@@billfaint6736 Shaw famously hated the English and I loved that perfect sarcastic and extremely witty exchange between him and Winston Churchill on Shaw's latest play Shaw: I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend-if you have one. Churchill: Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second-if there is one.
@@aidencox790 If he hated the English, why did he live for so long (over forty years) near Ayot St Lawrence, next to Brocket Hall? Or perhaps it was just a certain class or individual he disliked?
@@johnp8131 A wild guess given the understandable disdain many Irish had for the British during Shaw's lifetime and long beyond it? Or perhaps my grammar school headmaster, who was an Alderman, knew a few of his descendants and shared tea and discourse with them.
There is the Brummie accent and then there is the Black Country accent. There are a lot of people who think they are the same but they are slightly different. My father’s family came from Birmingham and my mother’s side from Dudley. The black country one is definitely stronger in my opinion.
I'm from Walsall. It makes me cringe when I hear people with a Black Country accent speak on TV or whatever 😬 I don't know why because I love most accents and I don't notice our accents day to day. Just on telly/the radio etc.
I'm from Walsall too and the black country is different never call a yam yam a Brummie that's for sure. We definitely have a "thicker accent" my geography teacher always told us that we would find it hard to get a job anywhere else in the country because of our dialect. I live in Walsall but went to a Wednesbury school which was only over a road and the dialect changed alot. My friends would make fun of me because ( cuz) they thought I sounded posh compared to them. Literally less than a mile difference.
@@charlottemacey5720 i went to university with a guy from the isle of white, he struggled to understand me for few few weeks, now we're good mates. he told me one time his mom went to the asda in wolverhampton, and the person serving her at the till she couldn't understand them at all so he had to translate for her. they found it funny. as he had warned her about the accent.
My Mother-in-law was from Hall Green, and my sister-in-law from Kings Heath and their accents were very different. Even some of the sayings are different.
I’m from the Black Country and people who speak to them true dialect need a translator. According to a linguistic Professor we are the closest to the old Anglo Saxon.
In the UK you literally cannot go 5 miles without the local accent changing, and often it's much less. My work colleagues (that's co-workers to Americans) have at least 6 different accents, and none of them live more than 20 miles away. Locals can usually tell which side of a river you come from, and in extreme cases, even which block you grew up on, purely from your accent.
I absolutely hate the G been replaced by sea sound at the end of words I hated been doing more and more. In my very educated nieces, who aren’t even from Birmingham, are now saying that. I have to tell them that they’re sounding uneducated. Which they are not. You’re actually from Norfolk. 🤷♀️
Most Brits can hear a Brummy accent and recognise it. It's one of the most recognisable accents in England for me. That, Geordie (Newcastle), Cockney (London) and Scouse (Liverpool).
Most visitors will hear immediately the first accent they encounter, dependent on which airport the arrive at, after tha5 if the travel elsewhere they will encounter some or all of the rest. If the go north they will definitely hear major difference# from the standard English the will have mostly encountered before.
I'm from Birmingham, and my wife who speaks Queen's English fell in love with what she calls "The friendliest accent in the UK" when she began working in Dudley, just up the road. The Black Country accent is super friendly and welcoming. The Brummie accent in my experience is the same but toned down quite a bit.
Everybody has at least three accents - your accent when speaking to friends and family - your accent when speaking to people locally - your accent when at work or on the phone. It used to be called your "phone voice" It goes from heavy accent, to almost standard English because you want to be understood.
In the UK, it is understood that you can drive 20 minutes in one direction and get a completely new accent. That doesn't account for the small changes in between.
Wolverhampton is not Birmingham, it is on the edge of an area called 'The Black Country' which is around 12 milees from Birmingham and the accent actually sounds different to a Brummie accent.
I mean I’m from just outside Wolverhampton and people from as close as Liverpool have insisted I have a Brummie accent, so I definitely don’t expect Tyler to ever hear the difference. What I don’t know is why that video was mislabelled.
The Stereotypical Brummie accent is Ozzy Osbourne. Wolverhampton is a city about 15 miles North-west of Birmingham and the accent is different which is what the first woman interviewed has; furthermore it's also different to the "Black Country" area of towns which is located between Wolverhampton and Birmingham that each have their own discrete accents. Birmingham is pronounced bur-min-GUM.
The most significant aspect of the Brummie accent is the vowel distortion. When my cousin Karen was a baby (babbie in Brum) my Auntie Iris famously said “‘er cloimbs the sturs and ‘ers nod a beet afroid” which translates as “her (she) climbs the stairs and her’s not a bit afraid”
I wish in these videos people would differentiate between a Brummie and a Black Country accent. Both different and very recognisable. I can really tell the difference between East West and North Birmingham but it is quite nuanced
We don't emphasize the HAM when pronouncing "Birmingham"... we say "Birming-um". Americans ALWAYS get this wrong, and this rule applies to 99% of place names ending in -HAM.
Tyler is a charming American with his own accent, don't force him to change it. If he wants to say Birming..HAM or Warwick..SHIRE let him say it that way. Accents, including american accents are all wonderful.
Yeah - as someone else has already said - The one in Alabama may well be pronounced: "Burr-ming-HAM", but the British second city is pronounced "BER-ming-um".
My Dad is a 'Brummie' although he has lived in Cumbria the last 59 years. He was born in 1937 in Small Heath known for the place the Peaky Blinders were based in the late 1800's. Also the Cadburys firm is and started in Birmingham.
