0:00 RP (Received Pronunciation) and SSB (Standard Southern British) 0:49 The King's vowels 2:45 The King's consonants 4:09 Weakening and 'mumbling' 5:15 Emphasising and gesturing
I'm you 999th like and am an impressionist/linguist. It's wonderful to hear your analysis of King Charles. He's a great speaker and it's honestly quite soothing to hear him.
Eh, English Zimbabweans and South Africans still speak with RP. However, it has a slight twist to it. My grandmother, who was very British, spoke with an RP accent.
as with his mother, I have been able to easily identify him just by his voice and the manner of his speech for decades - ever since I listened to his marriage vows pressed on a vinyl record in the early 1980s. 🤭
It is merely how one of the tribes speak and how we recognise one another, and there are of course endless shibboleths to detect which is which, if the sound alone does not suffice
It would be interesting to see his accent compared to William or Harry, to see how much they've been influenced by Charles' RP and Southern Standard British English
The sons don't sound as if they speak RP at all. In fact, they even substitute "me" with "I" as an objective pronoun, but that's a different subject...
I like his accent, easy on the ears, clear, using few words, well chosen and articulated. Once heard him recite a poem, is a wonderful speaker, could easily do an audio series.
The King does not have an accent , nor do any of our tribe, he merely speaks clear unaccented well-modulated English, the ability to emulate which perfectly is a species of shibboleth.
As a non-native English speaker I found this video incredibly instructive and clear to understand why the King's accent sounds distinct when I don't have the knowledge or ear to do so myself.
As a person who's mother's tongue is not English, I find the King's accent pleasant and understandable. When we combine this accent with the King's timbre of voice we receive speeches lovely to listen. I wish to us all more voices like the King's one
Exactly.... g girl when I said.. period t. 0 need to put Alfred and what I said was the Google algorithm and I have to speak in southern American speech in order for my own Google algorithm to understand what the f*** I'm saying. Is very very funny the English language. For example I called a call center in 2010 and a very old Indian woman who spoke standard Indian English lingua Franca set and I quote quotation marks honey I do not understand where you learned English in the world because I have never had anyone speak English to me in this manner. Where are you from ? And I said honey I was raising Houston Texas in the southern part of the United States and we speak English here and just because you can understand what the English that I'm speaking does not mean that my English is improper or unintelligible;; I ended up having to spell numbers to this person. WTF
@@loveisall5520 Maybe that why he was born with heart of compassion and love like his mother Princess Diana. That's is why he shines head and shoulders over the Brits line you. He so blessed to have billion of people around the globe who adores him of all nationality.
The French speak clearly and correctly. I travelled to France (from USA) with a Canadian family in the next row who spoke beautiful French. From their looks they were not Canadian born. It is good that the language is uniform and understandable from Canada to Haiti to Africa . I have a house in a remote town in France. One neighbor is understandable ( my French is minimal!) and we chat for hours. My other neighbor is inscrutable and mixes Occitan with French, I am quite lost !!
@@joseeallyn9950 not all French speak correctly unfortunately, as in all languages, particularly today. Many regional accents too.. I 'm glad you meet people understandable. I find with American accents if they speak too fast, it takes a few minutes to adapt and finally understand. Same with Canadian, French and English. It' s when living in the country that you learn a language and I remember watching BBC in the UK taught me a lot! It was such a good English. I've never been to the US or Canada unfortunately but worked in an American environment which helped me a lot as there are slight differences.
@@martineinfrance Thank you for your reply. As I said, my French is minimal but I struggle on as my husband is deaf and I need to translate. He speaks and writes French really well, but deafness in old age is a real problem. I think that the reginal accents are valuable , but vanishing fast as media takes over the languages. It is fascinating to me that so many of the Old Languages that were ironed out with the introduction of constructed 'French' still exist, at least in part in rural France. Occitan, was the most widely spoken and written language and indeed Dante decided not to write in it , but 8 verses are still in the language even though the rest is in Italian. That my neighbour who was born and raised in The Limousin, still uses it mixed in with the much later French is interesting, at least to me. The vision of Our Lady in Lourdes spoke in Occitan, not French. I learn a great deal at Mass as The Romance Languages based in Latin are easier to understand than English which is a mixture of mostly Germanic languages and some Old French. Very few Saxon words survived the Danish/French invasion of 1066.
Just discovered this channel. It is everything I ever wanted, thank you for your content!!! Delighted to hear about the differences between traditional RP and modern SSB!
His accent is very poised and clear. Also, he's a good speaker too, which helps alot in understanding what he's saying even for people who aren't native English speakers like myself.
The King's speech sounds to me distinguished but at the same time natural to him, so unaffected, and although very British perfectly clear to an American, pretty astonishing really.
I have often wondered how/why he could sound so down to earth & friendly while maintaining unmistakably posh RP characteristics - and then comes this excellent video! Many thanks. As you point out, aside from purely phonetic features, his general mannerism plays a big role; so does, perhaps, our knowledge that he can be an absolute comedian when he chooses to. Whatever you think of him as a person, long live the king's accent!
@@lucyfisher8347 Oh no Lucy, my apologies - the RP itself is a lovely variety. In fact, that is what I aspired to when I spent a lot of time learning English; I am almost emotionally attached to it. You know, it was the combination of being a King and having RP that I was talking about.
As a Canadian, all I know is that I can understand every word that the King says. With many UK TV shows I keep the close captioning on because frequently I need to have the "new" English deciphered. The words are the same but in shows like Shetland I miss many many of those words.
Franco-American here, mostly French, not a native English speaker: I have the same experience. With people like Charles, it's as if my brain wouldn't even "tag" the speech as either FR or EN. Just... speech. While, as you say, I need closed captions with many British productions (and it's an issue with many, like News, live reporting, etc, when the option is not available and/or reliable). Now, I've seen closed captioning so many times in, like, BBC documentaries (same in the US, but not that often). English language does come in many varieties :) It adds colors, no worries. Note that it also happens in France (in French), but rarely - and considered a bit rude, though necessary. It's almost taboo to apply it to French speakers from other parts of the world (from Québec to Africa). A pity, because we just want to understand them, and they should not feel offended: not a shame to speak the language in their own way. I think...
I’m from Liverpool and I would say “id is” for “it is” 🙂 We also drop h’s, add r’s to link words, mix t with d. For example “Av got/d de winder-ropen” (I’ve got the window open) and I also say fillim instead of film. In Irish there is an invisible vowel between l and m apparently! And yes there is an s on t’s like in “devosed” (devoted). I’m from the Irish diaspora so my pronunciation is heavily influenced by the Irish speakers in my family only two or so generations before me. Not everyone in Liverpool has it in their accent - the Scouse accent changes slightly depending which part of Liverpool you’re from and which ethnic background/tongue. For example North Liverpool (where I’m from) sounds different to South Liverpool (what we call the South end). Different cultural groups settled in different parts of the port city and their respective languages influenced the English pronunciation and, oddly, form of Scouse accent.
I was watching an interview of the late Patrick Leigh Fermor to see what this great traveller and writer sounded like, given that he lived outside Britain for most of his life from age 18 and must have had to make himself intelligible to many thousands of non-native English speakers. I was surprised to find his accent was such an extreme version of RP that I could barely understand it myself!
Members of my tribe whom I detect by how they speak, would say that we do not have an' accent,' but that the Elsies or lower classes- another tribe altogether, most definitely do; in contemporary England, the mostpart of power -possessing beings are drawn from one tribe, that detects its own by reference to speech patters and pronunciation and vocabulary. The plain fact of the matter is that men (human beings) ascribed*themselves*to one or another caste class or tribe by reference to which that they will make a number of assumptions. The man making the video plainly resents that by reference to how he speaks he immediately relegated to one or another cast class or tribe, and quite reasonably does not like being excluded from particular clubs or groupings. Keir Starmer who likes to portray himself as a lower class boy made good, and doubtless on joining the Bar, quickly realised that he had to adopt the speech patterns and pronunciation of members of the Bar, nearly all of whom are drawn from one cast class or tribe, and one wonders why he was so keen to lose whatever speech patterns pronunciation he may have had before joining the Bar, so that he would not be excluded from a relatively small circle, and he will not be the first runt (Labourite) to do that, and it is noticeable that men (human beings)ascribe *themselves* to one or another cast class or tribe, they quickly seek to learn to acquire the capacity to speak as another tribe does, and it would be interesting to listen to a recording of Starmer before he joined the Bar, which is pretty much entirely drawn from the members of one tribe, and it is noticeable that one Corbyn and his woman Abbott could not wait to acquire the speech patterns and pronunciation of members of another tribe which was not their own, and one wonders precisely why Starmer Abbott and Corbyn sought to acquire the speech patterns and pronunciation of an altogether different tribe from their own, and one wonders why they did that
This is wonderful. I studied with Gimson and O'Connor >50 years ago, and it is lovely to see those phonetic symbols revisited and reappraised in the context of the King's accent. Thanks for not being judgmental - you give a very fair and measured account, particularly with the fascinating element of dropping entire words and phrases. Will take a look at your book.
