal grandparents were from Dundee in Scotland.

Grandad had an accent which was a bit different from my gran's. I discovered early on in my research that his father was originally from Co Antrim in Ireland. Perhaps this was why he spoke with a Dundee/Irish accent.

In my early teens I took a friend to visit them in Dundee and had to translate for her as she could not make out a word of what granddad was saying.

Even in Scotland we have many regional accents.

Dorrie

[Lily M]

I think it depends where your granddad came from.  If he came, say, from the London area, he may find that any southern county "country" accent sounded the same as the Devon accent.

Well, that's my experience anyway.  If I hear a "country accent" I can't tell if it's from the West Country or East Anglia.

[KitCarson]

In 1971 at the age of 10, I moved from industrial Lancashire to the IoW.  I found the accent of the true locals to be a bit Somerset sounding or 'Country Bumkin' (hope no one takes offence!).  I know that the accent has been diluted and is more 'south east England' or 'London' now.  Daily doses of Eastenders will probably have contributed to that 

[KGarrad]

I think it depends where your granddad came from.  If he came, say, from the London area, he may find that any southern county "country" accent sounded the same as the Devon accent.

Well, that's my experience anyway.  If I hear a "country accent" I can't tell if it's from the West Country or East Anglia.

I'm originally from Somerset - so to me, the accents of Gloucestershire, Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, Dorset,Hampshire and Wiltshire are all distinctly different!

But I have trouble telling apart Yorkshire and Lancashire accents?!

[dtcoulson]

Ha ha... I knew I'd get some interesting feedback on that question 

....and I don't think I'm any the wiser for asking.

Sounds like a resident of IOW could spot a Devon accent easily but a resident of London could not.

The bloke my IOW ancestor married was a Londoner so maybe he regarded her accent as 'Devon' and started that bit of family legend.

As for Kiwi/Ozzie, I'm told that the accents are hard to distinguish if you're from the UK, but in NZ we can hear the Ozzie twang in the first two or three seellables.

As for Geordie, mee grahndud was from Tyne and had that accent all his life despite forty years in NZ.

Cheers all.
-DC

[Daisypetal]

 
Hi,

These are good links about the IOW accent,

A 1896 book by William Henry LONG talk which includes the thought that,

"The ever-increasing number of visitors flocking into the Island, and the growing influences of Board Schools, are rapidly sweeping away all vestiges of the native Island speech, while the older inhabitants abstain as much as possible from using it in the presence of strangers and the rising generation are growing up ignorant of the meaning of words still used by their grandfathers, some of them far more expressive and comprehensive than their modern sub-stitutes. For instance, what a combination of common every-day phrases is necessary to explain the influence of dry weather on ripened corn, expressed by an Island labourer in two words " bret out"; or to give the full meaning he comprises in the single word " snoodle." There is no doubt that by the gradual disappearance of the local dialects, various words and forms of expression are lost, which modern English replaces but imperfectly."

I can't imagine what they would make of the accent now 

http://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Survey-of-English-dialects/021M-C0908X0032XX-0200V1

I like the story about the about the churry coloured cat.



Even better, listen to this

https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofisle00longrich

I know an older gentleman who sounds like the man in the background, but not many people have that thick an accent nowadays.

Regards,
Daisy