Im from Wolverhampton and under no circumstances do you EVER say to us that you have a brummie accent. We are only 15 miles away from birmingham but we have a BLACK COUNTRY accent. There are dinstinctive differences between us.
I agree. I'm from Birmingham, but moved to the Black Country when I got married. A big difference in accent. At first I had a hard time understanding what some people were saying! If I had to choose between the two, it's no competition. Black Country all the way! 'Orroyt, mar mayt. Ow am ya?' 👍👍👍
Hi Tyler. A very good example of the Birmingham accent is Ozzy Osborne. Love your videos. Makes me appreciate my country more but we have a saying in the U.K. “ The Grass Is Always Greener On The Other Side
I'm born and raised in Birmingham UK. The way Brummies pronounce it is either Brum, Brummigam, Birmingum or Birmingum arr. Christian Bale does a great Brummie accent. In my case I speak RP. I was raised on the BBC during the 70s and 80s. There is prejudice towards the accent. Both Brummie and scouse can be perceived as untrustworthy. Quick note. Don't mix up Brummies with people from the Black Country. Places like Dudley, Oldbury, Tipton, Wolverhampton or Walsall. It's different. A mode of public transport around here is a Buzz. 😂
Find examples of a thick Birmingham accent and other thick Midland accents. We all tend to blend words and sentences, ie. “Going to the pub” is “goin t’pub” where I’m from in the Leicestershire/Nottinghamshire border
The Wolverhampton accent is also different from Birmingham though I expect they sound similar to people not from the area. The area around Birmingham is known as the Black Country and includes Dudley, Wolverhampton etc. I am from Smethwick which is a bit of a Brummie, Black Country hybrid , think Julie Walter's natural accent. Black Country has quite a distinct dialect as well and uses things like cor for can't, wo for won't etc.
Yeah. That was a very soft accent for a brummie and she didn't have the sing-song lilt that a lot of brummies have. Proper bummies voices use a lot of pitches to express themselves.
I don't know if you've seen David Crystal's Shakespeare plays performed in a reconstructed version of Shakespeare's original accent, it's so interesting. If you search "David Crystal Shakespeare Original Pronunciation" there are a few short examples and explanations on how you can relatively accurately reconstruct a lost accent using rhymes and metre and stuff. Shakespeare's accent has a lot in common with modern Birmingham accents but has a lot of differences too 😄 Also, the whole north of England all the way down to Birmingham is with you on the vowels in 'laugh' and 'glass' - the south is the odd one out in this case. Also also, Brummie has been done dirty for so long - it's a wonderful accent. At least Peaky Blinders has done a hell of a PR job for it - I'm guessing it's generally seen as a cool accent for people abroad hearing it for the first time through that show but that's just a guess on my part 😄 Thanks for the awesome video Tyler, I love these linguistics ones! xx
I'm only down the road in Leicester and it's insane how different the Brummie accent is, it almost sounds like they're putting it on for comedic effect.
My mate comes from North Notts and I used to visit my son at De Montfort, so I got used to a Leicester accent. When I tell my mate in Sutton in Ashfield that he sounds the same as someone from Leicester he goes spare!
My family is from Leicester, but I was brought up in Hull. Although you can tell the difference between Midland accents, no one up North would know the difference. My Dad was mistaken by someone as a Londoner when he first turned up in Hull, because that’s all they knew. My Dad also has a soft Leicestershire accent because he was brought up all over there and Lincolnshire (his dad was in the RAF), whereas his youngest brother has a strong inner city Leicester accent (he was brought up on the Saff). I can tell the difference, but Northerners wouldn’t, and I can hear differences between Hull, East Yorkshire, York or Leeds, but you probably wouldn’t! I think all the regions of this country are the same in that locals can tell an accent difference of 5 miles, but outsiders can’t.
I'm originally from Wolverhampton, just like the woman in the video. I have not lived there since 1980 and have been living in Shanghai for the last 15 years. British people here instantly know that I am from the Midlands but cant quite place me as being from Wolverhampton, my accent has obviously changed. When I do go back to visit family I love hearing their Wolverhampton accents. Like others have said, there is a whole variety of local accents between Wolverhampton and Birmingham.
Another Wulfrunian here. Wolverhampton is two accents at least away from Birmingham. I’ve also lived in Bilston, Wednesbury and Tipton and the Black Country accent changes depending on the area. And if anyone thinks a Brummie accent difficult, try Gornal. I used to go to the Wolverhampton Motorcycle and Car Club when it met in Lower Gornal and occasionally I’d need a phrase book!
I've lived in SW Ireland for the past 25 years, my neighbours and friends have said that I still have my English accent, a cross between a South East London (Mother's) and RP (Father's), yet when I go back to England always get asked what part of Ireland am I from, not yet acquired a Cork accent but phrasing obviously gives it away.
Another wolves man here. Proud of my accent and hate being called a Brummie. At uni I had a guy from Sutton Coldfieldon my corridor and we used to argue about who had the worst accent. His was so thick. But the locals used to compare my accent to the Prudential advert where the guy sounded so thick. But the Oxfordshire locals sounded like they had crawled from under the nearest hedge.