I love Charles’ voice - very deep and resonant; easy and calming to the ears. As I heard the first clip of him speaking, it hit me that he sounds remarkably like Alan Rickman.
Just found your channel 🙂 As an Aussie, it fascinates me that a small country like England has such a huge range of accents, from west country to Cockney to RP to Scouse and so on. Our accent is comparatively uniform, even though we're a huge continent with hundreds or even thousands of kilometres between major population centres. Re: the royals, I've often noticed that William and Harry don't sound as 'posh' as their father. It makes them seem more down-to-earth somehow.
There are some differing accents with certain Australian born; Aboriginals (real Aboriginals, not those 'identifying' as Aboriginal) speak English with a distinctive accent that most Aussies will recognise as Aboriginal; then there's the 'wog' Aussie accent, spoken by those of Southern European descent.
@@petesmitt There also WAS the Adelaide accent, which has sadly almost died out, the former foreign minister Alexander Downer was one of the last public figures with it. It was quite distinct from the speech of other parts of the country and allowed people who spoke with it to be identified as growing up in Sth Aust.
@@Finnfreya1 I've got an Anglo workmate that grew up in a 'wog' area in Melbourne and all his schoolmates were Italians; he developed the wog accent even though his family spoke normal Aussie; he's in his 30's and everyone that hears his accent thinks he's of Southern Mediterranean origin; so it exists and is still common although changing demographics are diluting it.
An Anglomaniac from Iran here🙋 Linguistic nuances always fascinate me, and this video made my day, even in this difficult times of protests.... #mahsaamini
What I particularly like about Charles's accent is his voicing of what I call the "strangled vowel," as in Paul, thought, or caught. Most Brits pronounce it way back in the throat and quite exaggerated. His pronunciation is much more subtle and, to my ear, pleasant sounding.
British accents fascinate me. As an American I can’t “do” any of them , but from study and watching various media I am starting to get good at identification. I recently asked an English expat at my AA meeting, after listening to him speak, if he was from Leeds, I was close he said - Halifax. I was “chuffed” to be just a few miles off! Also I now know there’s a city named Halifax close to Leeds lol.
@@scampi9588 even better to say 'dead chuffed'. By the way, there are more layers in Liverpool than the media depiction of so-called Scouse. A word I didn't hear growing up in South Liverpool, Lancashire, before politicians changed our name to Merseyside in the early 1970s. Lancashire lass aged 82.
Watching this 4 months after it was uploaded does add some unintended comedy to the phrase "our prime minister" followed by a clip of Liz Truss who was prime minister just long enough for this video to be made and not much longer.
Always been fascinated by the way people speak including facial and body gestures. As well as class accents, we have regional accents and dialects. I'm so glad I stumbled upon your video and have subscribed for further information. On a personal level, my job means I frequently get to speak to very well educated people whom are usually very wealthy, and people who are not very well educated and are quite poor. I end up mimicking slightly not to mock but to smooth the conversation. I must get the book
Thank you. Adapting our speech to those we're talking to is called accommodation. I do it a lot -- it's not really deliberate but of course I notice myself doing it.
@charleswhite758. Yes. « Who » not « whom » when it is the subject, not the object, of the verb. There seems to be a plague of misplaced whoms on the internet at the moment.
Thanks for talking about this relaxed speaking style characteristic of RP, I've noticed that before with people like Winston Churchill but I didn't know it was something any linguists paid attention to
i always thought it was because of, or is said as a joke for, Churchill's gargantuan appetite for alcohol. i would also be remiss to not point out, ahem, underidoderidoderiododeridoo, at this point.
@@resourceress7 at any rate that is what we are going to try to do said in the "we shall fight on the beaches" speech by churchill, but he said these words in a single seconod
Splendid and very informative videos. RP and its variants fascinate me and I love watching your videos and learning from their insights ! Love to see more videos like these !
In the recently-former Soviet Union, I came across people - in an area where a jamming mast had been located - who had heard almost no spoken English in their lives, and who had taught themselves English pronunciation from dictionaries almost exclusively. They absolutely sounded like elderly Oxbridge professors. Not QUITE like the Queen asa little girl, but not far off it.
I've always liked HRH Queen Elizabeth's accent: she spoke very clearly and melodiously, two of the most captivating features of any good accent, I think.
The King's speech... wasn't that his grandfather? 🙂 For me as a Dutchman, there are similarities with Princess (formerly Queen) Beatrix, and her son, King Willem-Alexander. Whilst her pronunciation is very formal, his is more like the standard region-less accent (which the Dutch like to call "accent-less") that you need to speak to get ahead in life. But she was born in the late 1930s, whereas he is from the late 1960s.
4:35 I think I also hear a very light b sound when opening the lips from m to s: circumbs ances. Might this be the reason why our ears accept the omission of the t?
Indeed the speech of your new King and your new Prime Minister are a world apart. I'm a dutchman and learned to speak English in the seventies and Charles sounds just as my English teacher learned us do it. I have no difficulty to understand him. When I hear Ms Truss speak I am constantly distracted by things that sound very strange to me. For instance there is the pronunciation of the r. That seem to be replaced by a w "Bwillanty Bwitish".
I think a huge number of people around the world are still being taught RP pronunciation, meaning that modern speakers are harder to understand. The main culprit is the inability of British EFL phonetics to update itself.
I notice that the King pronounces circumstances with a short a. Many people say circumstaahnces. I've always been fascinated by the way the long a has become more prevalent over the last 60 years or so. I put it down to people moving from north England to the south and trying to sound "posh". Similarly with people moving from abroad and getting it wrong. My mother in law, who would have been over a hundred now, used to say photograph, graph, example, transaction, substantial all with a short a. I think Peggy Archer aged 101, who has just retired from the BBC radio program "The Archers" would also be just as sparing in the use of the long a. How would you say "a drastic use of plastic in elastic"? I'm from the midlands and my father was amused by a pretentious friend of his taking about Andy Pandy, but pronouncing it "Aahndy Paahndy". I would be interested if you have any thoughts about the history of the long a.
I really appreciated your analysis of King Charles' accent. On a side note, I must confess that I stumbled upon your website a few years ago and became a great fan ever since. It would be interesting to make a video about Bertrand Russell's unusual accent even within the spectrum of classic RP. The most unusual RP I've ever heard.
My husband says his Master at Public School spent a lot of trying to eradicate the Lancastrian accents of some of the boys. Fortunately my husband was raised in a family with a mother from Shropshire and a father from The Maritime Provinces in Canada and has a an impeccable accent before he went to Cambridge and post graduate at Oxford. The young ladies at the supermarket check out in Texas swoon over his accent. I hope they never lose their own special accents , even though the wretched TV and radio programs from New York try, like the BBC, to foist their nasty accents on lovely regional accents.
I don't care if it's old fashioned English. I think king Charles has a great voice and a fantastic accent. However cute and lovely his mom was, he's the better speraker. And there's always that little twinkle in the corner of his eyes... that's his sense of humour that wants to jump out
As a non native English speaker, I find the King's accent quite understandable. On the contrary, it's very difficult for me to understand princess Anne.
Dr. Lindsey, thank you for this video! Very informative. I think the King has such a wonderful timbre and quality of voice. Maybe you can make that your next video! Again, thank you for your time and efforts in making this.
I rather like King Charles RP accent very much. Tradition is still important and hearing King Charles speak in his familiar accent is rather calming. Nothing but greatest respect for the 'Royals'. Being Royal doesn't mean people serve them, it means the Royals serve the people.
Something else I've wondered about the RP way of speaking is the shift of "L" into the sides-of-the-tongue sibilant noise (like the Welsh double L), as shown in this video when the King says "planet"
That's an excellent observation. Oddly, Charles spent some time as a young man at university in Aberystwyth learning Welsh, prior to his investiture as Prince of Wales, so he probably picked up the pronunciation of the LL sound quite easily!
