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North/South London accents

'Aksed' is a West Indian thing though Pip. I had it drilled out of me as a nipper - my folks wanting me to aspire to a Trevor McD style Windies accent.

It's an inauthentic, slightly laughably interpreted West Indian accent perhaps, but there's definitely a strong influence
 
Tarannau, I respect your opinion and wisdom on the matter more than most, but I'm still not entirely convinced. Arksed and yard and a whole host of other words may well have travelled from the Caribbean, but language is more than words. The sounds are totally different.
 
We have a girl at work from Mauritiaus whose English is superb, but says 'arks', (so pronounced that so many people have picked her up on it) so not sure if its purely Caribbean.
 
there is a definite difference between north and south london accents, if you're a londoner then it's quite easy to pick up otherwise you might not notice.
 
dtb said:
there is a definite difference between north and south london accents, if you're a londoner then it's quite easy to pick up otherwise you might not notice.
Click to expand...


I think you'll see that there's quite a few Londoners on here who can't tell the difference
 
Minnie_the_Minx said:
I think you'll see that there's quite a few Londoners on here who can't tell the difference
Click to expand...
I wonder if the problem is not so much people moving around - which may be part of it - but they're not comparing like with like.

If you took a genuine, all-their-life, working class north London accent and compared that with a southern counterpart it might be easier. It's just that so many people speak a kind of generic London you think they're life-long Londoners but are not.

Fwiw, if you want a genuine 1970s Peckham or Bermondsey accent nowadays, you're better off on the gated communities heading out towards Orpington and Biggin Hill. Or Malaga.
 
dtb said:
there is a definite difference between north and south london accents, if you're a londoner then it's quite easy to pick up otherwise you might not notice.
Click to expand...


Londoner born and bred and I honestly can't tell and I don't think I'm alone.

Of course I can tell the difference between posh and not posh but that's a different thing, isn't it
 
All characters in 'Nil by Mouth' - I'd say very south london. Cant think of a good north london example... maybe Colin Firth in 'Fever Pitch'? or Poppy and her workmates in 'happy go lucky' ? dunno... when I came to ldn 1st all sounded the same. I had a nightmare job in irish pub with landlord, 2 fellow Irishmen and 2 blokes from county durham... couldnt understand a word. (im serbian btw...) Ive developed an ear for this over years, nowdays I can spot a muswell hill accent from a mile :)
 
London_Calling said:
IIRC, I suppose I first noticed it when the whole Yardie gangsta thing was playing big about, like I say, about 10 years ago. May have been longer. All of a sudden the yoof had yards instead of bedrooms and began with the accent as well.
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Oh so that was YOUR first contact/knowledge of Caribbean people in London then? They didn't exist or have an influence before the rise of 'Yardie' gangsters?

Makes sense then why you only accept their influence for the last 10 years...

What about lingustic influences through music? Surely your memory is not that bad?


Seriously mate...
 
The conversation was about the influences on yoof accents. The populist media portrayal of 'Yardie gangsters' was significant at that time because it glamorised, and boys in particular were drawn to it as before they had been drawn to other working class sub-cultures like football hooliganism, skinheads, mods, etc. The Yardie one happened to have an accent rather than a haircut.

Tell me what you see as linguistic influences through music, say, pre 1995?
 
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Estuary English, which is broadly spoken in East London, South Essex, South East London and North Kent. This accent bridges the north/south gap, but is a pretty neutral accent on the whole and most people from outside South East England would struggle to place it.
 
I've met quite a few Frenchies who think the South London accent is well sexy.He he.I wish I was joking.
 
I can't understand British accent, why is that?

Hi! I'm from China and i'm leraning english and i have been watching alot of british movies but i can't understand what the characters say although i can understand american english/accent quite well =/ is it me or british accent is hard to understand? will i get used to it or something?

Thank you and sorry about my english.......Now, the UK movies I've been watching may be in any of the following accents: Cockney, Estuary, Received Pronunciation (RP).I am not sure.... Cockney is hard to understand.The Geordie from Newcastle, Scouser from Liverpool, Glaswegian...All of these accents are strong,difficult to understand..........
 
萌_wendy said:
I can't understand British accent, why is that?

Hi! I'm from China and i'm learning english and i have been watching alot of british movies but i can't understand what the characters say although i can understand american english/accent quite well =/ is it me or british accent is hard to understand? will i get used to it or something?

Thank you and sorry about my english.......Now, the UK movies I've been watching may be in any of the following accents: Cockney, Estuary, Received Pronunciation (RP).I am not sure.... Cockney is hard to understand.The Geordie from Newcastle, Scouser from Liverpool, Glaswegian...All of these accents are strong,difficult to understand..........
Click to expand...

Wendy, it's probably that you have more exposure overall to American accents through music and film and now training your ear to British accents is more difficult. There are some other factors too. If you watch an American film, it will probably be a Hollywood one. It is likely to feature a relatively generic type of English and not feature excessive amounts of slang or local dialect. On the other hand, If you watch the American TV series "The Wire", you will be just as confused as if you were watching a film about people from Glasgow, as this series is full of strong accents and dialect. Conversely, if you watch "Four Weddings and a Funeral" the British English in that would be relatively easy for you to understand.

A higher proportion of British films are about working class lives and make a point of featuring local slang and accents. From "Trainspotting", to "Billy Elliot" to "Snatch" the local dialect is a feature of the film, rather than something incidental.

There are some cases where people just find British or American English more difficult to understand when learning the language, and it tends to be a 50/50 split. One isn't necessarily more difficult than the other, it depends on the person too.

There are lots of native speakers of English who would struggle to understand some British dialects, so don't put pressure on yourself to understand it all too quickly. Watching the film with English subtitles helps you to connect the sounds to the words, so don't feel like you've failed by putting the subtitles on, it's a good thing to do

Just keep practising and it will get easier bit by bit.
 
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