I loved working in Birmingham, I live in Coventry, short train journey. Initially on the phones couldn't understand them got so proficient did audio typing for solicitors. Friendliest place imo. Initially a big difference between us accent wise. 👵🇬🇧😅
Yeah.. unfortunately the majority of the UK class the Brummy accent as 'stupid'. The Newcastle accent is generally received as the friendliest but it's also quite difficult for Americans to understand. I think it depends on how thick the accent is, but that's the same for any UK accent. If it's extremely thick, no matter the region, it can be difficult to understand even for us! I'm from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire and we're a mix of the Nottingham, Yorkshire and Sheffield accents but we're about 30 mins to 1 hour away from each location. To me, we sound very friendly but also very stupid 🤣. We drop plurals, the and to in sentences. You're unlikely to hear one of us say 'going to the shops' we'd say 'goin' shop'. And with the really thick accents we change words like 'cold' to 'code' or 'really' to 'rate'. For example 'its rate code today, I'm not goin' shop' Accents are very interesting!!!
Australia is the opposite. The standard accent is pretty flat and if you avoid a few key words people might never know you grew up thousands of miles away.
Some say that the sing-song accent of Birmingham (and the rest of the West Midlands) might be an ancient, 6th century leftover from the last remaining Brythonic-speaking Celts in the area, such as the Cornovii tribe, as Old English gradually moved westwards, and replaced the Old British language. The Brummies might have simply retained their former Celtic, Cornovian accent, while gradually switching to Old English
Lady in the interview video is from Wolverhampton. This is slightly different from Birmingham. It is known as yamyam or Black Country accent. You should look at the differences between them as they are very close in distance. These two accents are closest to old English (as far as I’m aware) . The teaching couple is brummie though. The negative is they say they sound stupid.
I don't think she was from Wolverhampton (I am) I am pretty sure she was saying someone who called her had a Wolverhampton girlfriend and thought she had the same accent, an easy mistake to make for someone not from the area. To be complete a deep black country accent is not actually an accent it's a dialect with a shitload of history.
@@vtbn53 An entire dialect is definitely right. I'm no linguist, but I'm pretty sure it mixes Germanic elements (e.g. bist, bin) with old fashioned English (e.g. thee). "Ow bist thee, ower kid?"
I live not too far from Derbyshire but the accent is markedly different from mine. They always sound like a mix of brummy and a northern accent to me. I really enjoy it.
Never noticed I end words with an intrusive K before, darn. 43 and still learning things about myself. And as a reference, the Weasley mum/dad in Harry Potter are Brummies.
I am a Yorkshireman who has lived in Brum for 40 years (Brum: aka Birmingham - the 'h' is not aspirated). The accents around here vary considerably with distance, and one risks life and limb in confusing Yardley and Yamyam (the latter is not Brummie). By the way - your video is bostin!
My mum is from Sheffield (West Riding, I think?) & Dad was from Cambridge (both still have their accents, lol). And I was born in Brum, so mine and my sibling's accents were a mix of mum's & dads pre-school, and from then on, were a bit of a Heinz 57, haha. Then I moved to London for ten years after college. The Londoners took the pee, and when I visited home, my friends took the pee. 😳
Hiya, The British do tend to be very good at picking out accents down to quite a small area, I'm from Wolverhampton {about 15-20 mile outside of Birmingham). Most people can tell the difference between a Birmingham and Wolverhampton accent, There is also the Black Country (The Black Country is the area roughly in-between the to Cities which tends to join and incorporate areas of the Two) and not only has it's own accent, has it's own language that a lot of Brits struggle to understand.
The atypical British accent is known as 'Received Pronunciation'. Or if you like Old style BBC announcing. Especially in the BBC News. Over the past decade or so accents have been more readily accepted.
When i was 13 i went to see the Commodores in Birmingham they were from Tuskegee and knew Birmingham Alabama. They didn't just say the name. They joked about it and we loved them. They connected with all of us.
Lots of different accents in the UK,I live in Greater London and London has different accents, People in East London ( Cockneys ) sound different from South Londoners. I was born and raised in Scotland and what people from outside Scotland don't realise is that we have different accents too, people from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee all sound different and have different dialects and as a Scot I struggle to understand someone from Aberdeen
I've got a london accent. We had a new starter at work this week who was American-ish (she came from Ireland but parents and friends were all American). She could not understand a word I said to her. Genuinely had to repeat everything 3 times in different ways until she got it. Bizare to me as it was the first time I've had this happen from memory. West country (Somerset, cornwall), Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Northern Irish, Brummie, London, Yorkshire, Geordie, Norwich, etc.. are other accents you could study for sure.
Ham is an old English word meaning an estate. Therefore the estate of the Birning family. Yes Ozzy Osbourne is a popular midland export, however ELO the Electric Light Orchestra, were also from the city as were the lesser know band Magnum. The band Judas Priest were from the town of Walsall near Birmingham. Robert Plant from Lead Zeppelin is from Wolverhampton. My father is from Birmingham although left the city in his youth to move into the rural North. I don't have the accent.
Many of the English dialects have names, not just Brummie. Other good dialect names include Geordie (Newcastle), Scouse (Liverpool) and Cockney (20th century East London ... but now being superseded by 'multicultural london english', a blend of Cockney with dialects from India and from the Carribbean). I have avoided the word accent because these dialects include local words (and sometimes local grammatical features) as well.
The Birmingham accent is believed to the be part of the Anglo saxons language where most of people in Anglo saxons time spoke very similar then William the conker came and the language started a bit of French was starting to come in and it mixed with the old English language so Birmingham people spoke a bit like the old English in the Anglo Saxons times which is quite the interesting to know people of Birmingham speaking old English and most of are Ancestors and
Years ago. I was going to interview someone to fill a role. My colleague warned me that ‘he sounds slow, but that’s just cos he’s from Birmingham’ (Not realising that my parents were Brummies.