Many Americans speak quite the same way, more particularly very old Bostonians from recent years and New Yorkers from the early twentieth-century and late nineteenth century.
Your videos are just as fascinating for a native english speaker as for a non-native! I'm an engineer by schooling and trade, but linguistics is an area that's always fascinated me, and these breakdowns of features English has, from a perspective that doesn't make any assumptions about what the listener's dialect sounds like, are very interesting to see!
This is fascinating! Please do more on the King, and other older royals with this accent. Subscribed! Please do voice quality that you mentioned at the end. I like it that you give clear examples. Younger female voices with this accent ( Kirsty Allsop, Sarah Beeny, Louise Thompson, singer Wendy James' gorgeous 80s voice) would be interesting too. Thank you!
Dear Sir, one noticeable detail regarding the RP pronunciation of the entire royal family is related to the ending "ts" like in "sports" , pronounced as " spors".Both King Edward and HM Elizabeth used the same pronunciation.
One thing that interest me is how his way of speaking changes between being in a formal setting vs more casual or private setting. We have seen clips when the late Queen Elizabeth was in the role of granny to her grandchildren, or having friendly conversations with her staff. It is like they have different personas depending on context, with different ways of speech.
That seemed to be the way in the mid 20th Century; even Americans changed their accents on radio, films and tv from the 1930’s-1960’s. I think the Queen was very conscious about how she was “supposed” to sound.
@@clod8 The Queen was heavily criticised for her way of speaking in the late 1950s by Lord Altrincham and deliberately changed it, presumably with professional help like her father had.
wow.. this is brilliant. liked & sub'd. i've also noticed a "buckingham palace" micro accent shared by prince andrew and the duchess of cambridge in which vowel elision is so clipped now that they hardly pronounce vowels at all - only voiceless consonants. it struck me as i realised that when andrew said "m'strepsteen" he was trying to say "mister epstein". kate's vowels are so consistently absent that i actually find her utterances quite hard to understand. my brain has to work hard to insert the missing vowels
I assume from your nickname that you are English mother tongue. It is comforting for a foreigner like me to know that even a native speaker has a hard time understanding Catherine and, as far as I'm concerned, William and Harry too as it was Prince Philip!!!
If you think their differences in accent are hard to understand, just put yourself in my shoes. I'm from California, and my aunt is from the northern part of Florida, very close to the state of Georgia. I prefer to text rather than talk to her on the phone because I can't understand a word coming out of her mouth!
Fascinating stuff. The other day, I finally got round to watching Prince Andrew's infamous interview with Emily Maitlis, and it struck how much more "modern" or "middle-class" his accent was than Charles's. Of course, he was born in 1960, ten years after Anne, when those cultural and linguistic shifts you mention were beginning, so that must account for it in large part. On the other hand, William sounds posher to me than Andrew, so maybe there are other, more individual factors involved.
Excellent. Thank you. I grew up in Toronto as the son of Italian parents and now I live in Los Angeles so I am thoroughly intimidated. Such a beautiful language.
As a French people trying to really improve my pronunciation and prosody, theses videos about the differences beyond classic IP for RP. IPA which I learnt after highschool because nobody in France during English classrooms want to teach it, to relearn German, English, Portuguese and for my hobby : conlonging. The differences between the official written phonology of English and the reality I heard from TV is quite huge. You show so much expertise and peadagogy(gia ? tha hability to give knowledges to students, how we say/write it ?) and your accent is very clear to me whereas from American or young Londoners it's often needed to me to put English subtitles sometimes. Where does your accent come from ? As a French I can't The other one about contractions was plusplus-supergood 🙂 It was said that contractions with not were not informal. And I tried to avoid them. 🙃 I did not understand too how to pronunce basic words in a fluent and fluid sentences such as : to, two, too, as, and, where, were, was and so many others. We can boost our level when we discover the famous Schwa (pronunce with a v in French, German also), and boost again when we better understand the new SSB. So a great massive thanks to you, in a lonely comment because I was quiet about this before. It's important for me to encourage a great original and no-French channel. Your work, It's just gold for stangers who prefer British EnglishES over the American One that we hear most of the time. And a great ressource for curious natives too, for sure. I'll also get a deeper look on CUBE pronunciation dictonnary ! If you're golden, CUBE's true cavern of Ali-Baba :-)
Although there are many similarities between RP and Posh, they are not the same (and there is more than one variety of posh). As was evident from the clips of King Charles, posh people tend to mumble and elide certain syllables, while speaking others with great clarity, really for purposes of emphasis. RP would pronounce most of February; the posh would say Febry, or even (almost) Fevry. 'Very' in RP might deteriorate almost to 'vay' in slack posh. RP says 'golf', old-fashioned posh says 'goff'.
Very interesting thank you. I live in Southern U.S. and I love all of the variances of the British accent. My condolences on the loss of your Queen and best wishes for the new King.
As a Canadian, I found this fascinating and great fun. My grandfather, born into a middle class family in Battersea, emigrated to Canada in the early 20th Century, reinventing himself by adopting an upper class accent. I grew up with RP in my ears, so when I played Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit”, she must have sounded very posh, because RP was the only English accent I knew how to imitate. I never slurred quickly through words, though. 😉
Coming from Battersea I suspect he was working class rather than middle class? The British middle classes are the professionals, the working class work with their hands.
@@Tom_RUclips_stole_my_handle His father was a coal merchant’s clerk. My grandfather used to say he was a true Cockney because he was born within the sound of the Bo bells (that spelling is probably wrong) but I think he’d have to have mighty good hearing if that were the case! He was a born mimic, and could do a really good Cockney accent.
@@heatherstubbs6646 It's Bow bells, the bells of St Mary-le-Bow in the City of London. At the time your grandfather was born Battersea would have been a pretty tough part of London.
@@Tom_RUclips_stole_my_handle This is very interesting! When I was studying in London in the early 1970’s, I I looked into applying for landed immigrant status. That’s when I learned that my grandfather was the son of a coal merchant’s clerk, born in Battersea. Who knows why the family was there? I guess that’s where the work was. By the time I was in London, my relatives were in Richmond. I’m a big fan of Anne Perry’s mystery novels, which are set in London about the time my grandfather was born. She describes the rough areas of London vividly.
@@heatherstubbs6646 Coal would likely have come up the Thames and been distributed by rail from Clapham Junction railway station or thereabouts. There are many railway sidings in Battersea to this day. Land was cheap there and of poor quality. There was a lot of industry along the Thames and Battersea power station to the south of the river and Lots Road on the opposite bank, although not built when your grandfather left. prior to the turn of the 20th century there would largely have been villages to the south of Battersea with the big housing construction which resulted in everywhere being absorbed into Greater London starting around 1900. In the Sherlock Holmes stories, Chiswick, now in west London was described as being in the countryside.
I saw your blog post about the obsolete use of IPA in English years ago, and found it to be one of the best ressource on pronunciation online. It came to me as a big surprise when I saw RUclips recommending me your channel just now, and realising it was the same Geoff Lindsey. Thank you for your work
As a non-native English (I'm Italian motherlanguage) there are some kind of English accents that helps me to understand a speech. There are other accents where I am struggling to catch the speech. Liz Truss' accent it is pleasant to me because I can understand enough, especially when she is not talking faster. Some American accents look like more easy to understand to me but some others not. I've got more difficult in writing, especially talking than in understanding the listening.
My grandfather very much spoke like this, my dad and his brothers were all born in the 50's/60's and still sound posh but it's definitely not quite as pronounced. Myself having lived in Australia since I was a kid still have quite a lot of RP influence but obviously a lot of Australian too so my accent is very mixed (I used to work in film and always got the piss taken out of me by Aussies when asking which "r'm" cast and crew were staying in at hotels when on away jobs). My cousins in the UK have a really weird accent, it still has traces of RP but also quite a big influence from Multicultural London English. It's amazing to see how an accent can evolve over such a relatively short time.
i can relate with your story , my self an Australian but both my grandparents English, they arrived in the country right after 2nd ww , their accent influenced the hole family and i have the same problem with my accent, people have trouble understanding where im from
In my less than humble opinion, I speak RP English. The genesis of how I speak and sound is more likely the outcome of undergoing both NHS speech therapy and private voice training during my teenage years. All this activity had one aim: to eradicate a stammer that had taken over my identity and social development in adolescence. In working with me on my stammer, I rated my private voice coach as more effective than her NHS counterpart, for the voice coach had been a continuity announcer at BBC radio during and after the 1939-45 war, thereafter switching career to that of a voice coach at London's Central School of Speech & Drama and RADA. With my stammer under control, my career morphed this way and that in the UK and far beyond, finding myself working as a jobbing voice actor in public announcements and video narrations, a stint as an academic and, for the most part, a wordy wordsmith in publishing where my ability to communicate is more often than not carried out on paper than by way of vocal utterances...
