Collect Britain: Accents & Dialects

I enjoy a good accent.

Even as a young girl, I remember being very interested in learning another language to the point of making up my own. Also, it doesn’t take a young child long to learn that if you travel from one state to another, even those of us in our own country have different sounds.

Later, as I started to study Geography and Spanish, I really did become involved to the sounds around the world. Bringing exchange students into our home (from Argentina, Holland, Spain and Denmark), as well as being involved with activites with people from all points on the globe, only enhanced it as something that was not only interesting but FUN to hear all the sounds and accents.

Living in Spain for a year taught me that just like here in the US, one part of the country might speak differently than another.

So, when I saw this site on Yahoo’s pick of the day, my first thoughts were, “This could be entertaining…”

Yahoo puts it this way:

In England alone, an intrepid traveler may overhear hundreds of dialects and accents. What’s more extraordinary is how these brogues and drawls have evolved throughout the 20th century. Thanks to the British Library’s Sound Archive, you can eavesdrop on English people from across the country without packing your bags. For instance, meet Dick Gilbert. In 1958, when he was 79 years old, he spoke about his experience as a young farm hand. The Sound Archive offers the lexis, phonology, and grammar break-down of Dick’s commentary. But more importantly, it allows you to marvel at his voice. With recordings ranging from the 1950s to 1999, the site offers a wealth of samples. Some are downright incomprehensible, some are thoroughly entertaining, but all are fascinating. So listen up; England is speaking to you.

Here are some adorable collections of accents from around England. Some I had to swear, “that can’t be English!”