@@Fluffnugget78 Yep, lol. I also remember the Anthony Head serial with Gold Blend, the will they won't they thing. The milk one and 'Accrington Stanley' lol
If they had interviewed someone from Wolverhampton or Dudley they would have said they were brummie accents but brummies would say it’s yam yam (Black Country) this region is not in Birmingham
I wish you would do a video on "Cockney Rhyming Slang" Apples & Pears = Stairs Hank Marvin = Starving That would be interesting to see your reaction.. It's a form of speaking that comes from London
What Tyler decribes as a 'normal English accent' is called 'Received Pronunciation'. It tends to be used by people from the South of England, and/ or by very middle class people. The Birmingham accent is seen as a very low status accent (not by everyone) and companies with large call centres don't tend to locate themselve in the West Midlands for this reason. It's a ridiculous view- and I quite like the accent - maybe because my grandparents lived in Wolverhampton (about 15 miles from Birmingham) and so it's familiar and comforting to me. It has a very sing-song lilt to it. The sing-song aspect being similar to Welsh isn't a coincidence- Birmingham is relatively close to the Welsh border. The short 'a' sound is used acros the Midlands and the North, whereas the long 'a' is very Southern.
A lot of call centres are located in the North East: Newcastle, Sunderland, Teesside etc. People quite like northern accents. They're seen as friendly. You do have to soften your accent a bit so southerners can understand you and some places are pretty strict about not using local slang.
It's funny you say that about the call centres - I (from Dudley) used to work in a Wolverhampton-based call centre for Lloyds Bank. My Black Country accent isn't that strong (one of my colleagues thought I was Australian) so most people I got on the phone thought I was from the south, supposedly from places like Bath and Swindon. Only the local callers could tell I was one of them. It did teach me that not everyone calls roundabouts 'islands' though 🤣
I live in Gloucester and oddly my pronunciation of "a" has changed in the last ten years or so. I used to use a long a and now I use a short a. I have no idea when or why this began to change but interestingly enough people perceive me as friendlier since it did.
Have to listen to Scouse and Geordie accents there difficult and strong, West country is very noticeable and then Scottish, welsh and northern Irish English
I have a non-UK question on accents : Americans and Canadians have both told me they have different accents - I have never been able to tell the difference (watching films). Can anyone give me some differences, I would be very grateful.....
Yeah, the Brummie accent is a lot more musical sounding than most other ‘English’ accents. Our proximity to Wales and long history gradually meant we picked up some Welsh sounding tones 😊
According to the experts it’s also because we are the closest to the old Anglo Saxon and it’s unique for that because it’s not just an accent. It’s a dialect.
Watch Cat Deeley and Ossie Osbourne in the old days. Don't think they have lost their accents altogether now though. The chat is faster when in Brum, which is harder to catch on to.
When I finally moved out of my parent's house and bought my own first home it was in the same town where I was born and had lived all my life. Whilst moving my belongings the few miles from my parent's house to my own first home, as my partner and I were emptying the car and carrying everything into the new house, we got chatting with our new neighbours. It was then that my neighbour asked my partner, "Where are your from? Because it's not from around here". My partner told the neighbour the name of the town where she was born and grew up. That town is only 30 miles away from our front door! This is a good example of how much the accents change in such a short distance here in the UK. Just 30 miles and yet the neighbour immediately picked up on the different accent.
Everybody has an accent. I hate when people say they “don’t have an accent” that’s fundamentally misunderstanding what an accent actually is If you heard the Birmingham accent against others like the Welsh accents, Scottish accents, Geordie accent, Liverpool accent, Northern Irish accent, Yorkshire accents we all sound completely different.
i was born in 63 now obviously i did not get my accent until i was at a young age , but also i got my accent from my grand mother and also my grandad . in the early seventies some of us with a thick accent the schools wanted to change the accent . I learnt the proper English but still kept my roots how you officially speak is out of the nose upper section of the mouth and top teeth . we also put words together from a sentence into one word
Pedantic comment coming up; One of the two ladies on the sofa was from Wolverhampton so had a 'black country' accent, and although only 10 miles from Birmingham the accent is stronger, and they are referred to as 'Yim Yams', on account of the use of 'yam'(you am) instead of 'you are'.
I grew up just south of Brum so for 18 years spoke with a light brummie accent. I think (hope) it's worn off in the years since. There's a car channel called Carwow where Mark speaks exactly like I once did. There are also some distinct differences in accent in different parts of the west midlands. We lovingly call our relatives from Stourbridge "yam yams"
yes we hear the brummie accent as clearly as american's hear a new yorkers accent, the neighbouring towns might get mistaken for brummies as a person from new jersey might for a new yorker
I live in the West Midlands, you have the brummie accent and you have the black country accent. You should give the Black Country Accent, the start of the industrial revolution. Peaky blinders was also filmed there. There are lots of historical places, Dudley castle, Crooked House (just made the news) enjoy if you take a look.
I hate to say this but the lady on the couch was actually a Wolverhampton accent rather than a Brummie one. The Labour Party MP Jess Phillips or ali Campbell of UB40 are probably the easiest example of a Brummie Accent you can find. If you want another Wolverhampton accent i'd suggest Noddy Holder from the 1970's band slade Search "Nibble Nobby’s Nuts - Not Noddy’s Advert".