@@DrGeoffLindseyThanks! I'd love an analysis of the pronunciation tricks used by Nigel Hawthorne to make Sir Humphrey Appleby sound posh even with the simplest phrases like "Yes, indeed" or "Most inappropriate" or "Very droll" or "Of course" or "Quite so".
I'm American and the King is one of the few Brits I can immediately understand every word he says. I feel like I'm coo crazy when I feel like I need subtitles to understand someone speaking English just because they're British. One example of that would be the actor John Boyega. In interviews he speaks so fast and doesn't seem to enunciate
Hmm. I'm not sure about a few things in this video. Before I get into these things, let me just start by saying that I mean absolutely no disrespect when I raise these questions, and I thoroughly love your videos, and I greatly admire and appreciate your content. The things I'm about to mention are not intended as admonishments in any way, shape, or form. On the contrary, I think it's more likely that they probably speak to my own deficits as a self-taught (if passionate!) linguist than anything else. However, that said, being the imperfect thing that I am, I can't help but feel like a few points here don't seem to be quite adding up to me. 1:12 - Here, you say that the King pronounces "dress" with an /e/ vowel, but the vowel that I hear coming out of your mouth when you say that (and the King's for that matter) is /ɛ/. At first, I thought you were just using a simplified phonemic transcription (like how we often see "/r/" instead of "/ɹ/" in English transcriptions), but then you immediately follow that up by contrasting it with /ɛ/ and, again, saying /ɛ/ yourself. I realize that the distinction between /e/ and /ɛ/ can be very difficult for many Native English speakers to pick up on, especially for speakers of dialects like mine, where /e/ is all but non-existent outside of diphthongs (like in "face"), but I have a long history with linguistics, phonetics, and the IPA, and, while I acknowledge the possibility that I could be wrong, I don't believe that I am. If I am, however, I would greatly appreciate being set straight in a fashion that gets me to understand why and how I'm wrong. 2:02 - Here, you say that the King pronounces the "goat" vowel with an /e/ onset, "more forward in the mouth [than schwa]", but what I'm hearing coming out of your mouth when you say that is something more back and lower than /e/. Maybe something approximating [ʌ̝]. And, when the King says it, I'm just hearing a schwa onset. 2:12 - Here, talking about the "mouth" vowel, you seem to be saying /æ/ while writing /a/ on-screen. This is something I've noticed you doing all over the place in your videos, and I'm very perplexed as to why you keep doing this. I know from your other videos that you comprehend the difference between these vowels, but I've seen you make this transcription many times, and I'm very confused about that. 2:28 - Just a tiny, unimportant nitpick, but I think that the King's happY vowel is maybe a little raised, but I agree that it's lax. Just a bit of an aside there. Not important, and I know that that wasn't the point. 2:50 - This is really tripping me up! I never knew about this phenomenon! I absolutely agree that there is, as you put it, "some kind of S" going on there, but, while I fully recognize the possibility that my brain MAY just be insisting that I'm hearing what I EXPECT to be hearing, I'm finding it very difficult to believe that it's just plain, full-on, an [s] sound. That /t/ has definitely been somehow "sibilantified", if you will, but I could absolutely swear that there is still some sort of /t/-like constriction that's still going on in the tongue there but is sort of only half manifesting. But then, a moment later, in those recordings of "devoted" and "planet", I do not hear it AT ALL. I just flat-out here /t/ in these. Especially in "devoted".
Well, that was interesting. I have never given much thought to how people speak. I am sure that some actors would find this information extremely useful. Liked and subscribed.
i always thought the post georgian monarchs have a german-y sounding way of speaking, if you watch Julie Harris (an American) in Victoria Regina 1961 she does an incredible accent where she sounds exactly how I imagine posh English forming, a slightly germanic accent with the posh sounds you mention in this video - then the relatives and friends of the royals, i.e. upper class develop this accent too
0:00 RP (Received Pronunciation) and SSB (Standard Southern British)
0:49 The King's vowels
2:45 The King's consonants
4:09 Weakening and 'mumbling'
5:15 Emphasising and gesturing
I'm you 999th like and am an impressionist/linguist. It's wonderful to hear your analysis of King Charles. He's a great speaker and it's honestly quite soothing to hear him.
How does Prince Andrew compare to the King since he is 12 years younger?
Eh, English Zimbabweans and South Africans still speak with RP. However, it has a slight twist to it. My grandmother, who was very British, spoke with an RP accent.
as with his mother, I have been able to easily identify him just by his voice and the manner of his speech for decades - ever since I listened to his marriage vows pressed on a vinyl record in the early 1980s. 🤭
It is merely how one of the tribes speak and how we recognise one another, and there are of course endless shibboleths to detect which is which, if the sound alone does not suffice
7 months later "Our new Prime Minister" was more ironically funny than probably seemed at the time.
I quite enjoy how Charles speaks. Sounds a bit formal, but at the same time, rather relaxed and relatable.
very relatable, living in a big palace with gold from all over the world 😀
@@spawel1 isn’t that what everyone thinks about their own home, even if that isn’t literally how it is
@@spawel1 God save the king! Poor browns and blacks of the world should give thanks to the British
@@tinttiakka2028 why?
@@tinttiakka2028O britânico menos racista:
It would be interesting to see his accent compared to William or Harry, to see how much they've been influenced by Charles' RP and Southern Standard British English
Yes, a future video.
The sons don't sound as if they speak RP at all. In fact, they even substitute "me" with "I" as an objective pronoun, but that's a different subject...
Janet Streetporter once said William and Harry ‘sound like they’re from Croydon’. Maybe the posh side.
Yes I'd be interested in this too. I thought Princess Diana's accent was an interesting hybrid
@@sarahberney There were three people in that accent, so it was rather crowded.
I like his accent, easy on the ears, clear, using few words, well chosen and articulated. Once heard him recite a poem, is a wonderful speaker, could easily do an audio series.
The King does not have an accent , nor do any of our tribe, he merely speaks clear unaccented well-modulated English, the ability to emulate which perfectly is a species of shibboleth.
@@vhawk1951kl everyone has an accent, dipshit. it came free with your fucking language acquisition
@@vhawk1951kleveryone speaks with an accent
As a non-native English speaker I found this video incredibly instructive and clear to understand why the King's accent sounds distinct when I don't have the knowledge or ear to do so myself.
Thank you.
When Charles III cracks a joke, it has more punch because you are getting humor in formal package.
@@peterlabrie9762OMG dude!😂😂😂
As a person who's mother's tongue is not English, I find the King's accent pleasant and understandable. When we combine this accent with the King's timbre of voice we receive speeches lovely to listen. I wish to us all more voices like the King's one
@@Nilguiri I wonder who’s the real fool here
Me too. I like King Charles's accent. But I also like Mr Bean has no accent at all. . When he speaks no sound comes out of his mouth. It's the best.
I like King Chsrles' voice and accent too. It's out of the ordinary. Makes my ears pleasant
Whose not who's
Exactly.... g girl when I said.. period t. 0 need to put Alfred and what I said was the Google algorithm and I have to speak in southern American speech in order for my own Google algorithm to understand what the f*** I'm saying. Is very very funny the English language. For example I called a call center in 2010 and a very old Indian woman who spoke standard Indian English lingua Franca set and I quote quotation marks honey I do not understand where you learned English in the world because I have never had anyone speak English to me in this manner. Where are you from ? And I said honey I was raising Houston Texas in the southern part of the United States and we speak English here and just because you can understand what the English that I'm speaking does not mean that my English is improper or unintelligible;; I ended up having to spell numbers to this person. WTF
His Majesty could've been a voiceover artist, he has such a beautiful spoken voice, deep and resonant.
INDEED!
I agree, and you can tell he’d much rather be doing that than some of his royal duties.
I prefer Prince Harry's speaking voice. It is so beautiful.
@@Lioness1499 Unfortunately it goes with the empty space between his ears. He's always been a dunce and still is.
@@loveisall5520 Maybe that why he was born with heart of compassion and love like his mother Princess Diana.
That's is why he shines head and shoulders over the Brits line you. He so blessed to have billion of people around the globe who adores him of all nationality.
