Different Accents

[Diane Grant-Salmon]

I have a Yorkshire accent and my American 'cousin' has difficulty understanding it, although my Yorksher Lass friend who emigrated to Canada about twenty years ago, manages it!

It's nice to know that I'm not alone in this. :D

I bought a birth cert with a Reg District of Melksham, Wiltshire which I received a couple of weeks ago. The surname was listed as HONNIWELL and the Mother's maiden name was BLINGS. I immediately ordered the birth cert of one of the siblings, with a Reg District of Chippenham, Wiltshire.

Two days later, after trawling the 1841 Census for Somerset, I found a family called BILLINGS and lo and behold, there was my Sarah!

The second birth cert arrived today and the names on it are correct .... HONNIBALL and BILLINGS, so this Registrar understood my Sarah's 'thick' Somerset accent.

[Jo Simpsons]

I love to listen to accents and dialect. I looked up some sites the other day that you could hear the voices. mainly for the areas I am mainly interested in. Such a shame that dialects are going. Have a listen if you get time.


http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/durhamdialect/ddasounds.html (http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/durhamdialect/ddasounds.html)

http://www.yorkshire-dialect.org/ (http://www.yorkshire-dialect.org/)

http://www.paidmyre.demon.co.uk/ (http://www.paidmyre.demon.co.uk/)

http://www.bloorfamily.net/content/view/13/31 (http://www.bloorfamily.net/content/view/13/31)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/derby/content/articles/2005/01/14/voices2005_derby_conversations_feature.shtml (http://www.bbc.co.uk/derby/content/articles/2005/01/14/voices2005_derby_conversations_feature.shtml)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/storysofar/programme3_1.shtml (http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/storysofar/programme3_1.shtml)

There is also a survey on BBC web site
Make sure your voice becomes part of our language landscape. By taking part in our interactive surveys you'll be giving us an insight into how we speak and sign today.


'Daps' or 'pumps'? 'Mitch' or 'skive'? What's your local lingo? Create your own interactive word map and help us build a picture of the words we use across the British Isles.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/languagelab/surveys/wordmap.shtml? (http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/languagelab/surveys/wordmap.shtml?)

Jo :)

[robdurk]

Hi Diane

No you're definitely not alone in this one!

William Durk was born in Awliscombe, Devon, around 1831 but as with many others in the family moved to south Wales mid-century.

When the 1871 census was taken he was in Swansea. Imagine a Welshman trying to make sense of 'Awliscombe' with a heavy Devon accent... presumably they cast about for somewhere else near that they could extract scribable syllables from, and consequently William appears with 'Hotry St Mary' as his place of birth, Ottery being a few miles from Awliscombe.

By 1881 he seems to have given up on the efforts and says he's from Swansea. So much easier, unless you're actually trying to work out who his parents were...

Cheers

Rob

[Diane Grant-Salmon]

Thankyou all for your input, I'll click on those links to hear the dialects when I have a spare half hour. :)

My childhood friend was also born in Wakefield as I was, but upon her marriage she went to live in Barnsley ....... after ten years of living there, I could hardly understand what she was saying!

As for certs and census records, when I first started out doing family history, I took these 'as gospel' and thought they were 100% correct ...... I know better now! :D