At the start of the 20th century almost all the people in the UK stayed in their birth area with their accents that was before WWI. The men at least were sent overseas to Europe and African areas of the war, in other words they mixed with other accents so as a matter of understanding each other accents started to smooth out. After that period the biggest social pointer was what industries were in your area. Eg. Scotland was always known for ship building as well as Northern Island (birth place of Titanic) so they were good engineers. The Midlands AKA the area around Birmingham was always Iron making including mining for coal and Ore then smelting and Steal making. Fun fact the Navy had all their chains made in that area called the Black Country just SW of the city, but it was a lot of cottage industry my great, granma’s trade was a chain maker on my dads birth certificate she worked in the garden foundry. All this means was that people who lived around that area with their accent and the heavy industry jobs they weren’t recognised as being very well educated at that time. So the British Isles was parcelled out in job oriented expectations. Just a bit of old knowledge ok? Nowadays people in the UK move around a hell of a lot more and the accents are more of a melting pot situation with the accents like different coloured paints mixed in a bucket. Can’t really differentiate easily nowadays Cheers Aah kid (black county or Brummy saying - aah kid), going is pronounced GOO-IN as in arm gooin down the road!
Good upload - and I'm a Geordie (age 80+). Hello again and thank you for all your excellent uploads and commentaries. May I suggest that you take a look at and comment upon a WWII documentary called Stories from the Blitz | Documentary. It's not dead on accurate (from an ancient Geordies POV) but it does give a lot of perspective and info that isn't covered in the other documentaries I've seen on YT and other commenters said the same thing. I think a lot of your followers (even young what was WWII ones) will find very informative and balanced. Just one thing - crime was down South a LOT more than up North - the "London Spivs" are small time crimmos and have always been a pain in London's underbelly.
I live on the north side of a bridge between North Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire. The bridge is less than 2 mile long and the accent changes between the north and south side - alas for the north side ( it`s an ancient difference of opinion.... ).
Part of the reason there are a lot of similarities between the way people from the Midlands/the North and in the USA pronounce vowels is due to the fact that a lot of the English people who emigrated to North America in the 17th century (as a result of religious conflicts and non-conformism) were from the Midlands and further north. I'm guessing this had an impact on the development of American English accents.
Ironic that you're reacting to the Birmingham accent but don't have a single person speaking with a Birmingham accent. They're just talking ABOUT the Birmingham accent. I can talk about monkeys but I don't sound like one.
I live in Staffordshire, a very short distance away from Birmingham. And the accents here are so strange, there's hint of brummie with some people and a hint of black country and then also some other kind of accent I can only describe as a 'Staffordshire accent'. It's super weird how accents seem to change from town to town. My friends at university couldn't place where I was from, until I did a presentation in class and all of a sudden all they could hear is brummie. As soon as my presentation ended I went back to what they describe as' normal'. The nerves must've brought out the tiny bit of brummie in me
Yo doe talk proper like we dun. I'm a Yam Yam not a brummie. The Black Country is not Birmingham. Not a single person in Wolverhampton would say they are a brummie, would never happen 😂
I was gonna comment this. I spent the first few years of my life in Great Barr which, I would say, is straddling the Brummy and Yam Yam divide and almost all of my family are still over there. I've witnessed many a light hearted (and some not so light hearted) argument over the difference in accents and identity. It's also crazy how small the divide between the accents can be too. My cousin and his wife grew up within a mile of each other, just on different housing estates on opposite sides of a big main road. He sounds like a regular brummy (albeit with a really strong accent) and his wife sounds Black Country.
Not a Single Brummie accent to be found, the first accent was more of ab americanised accent, like an American trying to fake an accent. The 2nd lady was from Walsall by the sound of it.
Actually originally as a Black Country lad (Tipton/Coseley) I can easily tell a Princes End (Coseley/Tipton) from a Dudley accent and the distance apart is less than 3 miles.
I think that's Siobhan Thomas from 'Anglophenia' (?) She "does" 17 different accents, including Dublin, which as she admits is not a 'British' accent per se but because she can, she includes it. 😊
It was a good idea to switch between a tutorial and a "real" example. The British accent could be a fun rabbit hole to go down, how about looking at Geordie / Newcastle next?
First hurdle. Birming-HAM is in Alabama, USA. Birming-um is in England.
👍
lol
In England all words ending in 'ham' are pronounced 'um' - for example Buckingham Palace is pronounced Buckingum Palace.
I've heard Mericans call anything with Shire in it, Ches Shire, Lanca Shire
York Shire.
Ein Feld, Middle Sex.
Eddin Burrow, Scart Land.
@@DeanMoxley87somehow some of them seem to say New Hampshire correctly, but then go on to say Hamp Shire.
Now if we can just get you to pronounce Birmingham correctly.
Like Bermigam or Burminhum? I know, it's like me hearing a non-Geordie murdering Geordie.
He never reads the comments.
b’r’am, right?
birminum
@@angelavara4097 In fact he has replied to a couple of my comments, but I think, in the main, you are correct.
"It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him," wrote George Bernard Shaw.
Says an Irishman.
@@billfaint6736 Shaw famously hated the English and I loved that perfect sarcastic and extremely witty exchange between him and Winston Churchill on Shaw's latest play
Shaw: I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend-if you have one.
Churchill: Cannot possibly attend first night; will attend second-if there is one.
@@aidencox790 If he hated the English, why did he live for so long (over forty years) near Ayot St Lawrence, next to Brocket Hall? Or perhaps it was just a certain class or individual he disliked?
@@aidencox790
Yep - NEVER a good idea to give Churchill the last word! Excellent response.
@@johnp8131
A wild guess given the understandable disdain many Irish had for the British during Shaw's lifetime and long beyond it? Or perhaps my grammar school headmaster, who was an Alderman, knew a few of his descendants and shared tea and discourse with them.