As a French I find the King's accent very pleasant and understandable to listen to.. Well spoken English is always a pleasure to the ear..
And it is so rarely heard nowadays due to “dumbing down”.
@@jm9673 yes, all languages change, as society changes and not always for the best!
The French speak clearly and correctly. I travelled to France (from USA) with a Canadian family in the next row who spoke beautiful French. From their looks they were not Canadian born. It is good that the language is uniform and understandable from Canada to Haiti to Africa . I have a house in a remote town in France. One neighbor is understandable ( my French is minimal!) and we chat for hours. My other neighbor is inscrutable and mixes Occitan with French, I am quite lost !!
@@joseeallyn9950 not all French speak correctly unfortunately, as in all languages, particularly today. Many regional accents too.. I 'm glad you meet people understandable. I find with American accents if they speak too fast, it takes a few minutes to adapt and finally understand. Same with Canadian, French and English. It' s when living in the country that you learn a language and I remember watching BBC in the UK taught me a lot! It was such a good English. I've never been to the US or Canada unfortunately but worked in an American environment which helped me a lot as there are slight differences.
@@martineinfrance Thank you for your reply. As I said, my French is minimal but I struggle on as my husband is deaf and I need to translate. He speaks and writes French really well, but deafness in old age is a real problem. I think that the reginal accents are valuable , but vanishing fast as media takes over the languages. It is fascinating to me that so many of the Old Languages that were ironed out with the introduction of constructed 'French' still exist, at least in part in rural France. Occitan, was the most widely spoken and written language and indeed Dante decided not to write in it , but 8 verses are still in the language even though the rest is in Italian. That my neighbour who was born and raised in The Limousin, still uses it mixed in with the much later French is interesting, at least to me. The vision of Our Lady in Lourdes spoke in Occitan, not French. I learn a great deal at Mass as The Romance Languages based in Latin are easier to understand than English which is a mixture of mostly Germanic languages and some Old French. Very few Saxon words survived the Danish/French invasion of 1066.
Just discovered this channel. It is everything I ever wanted, thank you for your content!!! Delighted to hear about the differences between traditional RP and modern SSB!
Thanks so much for letting me know!
Same here. I wonder what the analysis of Lord Sumption would be like.
Top
I believe in gender equality, he’s not posh he’s just an old slapper, thats highlighted by his choosing that strumpet over his (former) good wife
Yes. One feels...I mean, I feel the same way.
His accent is very poised and clear. Also, he's a good speaker too, which helps alot in understanding what he's saying even for people who aren't native English speakers like myself.
The King's speech sounds to me distinguished but at the same time natural to him, so unaffected, and although very British perfectly clear to an American, pretty astonishing really.
I simply love King Charles accent and tone. He's so refined and easy to understand.
He reminds me of Lord Grantham in Downton Abbey.
I have often wondered how/why he could sound so down to earth & friendly while maintaining unmistakably posh RP characteristics - and then comes this excellent video! Many thanks.
As you point out, aside from purely phonetic features, his general mannerism plays a big role; so does, perhaps, our knowledge that he can be an absolute comedian when he chooses to. Whatever you think of him as a person, long live the king's accent!
Yes, I like to think he'd enjoy the video. He grew up putting on accents from the Goon Show.
@@DrGeoffLindsey I wonder what he made of the accent of his one time favourite comedian Spike Milligan?!
You make me sad - can RP speakers not be down-to-earth and friendly? Perhaps we just need to try harder!
@@lucyfisher8347 Oh no Lucy, my apologies - the RP itself is a lovely variety. In fact, that is what I aspired to when I spent a lot of time learning English; I am almost emotionally attached to it. You know, it was the combination of being a King and having RP that I was talking about.
@@DrGeoffLindsey I do hope those accents and impressions include Min's "manual trill". Seeing him performing that would be something else.
How did Dr Geoff Lindsey get the King to show up for his video and say "do like and subscribe!" at the end? I admire this level of commintment :D
As a Canadian, all I know is that I can understand every word that the King says. With many UK TV shows I keep the close captioning on because frequently I need to have the "new" English deciphered. The words are the same but in shows like Shetland I miss many many of those words.
“Closed” captioning. Or is this RP speech from you? 😄
Franco-American here, mostly French, not a native English speaker: I have the same experience. With people like Charles, it's as if my brain wouldn't even "tag" the speech as either FR or EN. Just... speech. While, as you say, I need closed captions with many British productions (and it's an issue with many, like News, live reporting, etc, when the option is not available and/or reliable).
Now, I've seen closed captioning so many times in, like, BBC documentaries (same in the US, but not that often). English language does come in many varieties :) It adds colors, no worries. Note that it also happens in France (in French), but rarely - and considered a bit rude, though necessary. It's almost taboo to apply it to French speakers from other parts of the world (from Québec to Africa). A pity, because we just want to understand them, and they should not feel offended: not a shame to speak the language in their own way. I think...
@@HenriettaP Sub-titles
's tough, bruv, innit?
@@almostfm Aye. Keep the heid an’ cairry oan.
I’m from Liverpool and I would say “id is” for “it is” 🙂 We also drop h’s, add r’s to link words, mix t with d. For example
“Av got/d de winder-ropen” (I’ve got the window open) and I also say fillim instead of film. In Irish there is an invisible vowel between l and m apparently! And yes there is an s on t’s like in “devosed” (devoted). I’m from the Irish diaspora so my pronunciation is heavily influenced by the Irish speakers in my family only two or so generations before me.
Not everyone in Liverpool has it in their accent - the Scouse accent changes slightly depending which part of Liverpool you’re from and which ethnic background/tongue. For example North Liverpool (where I’m from) sounds different to South Liverpool (what we call the South end). Different cultural groups settled in different parts of the port city and their respective languages influenced the English pronunciation and, oddly, form of Scouse accent.
Your style of editing is very helpful.
I was watching an interview of the late Patrick Leigh Fermor to see what this great traveller and writer sounded like, given that he lived outside Britain for most of his life from age 18 and must have had to make himself intelligible to many thousands of non-native English speakers.
I was surprised to find his accent was such an extreme version of RP that I could barely understand it myself!
As an italian, the king's pronunciation, it's a lot easy to understand because he pronunce the vocals similarly we do in italian
His father was Italian prince, wasn't he?
@@Arol00007 Greek but mostly grew up in the UK, I believe
The higher the level of education of a native speaker,
the clearer his English is for foreigners!
The UK: gets a new PM and a new king
Dr Geoff Lindsey: immediately compares their accents
You, sir, are an inspiration.
Members of my tribe whom I detect by how they speak, would say that we do not have an' accent,' but that the Elsies or lower classes- another tribe altogether, most definitely do; in contemporary England, the mostpart of power -possessing beings are drawn from one tribe, that detects its own by reference to speech patters and pronunciation and vocabulary.
The plain fact of the matter is that men (human beings) ascribed*themselves*to one or another caste class or tribe by reference to which that they will make a number of assumptions.
The man making the video plainly resents that by reference to how he speaks he immediately relegated to one or another cast class or tribe, and quite reasonably does not like being excluded from particular clubs or groupings.
Keir Starmer who likes to portray himself as a lower class boy made good, and doubtless on joining the Bar, quickly realised that he had to adopt the speech patterns and pronunciation of members of the Bar, nearly all of whom are drawn from one cast class or tribe, and one wonders why he was so keen to lose whatever speech patterns pronunciation he may have had before joining the Bar, so that he would not be excluded from a relatively small circle, and he will not be the first runt (Labourite) to do that, and it is noticeable that men (human beings)ascribe *themselves* to one or another cast class or tribe, they quickly seek to learn to acquire the capacity to speak as another tribe does, and it would be interesting to listen to a recording of Starmer before he joined the Bar, which is pretty much entirely drawn from the members of one tribe, and it is noticeable that one Corbyn and his woman Abbott could not wait to acquire the speech patterns and pronunciation of members of another tribe which was not their own, and one wonders precisely why Starmer Abbott and Corbyn sought to acquire the speech patterns and pronunciation of an altogether different tribe from their own, and one wonders why they did that
trading one liz for another
@@MichaelSidneyTimpson there can only be one Liz at a time :-) (seated in a place of power)
I'm glad our new PM doesn't sound as if she went to a private fee-paying school.
@@lucyfisher8347 More's the pity.
