I'm doing an A level in English Language and i was just wondering where do accents come from and why do we have them? and if we didn't have them what would we loose. Do we have anything to gain if state schools taught children to speak in RP or a modified version of it?
Debate: Accent origins
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Ben From The North appeared as a guest in the forums, and asked about the origins of...
Ben From The North appeared as a guest in the forums, and asked about the origins of accents.
- Duration 5 mins
- Updated Sunday 29th April 2007
- Introductory level
- Posted under English Language, English Language
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Comments
1 Nov 2012 07:55
Hi there, all is going sound here and ofcourse every one is sharing facts, that�s genuinely fine, keep up writing. university of act
8 Nov 2005 21:22
I'm doing an A level in English Language and i was just wondering where do accents come from and why do we have them? and if we didn't have them what would we loose. Do we have anything to gain if state schools taught children to speak in RP or a modified version of it?
24 Mar 2007 09:22
> I'm doing an A level in English Language and i was
> just wondering where do accents come from and why do
> we have them? and if we didn't have them what would
> we loose. Do we have anything to gain if state
> schools taught children to speak in RP or a modified
> version of it?
How did your A Levels go?
20 Feb 2007 20:03
Firstly, we need to distinguish between ACCENT & DIALECT.
ACCENT: How the words sound
DIALECT: How the words are placed within a sentence. Dialect refers to the grammar of an accent therefore they are not the same thing.
Accents are established over years by people from different areas conversing with each other. An example is the Liverpool 'Scouse' accent. The people of Liverpool originally spoke with a Lancashire accent however the influx of Irish to the area gradually changed the original Lancashire intonation to that of what it is today.
Proof of this can be seen in any town/city. The town I live in is bordered by Liverpool & Warrington. On the side closest to the border of Liverpool, our 'Woolyback' accent has a nasal quality to it & several Liverpool features. In fact, if we travel anywhere out of the local area, we are often mistaken for Scousers. The other half of Widnes closest to Warrington has more of a Lancashire accent similar to that of Wigan or Bolton.
It is true that accents are passed down through family however our biggest influence is from our peers, especially as a teenager.
The origin of English is argued however the main theory is that it originated from the Vikings way back when in 500AD when they invaded the British Isles. English, in fact, became extinct when the Romans invaded and the country spoke Latin apart from the 'peasants' in the villages. After the Italians left, we got our language back & it wasn't until 1800's that we borrowed the French & Latin words that are prevalent in our language today.
24 Mar 2007 15:51
Just to point out, hate to be pedantic but :
English is a polyglot language from a variety of sources.
When the Romans arived people spoke Brythonic, or anciant British(Welsh and Cornish are left over forms of this0. After the romans left (and very few people, apart from the educated few would have bothered to learn Latin wen they were here) Britain was over run by tribespeople from what is now Germany and Holland, most notably Angles and Saxons. Their Germanic language mixed with the French of the Normans, who invade in 1066, and the Vikings who came a little earlier became the English we speak today
29 Apr 2007 23:31
According to some the original English originated in what is now Friesland in north Holland. I watched a very interesting exercise on the tv only a couple of weeks ago when a professor of ancient English went into a Friesland supermarket and asked the manager, in Old English, where the sugar was, and apart from not understanding only one particular word, he took him to the shelf where the sugar was located. Everything else was understood.
1 Sep 2006 23:48
> I'm doing an A level in English Language and i was
> just wondering where do accents come from and why do
> we have them? and if we didn't have them what would
> we loose. Do we have anything to gain if state
> schools taught children to speak in RP or a modified
> version of it?
For an A Level English student, I'm sure you know how to spell the word "lose" in the above post. BTW, which one is correct? "Payed" or "paid"?
24 Aug 2006 08:07
The British Library have a few accents and dialects on record:
http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/dialects/
The introduction is quite interesting to read.
Where do they come from? Well, they develop through time, usually unconsciously although people can consciously change accents (one of my sisters on the phone for one).
When you learn to speak, you mimic the sounds you hear - random individual variations can be picked up, or lost (I like to think of it a little like gene selection and development in evolution).
Isolation from other groups is the key to developing changes - whether that is social isolation or physical.
Teaching PR would be a disaster - although don't mistake the difference between accent and dialect - the case for Standard English in schools is strong.
I work with people learning English as a foreign language a lot and understandability is a lot less connected to accent than people think.
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Publication details
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Originally published: Sunday, 29th April 2007
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- Body text - Copyright: The Open University
- Image 'Speech bubbles' - Copyright: Jupiter Images
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