There is the Brummie accent and then there is the Black Country accent. There are a lot of people who think they are the same but they are slightly different. My father’s family came from Birmingham and my mother’s side from Dudley. The black country one is definitely stronger in my opinion.
I'm from Walsall. It makes me cringe when I hear people with a Black Country accent speak on TV or whatever 😬 I don't know why because I love most accents and I don't notice our accents day to day. Just on telly/the radio etc.
nah, Birmingham and Dudley are very different...
I'm from Walsall too and the black country is different never call a yam yam a Brummie that's for sure. We definitely have a "thicker accent" my geography teacher always told us that we would find it hard to get a job anywhere else in the country because of our dialect. I live in Walsall but went to a Wednesbury school which was only over a road and the dialect changed alot. My friends would make fun of me because ( cuz) they thought I sounded posh compared to them. Literally less than a mile difference.
@@charlottemacey5720 i went to university with a guy from the isle of white, he struggled to understand me for few few weeks, now we're good mates. he told me one time his mom went to the asda in wolverhampton, and the person serving her at the till she couldn't understand them at all so he had to translate for her. they found it funny. as he had warned her about the accent.
My Mother-in-law was from Hall Green, and my sister-in-law from Kings Heath and their accents were very different. Even some of the sayings are different.
If you think the Brummie accent is strong good luck with the Geordie accent
I’m from the Black Country and people who speak to them true dialect need a translator. According to a linguistic Professor we are the closest to the old Anglo Saxon.
Try glasweegen
Mackem's even stronger.
That is easier than the Glaswegian, one time I was in a pub in Glasgow, there was friendly guy and I got maybe one word in 50.
Scottish or scouser accents are the hardest to understand when they think there talking on a fast tv talking show 😂
In the UK you literally cannot go 5 miles without the local accent changing, and often it's much less. My work colleagues (that's co-workers to Americans) have at least 6 different accents, and none of them live more than 20 miles away. Locals can usually tell which side of a river you come from, and in extreme cases, even which block you grew up on, purely from your accent.
Three In some places
It’s the Essex accent, I hate. Ugh.
I absolutely hate the G been replaced by sea sound at the end of words I hated been doing more and more. In my very educated nieces, who aren’t even from Birmingham, are now saying that. I have to tell them that they’re sounding uneducated. Which they are not. You’re actually from Norfolk. 🤷♀️
Birminum. We say.
DIALECT not accent , why dont english speakers realize that .
Most Brits can hear a Brummy accent and recognise it. It's one of the most recognisable accents in England for me. That, Geordie (Newcastle), Cockney (London) and Scouse (Liverpool).
He might have fun with broad Yorkshire.
Oi! You missed us Yorkies ahhht
Actually they most often confuse Midland accents and lump them all together as Brummie.
Most visitors will hear immediately the first accent they encounter, dependent on which airport the arrive at, after tha5 if the travel elsewhere they will encounter some or all of the rest. If the go north they will definitely hear major difference# from the standard English the will have mostly encountered before.
I'm from Birmingham, and my wife who speaks Queen's English fell in love with what she calls "The friendliest accent in the UK" when she began working in Dudley, just up the road. The Black Country accent is super friendly and welcoming. The Brummie accent in my experience is the same but toned down quite a bit.
Everybody has at least three accents - your accent when speaking to friends and family - your accent when speaking to people locally - your accent when at work or on the phone. It used to be called your "phone voice" It goes from heavy accent, to almost standard English because you want to be understood.
You missed out Ozzy Osbourne, one of Birmingham's most famous exports and pretty big in the US.
Yeah and they seem to understand him perfectly, strange that.
Love Ozzy❤
Sharooooooon
In the UK, it is understood that you can drive 20 minutes in one direction and get a completely new accent. That doesn't account for the small changes in between.
Wolverhampton is not Birmingham, it is on the edge of an area called 'The Black Country' which is around 12 milees from Birmingham and the accent actually sounds different to a Brummie accent.
Agree people confuse the Black Country accent with Birmingham accent.
@@vickyohara3458 Very, very, true.👍👍👍
I mean I’m from just outside Wolverhampton and people from as close as Liverpool have insisted I have a Brummie accent, so I definitely don’t expect Tyler to ever hear the difference. What I don’t know is why that video was mislabelled.
Tell him Terry! 😆
Great Barr is the tipping point of the Bham accent morphing into the Black Country accent
The Stereotypical Brummie accent is Ozzy Osbourne. Wolverhampton is a city about 15 miles North-west of Birmingham and the accent is different which is what the first woman interviewed has; furthermore it's also different to the "Black Country" area of towns which is located between Wolverhampton and Birmingham that each have their own discrete accents.
Birmingham is pronounced bur-min-GUM.
Normal/ neutral accent is called " received pronunciation "
I’m a Brummie born and bred and I am proud of my lovely Brummie accent! 😀.
Me too, dead proud of it 😂
@@sophiebainbridge9508wait are we coming out of hiding??!! 🤣🤣🤣
The most significant aspect of the Brummie accent is the vowel distortion. When my cousin Karen was a baby (babbie in Brum) my Auntie Iris famously said “‘er cloimbs the sturs and ‘ers nod a beet afroid” which translates as “her (she) climbs the stairs and her’s not a bit afraid”
Her was a brave babbie then, wor er? 😂
I wish in these videos people would differentiate between a Brummie and a Black Country accent. Both different and very recognisable. I can really tell the difference between East West and North Birmingham but it is quite nuanced
We don't emphasize the HAM when pronouncing "Birmingham"... we say "Birming-um". Americans ALWAYS get this wrong, and this rule applies to 99% of place names ending in -HAM.
the HAM and the SHIRE by Americans annoy me, and I'm not even British...even after hearing Brits pronounce UM and SHUR..