This is wonderful. I studied with Gimson and O'Connor >50 years ago, and it is lovely to see those phonetic symbols revisited and reappraised in the context of the King's accent. Thanks for not being judgmental - you give a very fair and measured account, particularly with the fascinating element of dropping entire words and phrases. Will take a look at your book.
I think even Queen’s accents had changed, if comparing her earlier speeches with more recent ones
Her accent seems non-existent now..
@@marmac83 bruh 💀
Hugely🇬🇧
@@marmac83 You mean it's like yours. EVERYBODY has an accent.
@@Nilguiri r/whoosh
Watching this video 3 months after it came out and was surprised because i had already forgotten liz truss was prime minister
I love Charles’ voice - very deep and resonant; easy and calming to the ears. As I heard the first clip of him speaking, it hit me that he sounds remarkably like Alan Rickman.
Just found your channel 🙂 As an Aussie, it fascinates me that a small country like England has such a huge range of accents, from west country to Cockney to RP to Scouse and so on. Our accent is comparatively uniform, even though we're a huge continent with hundreds or even thousands of kilometres between major population centres.
Re: the royals, I've often noticed that William and Harry don't sound as 'posh' as their father. It makes them seem more down-to-earth somehow.
I grew up in the English Midlands. As you moved between villages a few miles apart you could hear the accent change back then.
There are some differing accents with certain Australian born; Aboriginals (real Aboriginals, not those 'identifying' as Aboriginal) speak English with a distinctive accent that most Aussies will recognise as Aboriginal; then there's the 'wog' Aussie accent, spoken by those of Southern European descent.
@@petesmitt I'm aware of that, which is why I said 'comparatatively' uniform 🙂
@@petesmitt There also WAS the Adelaide accent, which has sadly almost died out, the former foreign minister Alexander Downer was one of the last public figures with it. It was quite distinct from the speech of other parts of the country and allowed people who spoke with it to be identified as growing up in Sth Aust.
@@Finnfreya1 I've got an Anglo workmate that grew up in a 'wog' area in Melbourne and all his schoolmates were Italians; he developed the wog accent even though his family spoke normal Aussie; he's in his 30's and everyone that hears his accent thinks he's of Southern Mediterranean origin; so it exists and is still common although changing demographics are diluting it.
An Anglomaniac from Iran here🙋
Linguistic nuances always fascinate me, and this video made my day, even in this difficult times of protests....
#mahsaamini
Nice to hear from you in Iran.
As a phonetics student, I find this video absolutely fascinating!
What I particularly like about Charles's accent is his voicing of what I call the "strangled vowel," as in Paul, thought, or caught. Most Brits pronounce it way back in the throat and quite exaggerated. His pronunciation is much more subtle and, to my ear, pleasant sounding.
Nah that’s just Southerners.
They can’t say “call”. It always comes out like “coow”.
British accents fascinate me. As an American I can’t “do” any of them , but from study and watching various media I am starting to get good at identification. I recently asked an English expat at my AA meeting, after listening to him speak, if he was from Leeds, I was close he said - Halifax. I was “chuffed” to be just a few miles off!
Also I now know there’s a city named Halifax close to Leeds lol.
You’re use of ‘chuffed’ is excellent use of British dialect mate
@@scampi9588 even better to say 'dead chuffed'. By the way, there are more layers in Liverpool than the media depiction of so-called Scouse. A word I didn't hear growing up in South Liverpool, Lancashire, before politicians changed our name to Merseyside in the early 1970s. Lancashire lass aged 82.
I’ve been to Halifax in July. It used to be a booming textile town, but alas, not anymore
@@scampi9588 Thanks man :)
@@scampi9588 your
Watching this 4 months after it was uploaded does add some unintended comedy to the phrase "our prime minister" followed by a clip of Liz Truss who was prime minister just long enough for this video to be made and not much longer.
Always been fascinated by the way people speak including facial and body gestures. As well as class accents, we have regional accents and dialects. I'm so glad I stumbled upon your video and have subscribed for further information. On a personal level, my job means I frequently get to speak to very well educated people whom are usually very wealthy, and people who are not very well educated and are quite poor. I end up mimicking slightly not to mock but to smooth the conversation. I must get the book
Thank you. Adapting our speech to those we're talking to is called accommodation. I do it a lot -- it's not really deliberate but of course I notice myself doing it.
@Charles White correct.
@charleswhite758. Yes. « Who » not « whom » when it is the subject, not the object, of the verb. There seems to be a plague of misplaced whoms on the internet at the moment.
It's really good channel. Thank u Dr. Lindsey
Thanks for talking about this relaxed speaking style characteristic of RP, I've noticed that before with people like Winston Churchill but I didn't know it was something any linguists paid attention to
i always thought it was because of, or is said as a joke for, Churchill's gargantuan appetite for alcohol.
i would also be remiss to not point out, ahem, underidoderidoderiododeridoo, at this point.
@@rin_etoware_2989 Not being British, I'd love to know what that last part means.
@@resourceress7 at any rate that is what we are going to try to do said in the "we shall fight on the beaches" speech by churchill, but he said these words in a single seconod
@@sliftyy thanks
This could not be more interesting, especially for those of us who very much enjoy the King's english.
Whatever it is I really like King's English pronounciation. It sounds very nice, elegant.
I love how King Charles speaks. He sounds very honourable. His voice is soothing and very manly.
Splendid and very informative videos. RP and its variants fascinate me and I love watching your videos and learning from their insights ! Love to see more videos like these !
I love these explorations of the Royal Family's mannerisms. Excellent video as always!
In the recently-former Soviet Union, I came across people - in an area where a jamming mast had been located - who had heard almost no spoken English in their lives, and who had taught themselves English pronunciation from dictionaries almost exclusively. They absolutely sounded like elderly Oxbridge professors. Not QUITE like the Queen asa little girl, but not far off it.
I've always liked HRH Queen Elizabeth's accent: she spoke very clearly and melodiously, two of the most captivating features of any good accent, I think.
The King's speech... wasn't that his grandfather? 🙂
For me as a Dutchman, there are similarities with Princess (formerly Queen) Beatrix, and her son, King Willem-Alexander. Whilst her pronunciation is very formal, his is more like the standard region-less accent (which the Dutch like to call "accent-less") that you need to speak to get ahead in life. But she was born in the late 1930s, whereas he is from the late 1960s.
Charles is very pleasant to listen too , its refreshing to hear the way he speaks and I'm sure very few people would disagree .
That was incredibly informative and entertaining for us all! May God bless his Royal Highness King Charles III!
4:35 I think I also hear a very light b sound when opening the lips from m to s: circumbs ances. Might this be the reason why our ears accept the omission of the t?
Please do something on how Elizabeth II changed over time. There are marked differences between her speech in the 1950s and present day.
👋I’m really impressed with your comment, if you don’t mind friendship where are you from?
I want to hear Charles say, "Vader was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force".
Indeed the speech of your new King and your new Prime Minister are a world apart. I'm a dutchman and learned to speak English in the seventies and Charles sounds just as my English teacher learned us do it. I have no difficulty to understand him. When I hear Ms Truss speak I am constantly distracted by things that sound very strange to me. For instance there is the pronunciation of the r. That seem to be replaced by a w "Bwillanty Bwitish".
I think a huge number of people around the world are still being taught RP pronunciation, meaning that modern speakers are harder to understand. The main culprit is the inability of British EFL phonetics to update itself.
This is really so interesting! Thank you for this video.
I think the King’s speech pattern and accent is “elegance itself.” I could listen to people like him or, say, Sir David Attenborough speak all day.
I notice that the King pronounces circumstances with a short a. Many people say circumstaahnces. I've always been fascinated by the way the long a has become more prevalent over the last 60 years or so. I put it down to people moving from north England to the south and trying to sound "posh". Similarly with people moving from abroad and getting it wrong. My mother in law, who would have been over a hundred now, used to say photograph, graph, example, transaction, substantial all with a short a. I think Peggy Archer aged 101, who has just retired from the BBC radio program "The Archers" would also be just as sparing in the use of the long a.
How would you say "a drastic use of plastic in elastic"? I'm from the midlands and my father was amused by a pretentious friend of his taking about Andy Pandy, but pronouncing it "Aahndy Paahndy".
I would be interested if you have any thoughts about the history of the long a.
I really appreciated your analysis of King Charles' accent. On a side note, I must confess that I stumbled upon your website a few years ago and became a great fan ever since.
It would be interesting to make a video about Bertrand Russell's unusual accent even within the spectrum of classic RP. The most unusual RP I've ever heard.
