For those interested in how the pronunciation of British dialects has changed over the last 50 years, the link below is worth checking out. I'd be particularly interested in comments from speakers of the Muvver toungue.

http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/dialects/

Ah'd like tae gie ye some kind o' illuminating response, an that, but yer link seems only tae huv thon English accents, no British ains, ken. Awbody kens they English canny talk right.

Unfortunately your link required sound and I don't have such a modern luxury as that on this computer juan.

Though I can't, as stated above, comment on our pronunciation, I can tell you that we still spell words correctly over here!

Very interesting link, Juan. Even tho it's very hard to understand, I enjoyed listening to each segment. I like listening to foreigners talk but the British dialect is really hard to understand. I still don't understand why they put extra vowels in words.

Extra vowels in words? Why, it is to make up for their missing consonants off the ends ! Do you mean extra as in 'I'm a-going' ?

If you find the one for Ribchester, Lancashire, you'll hear the accent and dialect of a friend, now 49, when she was a small girl. She has lost it entirely. That is because she was sent to a private boarding school, across the Pennine Hills, in Yorkshire where none of the children spoke as she did. There is peer pressure to conform so she rapidly conformed to the typical 'corrrect' accent and speech there Now she still uses some words from her home area; generally to describe domestic objects e.g a 'snib' is a door latch, but the pronunciation is 'Received Pronunciation' She is assumed, in London,to be from the 'correct' South East.

Her story is typical. These accents and dialects die out or are changed because a) people travel and mix with those from beyond their own villages b)there is an influx of outsiders c)the children are influenced by teachers and by role models on television or radio d) class factors. In the UK that last is a big factor in changing the accents of individuals. My friend trained as a lawyer , worked in banking in the financial district of London and became a top executive in an insurance company. Had she spoken as she had as a girl these positions would have been denied her. That is because such an accent or dialect would be considered ill-educated, whatever the education, and, in any case, lacked 'class'. It would never 'pass muster' This is curious. Some accents, such as some lowland Scots, West Country, North Dublin are accepted as though classless. Others such as Glasgow's, Liverpool's and East London suburbs, such as Ilford, will check progress. Why this is, aside from some being easier on the ear, is not entirely understood. The C19 Prime Minister Gladstone had a Liverpool accent to his dying day but it never checked him. He came from a middle class background and was highly educated but he never changed his accent. Now it might have done unless he became a scientist or a Labour politician, where such a 'working class', 'uneducated', accent would pass unnoticed

As a matter of fact my friend's brother, who is a builder, stayed in Lancashire. His accent is still close to that on the recording. He has never left the area and he has never been under pressure to change.

Fred, this is what I mean:

color...colour
catalog...catalogue
honor...honour
dialog...dialogue
aging...ageing

The Split between UK English and American English can be put on the door step of one Mr. Webster, who took it upon himself to make an American Dictionary, and thus tinkered and made a few (minor) adjustments to the way Americans write words. Webster Merriam is the foremost authority on how we spell in America, we can very nearly say that Webster invented American English.

The reality of this situation is Honilov it is we Americans who do not know how to spell English - but then we aren't English now are we? Most of the English Speaking world uses spelling as would be found in England - not American.

I see; it's the spelling. That is down to Noah Webster in America, as David says, and to Dr Samuel Johnson in C18 Britain. Even in Dr Johnson's day the educated people around him did not pronounce many words as his spelling suggests. For one thing, he was swayed by what he imagined to be the root of each word, the language from which it came.He tried to preserve the spelling that most closely indicated that root. His thinking was not always correct, incidentally. For another, he kept spellings which formerly represented how the word was spelt but which were still in use in his circle even though nobody there, perhaps nobody in England, still pronounced the word as it looked.It is very doubtful whether he himself said 'cup-board'; he hoped to preserve, in the spelling, what he thought was its roots of 'cup' and 'board'. He probably said 'cubbard' as we do in England now. (You say 'closet' , but that's another matter ! )

There appears to have been some conflict betwen these two thoughts. For example 'honour' has the Latin root 'honor', just as Mr Webster has it and colour has 'color'. Dr Johnson was here influenced by the French. In French the words are 'honneur' and 'couleur'. Many French nouns from Latin have acquired '-ur' as their ending , forsaking the classical -or. Catalogue and dialogue are how they are in French; they have French as their root. 'Ageing' for 'aging' does make sense now. If you say the word 'age' and add '-ing' you have the pronunciation. No doubt Mr Webster wanted some consistency. If he was to put forging, as we do in British English, and not 'forgeing' and so forth then 'aging' had to follow.

The pronunciation of all the words you cite is the same in American as in British English, in that the extra vowel is not sounded in British English either.

Thanks David and Fred, I'm really glad I mentioned this. I've wondered about this for a long time.

David, all this time, I thought they didn't know how to spell, but it's us that don't know how. Whenever I'd see them use 's' in words instead of 'z' I thought they were wrong.

It doesn't end at s for z (is that 'zed' or 'zee' ? ) either. Here we find that if you practise you may prove that practice makes perfect ! And if someone here is licensed they have got a licence

Honi

This is the common American misconception that we speak English. As was said above, we don't--we speak American.

Then you also have the differences across the country, in spelling, slang, and pronunciations. For example, where I'm from in New York (and north of there), it's common to see some words spelled with the extra 'u', like I've been noted to do: colour, honour, etc.. . Both are acceptable up there because of the Canadian influence. (Though some places that are even closer to Canada do not do this--I think it's because where I am from has more immigration than tourism).

Canadian is another kind of English altogether, also, I believe.

Canadian is actually a kind of half-way between US and British English. For example, Canadian dictionaries give the British-English spelling, but the US spellings are widely used.

There are some unique Canadian words and pronunciations - for example, you can hear both vowels in 'out', and the end of 'about'. Newfoundland accents are very close to Scottish and Irish.

One reason ESL students like coming to Canada, apparently, is that the accent is seen as being understandable everywhere - unlike that of a Londoner, Texan, Australian and so on. For Koreans and Japanese, Canadian is 'standard English'

The northern NY accent is similar to Canadian in that--I also pronounce out and about where you can hear both vowels, as you said. Kind of like oot. I don't know how to write it phonetically.

I have also heard that, about ESL students. I knew people who had immigrated to NY, with an extended stay in Canada, for much that same reason (and also, the stereotype of "New York Accent", which is undesirable. At least to others. I personally love it )

quote:

Originally posted by MommyTimesTwo:
Honi

This is the common American misconception that we speak English. As was said above, we don't--we speak American.

But by speaking American, you mean in terms of dialect, right? We're still speaking the English language I thought.