It's REALLY irritating
Please make an effort to pronounce OUR place names correctly- you've heard them pronounced correctly often enough ,it's so annoying 🏴
Tyler is a charming American with his own accent, don't force him to change it. If he wants to say Birming..HAM or Warwick..SHIRE let him say it that way. Accents, including american accents are all wonderful.
It’s like telling a non native to pronounce African names properly. Maybe some Polish names etc
I am originally from Birmingham uk I have brummie accent and live here in USA for five years now and very proud of my accent
Yeah - as someone else has already said - The one in Alabama may well be pronounced: "Burr-ming-HAM", but the British second city is pronounced "BER-ming-um".
My Dad is a 'Brummie' although he has lived in Cumbria the last 59 years. He was born in 1937 in Small Heath known for the place the Peaky Blinders were based in the late 1800's. Also the Cadburys firm is and started in Birmingham.
Im from Wolverhampton and under no circumstances do you EVER say to us that you have a brummie accent.
We are only 15 miles away from birmingham but we have a BLACK COUNTRY accent. There are dinstinctive differences between us.
I agree. I'm from Birmingham, but moved to the Black Country when I got married. A big difference in accent. At first I had a hard time understanding what some people were saying! If I had to choose between the two, it's no competition. Black Country all the way!
'Orroyt, mar mayt. Ow am ya?' 👍👍👍
Hi Tyler.
A very good example of the Birmingham accent is Ozzy Osborne.
Love your videos. Makes me appreciate my country more but we have a saying in the U.K. “ The Grass Is Always Greener On The Other Side
I'm born and raised in Birmingham UK. The way Brummies pronounce it is either Brum, Brummigam, Birmingum or Birmingum arr. Christian Bale does a great Brummie accent. In my case I speak RP. I was raised on the BBC during the 70s and 80s. There is prejudice towards the accent. Both Brummie and scouse can be perceived as untrustworthy.
Quick note. Don't mix up Brummies with people from the Black Country. Places like Dudley, Oldbury, Tipton, Wolverhampton or Walsall. It's different.
A mode of public transport around here is a Buzz. 😂
Find examples of a thick Birmingham accent and other thick Midland accents. We all tend to blend words and sentences, ie. “Going to the pub” is “goin t’pub” where I’m from in the Leicestershire/Nottinghamshire border
The Wolverhampton accent is also different from Birmingham though I expect they sound similar to people not from the area. The area around Birmingham is known as the Black Country and includes Dudley, Wolverhampton etc. I am from Smethwick which is a bit of a Brummie, Black Country hybrid , think Julie Walter's natural accent. Black Country has quite a distinct dialect as well and uses things like cor for can't, wo for won't etc.
The lady in the cap isn't from Birmingham and it shows.
Yeah. That was a very soft accent for a brummie and she didn't have the sing-song lilt that a lot of brummies have. Proper bummies voices use a lot of pitches to express themselves.
The first lady in the cap does not sound like ANY Brummie I have ever heard and I lived there for 10 years!
I don't know if you've seen David Crystal's Shakespeare plays performed in a reconstructed version of Shakespeare's original accent, it's so interesting. If you search "David Crystal Shakespeare Original Pronunciation" there are a few short examples and explanations on how you can relatively accurately reconstruct a lost accent using rhymes and metre and stuff. Shakespeare's accent has a lot in common with modern Birmingham accents but has a lot of differences too 😄 Also, the whole north of England all the way down to Birmingham is with you on the vowels in 'laugh' and 'glass' - the south is the odd one out in this case. Also also, Brummie has been done dirty for so long - it's a wonderful accent. At least Peaky Blinders has done a hell of a PR job for it - I'm guessing it's generally seen as a cool accent for people abroad hearing it for the first time through that show but that's just a guess on my part 😄 Thanks for the awesome video Tyler, I love these linguistics ones! xx
My dad and his family were from Coventry, which is just down the road from Birmingham (
Ayyyy I’m in Coventry 🥰 I can’t stand the Brummie or West Country accents lol 🤣🖤
I'm only down the road in Leicester and it's insane how different the Brummie accent is, it almost sounds like they're putting it on for comedic effect.
And yaws wrung there it’s Brumijum.
My mate comes from North Notts and I used to visit my son at De Montfort, so I got used to a Leicester accent. When I tell my mate in Sutton in Ashfield that he sounds the same as someone from Leicester he goes spare!
My family is from Leicester, but I was brought up in Hull. Although you can tell the difference between Midland accents, no one up North would know the difference. My Dad was mistaken by someone as a Londoner when he first turned up in Hull, because that’s all they knew. My Dad also has a soft Leicestershire accent because he was brought up all over there and Lincolnshire (his dad was in the RAF), whereas his youngest brother has a strong inner city Leicester accent (he was brought up on the Saff). I can tell the difference, but Northerners wouldn’t, and I can hear differences between Hull, East Yorkshire, York or Leeds, but you probably wouldn’t! I think all the regions of this country are the same in that locals can tell an accent difference of 5 miles, but outsiders can’t.