My husband says his Master at Public School spent a lot of trying to eradicate the Lancastrian accents of some of the boys. Fortunately my husband was raised in a family with a mother from Shropshire and a father from The Maritime Provinces in Canada and has a an impeccable accent before he went to Cambridge and post graduate at Oxford. The young ladies at the supermarket check out in Texas swoon over his accent. I hope they never lose their own special accents , even though the wretched TV and radio programs from New York try, like the BBC, to foist their nasty accents on lovely regional accents.
I don't care if it's old fashioned English. I think king Charles has a great voice and a fantastic accent. However cute and lovely his mom was, he's the better speraker. And there's always that little twinkle in the corner of his eyes... that's his sense of humour that wants to jump out
Lololol reminds me of "air hair lair" for "oh hello"
Love love love this channel!!
That’s a good one !
As a non native English speaker, I find the King's accent quite understandable. On the contrary, it's very difficult for me to understand princess Anne.
This is one of the best videos ive seen in a While
Dr. Lindsey, thank you for this video! Very informative. I think the King has such a wonderful timbre and quality of voice. Maybe you can make that your next video! Again, thank you for your time and efforts in making this.
Dr. Geoffrey Lindsay,
What an extraordinarily fine presentation!
Thank you, ever so much.
I rather like King Charles RP accent very much. Tradition is still important and hearing King Charles speak in his familiar accent is rather calming. Nothing but greatest respect for the 'Royals'. Being Royal doesn't mean people serve them, it means the Royals serve the people.
Something else I've wondered about the RP way of speaking is the shift of "L" into the sides-of-the-tongue sibilant noise (like the Welsh double L), as shown in this video when the King says "planet"
That's an excellent observation. Oddly, Charles spent some time as a young man at university in Aberystwyth learning Welsh, prior to his investiture as Prince of Wales, so he probably picked up the pronunciation of the LL sound quite easily!
He speaks quite beautifully when you take the time to listen to him.
It's a fine thing hearing the king in his elements.
Many Americans speak quite the same way, more particularly very old Bostonians from recent years and New Yorkers from the early twentieth-century and late nineteenth century.
Your videos are just as fascinating for a native english speaker as for a non-native! I'm an engineer by schooling and trade, but linguistics is an area that's always fascinated me, and these breakdowns of features English has, from a perspective that doesn't make any assumptions about what the listener's dialect sounds like, are very interesting to see!
He literally speaks the King's English.
loved the impression in the end
Fascinating thank you! The line I heard was that you could approximate Prince Charles by saying ‘ears’ for yes and ‘near’ for no.
Thanks Sr. and May God bless You...I am a fan of british Eng...Regards from Trujillo-Perú.
This is fascinating! Please do more on the King, and other older royals with this accent. Subscribed! Please do voice quality that you mentioned at the end. I like it that you give clear examples. Younger female voices with this accent ( Kirsty Allsop, Sarah Beeny, Louise Thompson, singer Wendy James' gorgeous 80s voice) would be interesting too. Thank you!
Dear Sir, one noticeable detail regarding the RP pronunciation of the entire royal family is related to the ending "ts" like in "sports" , pronounced as " spors".Both King Edward and HM Elizabeth used the same pronunciation.
One thing that interest me is how his way of speaking changes between being in a formal setting vs more casual or private setting. We have seen clips when the late Queen Elizabeth was in the role of granny to her grandchildren, or having friendly conversations with her staff. It is like they have different personas depending on context, with different ways of speech.
Who doesn't
👋I’m really impressed with your comment, if you don’t mind friendship where are you from?
That seemed to be the way in the mid 20th Century; even Americans changed their accents on radio, films and tv from the 1930’s-1960’s. I think the Queen was very conscious about how she was “supposed” to sound.
@@clod8 The Queen was heavily criticised for her way of speaking in the late 1950s by Lord Altrincham and deliberately changed it, presumably with professional help like her father had.
Omg this so interesting!!!!! I am from the USA $ just discovered your fascinating channel! ☮️💟
wow.. this is brilliant. liked & sub'd. i've also noticed a "buckingham palace" micro accent shared by prince andrew and the duchess of cambridge in which vowel elision is so clipped now that they hardly pronounce vowels at all - only voiceless consonants. it struck me as i realised that when andrew said "m'strepsteen" he was trying to say "mister epstein". kate's vowels are so consistently absent that i actually find her utterances quite hard to understand. my brain has to work hard to insert the missing vowels
I assume from your nickname that you are English mother tongue. It is comforting for a foreigner like me to know that even a native speaker has a hard time understanding Catherine and, as far as I'm concerned, William and Harry too as it was Prince Philip!!!
If you think their differences in accent are hard to understand, just put yourself in my shoes. I'm from California, and my aunt is from the northern part of Florida, very close to the state of Georgia. I prefer to text rather than talk to her on the phone because I can't understand a word coming out of her mouth!
It's interesting, as in other accents it's more common to drop consonants.
All young people today, including the posh, gabble and elide so it is hard to follow what they are saying.
Fascinating stuff. The other day, I finally got round to watching Prince Andrew's infamous interview with Emily Maitlis, and it struck how much more "modern" or "middle-class" his accent was than Charles's. Of course, he was born in 1960, ten years after Anne, when those cultural and linguistic shifts you mention were beginning, so that must account for it in large part. On the other hand, William sounds posher to me than Andrew, so maybe there are other, more individual factors involved.
Great! Very clear and dynamic. Excited to follow up on your videos.
Excellent. Thank you. I grew up in Toronto as the son of Italian parents and now I live in Los Angeles so I am thoroughly intimidated. Such a beautiful language.
Fascinating discussion. I love the King's posh accent, it's beautiful. It's a pity that this is fading away as the narrator says it is.
As a French people trying to really improve my pronunciation and prosody, theses videos about the differences beyond classic IP for RP. IPA which I learnt after highschool because nobody in France during English classrooms want to teach it, to relearn German, English, Portuguese and for my hobby : conlonging. The differences between the official written phonology of English and the reality I heard from TV is quite huge.
You show so much expertise and peadagogy(gia ? tha hability to give knowledges to students, how we say/write it ?) and your accent is very clear to me whereas from American or young Londoners it's often needed to me to put English subtitles sometimes.
Where does your accent come from ? As a French I can't
The other one about contractions was plusplus-supergood 🙂 It was said that contractions with not were not informal. And I tried to avoid them. 🙃 I did not understand too how to pronunce basic words in a fluent and fluid sentences such as : to, two, too, as, and, where, were, was and so many others. We can boost our level when we discover the famous Schwa (pronunce with a v in French, German also), and boost again when we better understand the new SSB.
So a great massive thanks to you, in a lonely comment because I was quiet about this before. It's important for me to encourage a great original and no-French channel.
Your work, It's just gold for stangers who prefer British EnglishES over the American One that we hear most of the time. And a great ressource for curious natives too, for sure.
I'll also get a deeper look on CUBE pronunciation dictonnary ! If you're golden, CUBE's true cavern of Ali-Baba :-)
Although there are many similarities between RP and Posh, they are not the same (and there is more than one variety of posh). As was evident from the clips of King Charles, posh people tend to mumble and elide certain syllables, while speaking others with great clarity, really for purposes of emphasis. RP would pronounce most of February; the posh would say Febry, or even (almost) Fevry. 'Very' in RP might deteriorate almost to 'vay' in slack posh. RP says 'golf', old-fashioned posh says 'goff'.
Very interesting thank you. I live in Southern U.S. and I love all of the variances of the British accent. My condolences on the loss of your Queen and best wishes for the new King.
🇺🇸 🇬🇧
Wow. Time to bring this accent back. It's wonderful
As a Canadian, I found this fascinating and great fun. My grandfather, born into a middle class family in Battersea, emigrated to Canada in the early 20th Century, reinventing himself by adopting an upper class accent. I grew up with RP in my ears, so when I played Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit”, she must have sounded very posh, because RP was the only English accent I knew how to imitate. I never slurred quickly through words, though. 😉
Coming from Battersea I suspect he was working class rather than middle class? The British middle classes are the professionals, the working class work with their hands.
@@Tom_RUclips_stole_my_handle His father was a coal merchant’s clerk. My grandfather used to say he was a true Cockney because he was born within the sound of the Bo bells (that spelling is probably wrong) but I think he’d have to have mighty good hearing if that were the case! He was a born mimic, and could do a really good Cockney accent.
@@heatherstubbs6646 It's Bow bells, the bells of St Mary-le-Bow in the City of London. At the time your grandfather was born Battersea would have been a pretty tough part of London.
@@Tom_RUclips_stole_my_handle This is very interesting! When I was studying in London in the early 1970’s, I I looked into applying for landed immigrant status. That’s when I learned that my grandfather was the son of a coal merchant’s clerk, born in Battersea. Who knows why the family was there? I guess that’s where the work was. By the time I was in London, my relatives were in Richmond. I’m a big fan of Anne Perry’s mystery novels, which are set in London about the time my grandfather was born. She describes the rough areas of London vividly.
@@heatherstubbs6646 Coal would likely have come up the Thames and been distributed by rail from Clapham Junction railway station or thereabouts. There are many railway sidings in Battersea to this day. Land was cheap there and of poor quality. There was a lot of industry along the Thames and Battersea power station to the south of the river and Lots Road on the opposite bank, although not built when your grandfather left. prior to the turn of the 20th century there would largely have been villages to the south of Battersea with the big housing construction which resulted in everywhere being absorbed into Greater London starting around 1900. In the Sherlock Holmes stories, Chiswick, now in west London was described as being in the countryside.
I saw your blog post about the obsolete use of IPA in English years ago, and found it to be one of the best ressource on pronunciation online. It came to me as a big surprise when I saw RUclips recommending me your channel just now, and realising it was the same Geoff Lindsey. Thank you for your work
What’s IPA, please ?
As a non-native English (I'm Italian motherlanguage) there are some kind of English accents that helps me to understand a speech. There are other accents where I am struggling to catch the speech. Liz Truss' accent it is pleasant to me because I can understand enough, especially when she is not talking faster. Some American accents look like more easy to understand to me but some others not. I've got more difficult in writing, especially talking than in understanding the listening.
It might be obsolete but it's easier to understand than many people.
My grandfather very much spoke like this, my dad and his brothers were all born in the 50's/60's and still sound posh but it's definitely not quite as pronounced. Myself having lived in Australia since I was a kid still have quite a lot of RP influence but obviously a lot of Australian too so my accent is very mixed (I used to work in film and always got the piss taken out of me by Aussies when asking which "r'm" cast and crew were staying in at hotels when on away jobs). My cousins in the UK have a really weird accent, it still has traces of RP but also quite a big influence from Multicultural London English. It's amazing to see how an accent can evolve over such a relatively short time.
i can relate with your story , my self an Australian but both my grandparents English, they arrived in the country right after 2nd ww , their accent influenced the hole family and i have the same problem with my accent, people have trouble understanding where im from
Fantastic video Dr. Lindsey,
Proper quality content. These platforms need more people like you. ❤
Thank you, Geoff, for this great video. Very interesting and inspiring!
I found a new soft spoken gentleman and videos I will binge on for sometime, cause this is very naturally interesting material, thank you!
He speaks exactly as English language should be spoken! 👍I am a professor of English language and literature.
Search . ' What the Media Won't Tell You about King Charles . '
In my less than humble opinion, I speak RP English. The genesis of how I speak and sound is more likely the outcome of undergoing both NHS speech therapy and private voice training during my teenage years. All this activity had one aim: to eradicate a stammer that had taken over my identity and social development in adolescence. In working with me on my stammer, I rated my private voice coach as more effective than her NHS counterpart, for the voice coach had been a continuity announcer at BBC radio during and after the 1939-45 war, thereafter switching career to that of a voice coach at London's Central School of Speech & Drama and RADA. With my stammer under control, my career morphed this way and that in the UK and far beyond, finding myself working as a jobbing voice actor in public announcements and video narrations, a stint as an academic and, for the most part, a wordy wordsmith in publishing where my ability to communicate is more often than not carried out on paper than by way of vocal utterances...
King Charles has the best British accent. No other comes close. The accent has class and nobility.
You are absolutley correct!!! He has a perfect British accent..very regal, yet earthy.
@@annerector8765 pretentious comment, honestly who cares
@@Shrek-pu8uu ???
Nowdays it's not a british accent any more, it's philipino accent
grow up
Thanks! That cleared up a number of questions about RP for me. (Stephen Fry also totally does the 'mumbling' like that.)
I discuss Stephen Fry in my Weak Forms video: ruclips.net/video/EaXYas58_kc/видео.html
@@DrGeoffLindseyThanks! I'd love an analysis of the pronunciation tricks used by Nigel Hawthorne to make Sir Humphrey Appleby sound posh even with the simplest phrases like "Yes, indeed" or "Most inappropriate" or "Very droll" or "Of course" or "Quite so".
I'm American and the King is one of the few Brits I can immediately understand every word he says. I feel like I'm coo crazy when I feel like I need subtitles to understand someone speaking English just because they're British. One example of that would be the actor John Boyega. In interviews he speaks so fast and doesn't seem to enunciate
@@mohamedahrouch4842 I already stated that I'm an American.
@S T R A N D C A S T who
@S T R A N D C A S T do you think that he's well sized ?
Hmm. I'm not sure about a few things in this video. Before I get into these things, let me just start by saying that I mean absolutely no disrespect when I raise these questions, and I thoroughly love your videos, and I greatly admire and appreciate your content. The things I'm about to mention are not intended as admonishments in any way, shape, or form. On the contrary, I think it's more likely that they probably speak to my own deficits as a self-taught (if passionate!) linguist than anything else. However, that said, being the imperfect thing that I am, I can't help but feel like a few points here don't seem to be quite adding up to me.
1:12 - Here, you say that the King pronounces "dress" with an /e/ vowel, but the vowel that I hear coming out of your mouth when you say that (and the King's for that matter) is /ɛ/. At first, I thought you were just using a simplified phonemic transcription (like how we often see "/r/" instead of "/ɹ/" in English transcriptions), but then you immediately follow that up by contrasting it with /ɛ/ and, again, saying /ɛ/ yourself. I realize that the distinction between /e/ and /ɛ/ can be very difficult for many Native English speakers to pick up on, especially for speakers of dialects like mine, where /e/ is all but non-existent outside of diphthongs (like in "face"), but I have a long history with linguistics, phonetics, and the IPA, and, while I acknowledge the possibility that I could be wrong, I don't believe that I am. If I am, however, I would greatly appreciate being set straight in a fashion that gets me to understand why and how I'm wrong.
2:02 - Here, you say that the King pronounces the "goat" vowel with an /e/ onset, "more forward in the mouth [than schwa]", but what I'm hearing coming out of your mouth when you say that is something more back and lower than /e/. Maybe something approximating [ʌ̝]. And, when the King says it, I'm just hearing a schwa onset.
2:12 - Here, talking about the "mouth" vowel, you seem to be saying /æ/ while writing /a/ on-screen. This is something I've noticed you doing all over the place in your videos, and I'm very perplexed as to why you keep doing this. I know from your other videos that you comprehend the difference between these vowels, but I've seen you make this transcription many times, and I'm very confused about that.
2:28 - Just a tiny, unimportant nitpick, but I think that the King's happY vowel is maybe a little raised, but I agree that it's lax. Just a bit of an aside there. Not important, and I know that that wasn't the point.
2:50 - This is really tripping me up! I never knew about this phenomenon! I absolutely agree that there is, as you put it, "some kind of S" going on there, but, while I fully recognize the possibility that my brain MAY just be insisting that I'm hearing what I EXPECT to be hearing, I'm finding it very difficult to believe that it's just plain, full-on, an [s] sound. That /t/ has definitely been somehow "sibilantified", if you will, but I could absolutely swear that there is still some sort of /t/-like constriction that's still going on in the tongue there but is sort of only half manifesting. But then, a moment later, in those recordings of "devoted" and "planet", I do not hear it AT ALL. I just flat-out here /t/ in these. Especially in "devoted".
Well, that was interesting. I have never given much thought to how people speak. I am sure that some actors would find this information extremely useful. Liked and subscribed.
Thank you!
i always thought the post georgian monarchs have a german-y sounding way of speaking, if you watch Julie Harris (an American) in Victoria Regina 1961 she does an incredible accent where she sounds exactly how I imagine posh English forming, a slightly germanic accent with the posh sounds you mention in this video - then the relatives and friends of the royals, i.e. upper class develop this accent too
This was really interesting.
I'd never consciously noticed the soft T of RP.
Princess Diana affricated at the end of words like “alright” a bunch… she was so delicate.
Lovely! Your videos are so useful! Have you done one on the Trans-Atlantic accent? I'd love to hear your in-depth analysis!