I'm originally from Wolverhampton, just like the woman in the video. I have not lived there since 1980 and have been living in Shanghai for the last 15 years. British people here instantly know that I am from the Midlands but cant quite place me as being from Wolverhampton, my accent has obviously changed. When I do go back to visit family I love hearing their Wolverhampton accents. Like others have said, there is a whole variety of local accents between Wolverhampton and Birmingham.
Absolutely the wolves accent is definitely not the same as a Brummy one
Yamyam!
Another Wulfrunian here. Wolverhampton is two accents at least away from Birmingham. I’ve also lived in Bilston, Wednesbury and Tipton and the Black Country accent changes depending on the area. And if anyone thinks a Brummie accent difficult, try Gornal. I used to go to the Wolverhampton Motorcycle and Car Club when it met in Lower Gornal and occasionally I’d need a phrase book!
I've lived in SW Ireland for the past 25 years, my neighbours and friends have said that I still have my English accent, a cross between a South East London (Mother's) and RP (Father's), yet when I go back to England always get asked what part of Ireland am I from, not yet acquired a Cork accent but phrasing obviously gives it away.
Another wolves man here. Proud of my accent and hate being called a Brummie. At uni I had a guy from Sutton Coldfieldon my corridor and we used to argue about who had the worst accent. His was so thick. But the locals used to compare my accent to the Prudential advert where the guy sounded so thick. But the Oxfordshire locals sounded like they had crawled from under the nearest hedge.
ild think that the brummie accent in the usa would be best known as ozzy osborne, he must have one of the best known one out there
They don't seem to have any problems with him though do they? Funny that.
I loved working in Birmingham, I live in Coventry, short train journey. Initially on the phones couldn't understand them got so proficient did audio typing for solicitors. Friendliest place imo. Initially a big difference between us accent wise. 👵🇬🇧😅
This was amazing! As a Norwegian, I learned a lot :-)
Yeah.. unfortunately the majority of the UK class the Brummy accent as 'stupid'.
The Newcastle accent is generally received as the friendliest but it's also quite difficult for Americans to understand. I think it depends on how thick the accent is, but that's the same for any UK accent. If it's extremely thick, no matter the region, it can be difficult to understand even for us!
I'm from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire and we're a mix of the Nottingham, Yorkshire and Sheffield accents but we're about 30 mins to 1 hour away from each location. To me, we sound very friendly but also very stupid 🤣. We drop plurals, the and to in sentences. You're unlikely to hear one of us say 'going to the shops' we'd say 'goin' shop'. And with the really thick accents we change words like 'cold' to 'code' or 'really' to 'rate'. For example 'its rate code today, I'm not goin' shop'
Accents are very interesting!!!
I worked in Birmingham for a few years it wasn’t just the accent that made me think that
My mates from Sutton in Ashfield and I like to tell him he sounds the same as someone from Leicester or Derby? He bites every time!
Quite difficult for the rest in the UK to understand to be fair
Its well accepted that there are at least 40 regional accents in the UK, which is impressive for a country with the same landmass as Michigan.
That is just the major ones. In some places both accent and dialect varies almost from street to street.
lol 40 accents in a 40 mile radius more like.
Australia is the opposite. The standard accent is pretty flat and if you avoid a few key words people might never know you grew up thousands of miles away.
Some say that the sing-song accent of Birmingham (and the rest of the West Midlands) might be an ancient, 6th century leftover from the last remaining Brythonic-speaking Celts in the area, such as the Cornovii tribe, as Old English gradually moved westwards, and replaced the Old British language. The Brummies might have simply retained their former Celtic, Cornovian accent, while gradually switching to Old English
We can hear the accents loud and clear from within the UK
Even I can hear them and English is not my native language.
Lady in the interview video is from Wolverhampton. This is slightly different from Birmingham. It is known as yamyam or Black Country accent. You should look at the differences between them as they are very close in distance. These two accents are closest to old English (as far as I’m aware) . The teaching couple is brummie though. The negative is they say they sound stupid.
I don't think she was from Wolverhampton (I am) I am pretty sure she was saying someone who called her had a Wolverhampton girlfriend and thought she had the same accent, an easy mistake to make for someone not from the area. To be complete a deep black country accent is not actually an accent it's a dialect with a shitload of history.
@@vtbn53 An entire dialect is definitely right. I'm no linguist, but I'm pretty sure it mixes Germanic elements (e.g. bist, bin) with old fashioned English (e.g. thee). "Ow bist thee, ower kid?"
@@jdp You have that perfect, I like where yow bin? I'm bin cooming. Not perfect but you get my drift?
@@vtbn53 My fave Black Country joke: Two cats in an alley in Cradley. One says to the other "Ow meow?"
@@jdploff!
I wouldn’t say that any of the folk appearing in this video have a particularly strong ‘Brummie’ accent.
There is no “normal accent “ in England…..we’re all different..I’m from Derbyshire but when I’m in the US everyone asks me if I’m from Australia 😂
I live not too far from Derbyshire but the accent is markedly different from mine. They always sound like a mix of brummy and a northern accent to me. I really enjoy it.
My cousin is from London but lives in florida. He gets the same thing all the time 😂
Never noticed I end words with an intrusive K before, darn. 43 and still learning things about myself. And as a reference, the Weasley mum/dad in Harry Potter are Brummies.
And Fred/George (the twins) aren't from too far away either - Sutton Coldfield iirc.
I am a Yorkshireman who has lived in Brum for 40 years (Brum: aka Birmingham - the 'h' is not aspirated). The accents around here vary considerably with distance, and one risks life and limb in confusing Yardley and Yamyam (the latter is not Brummie).
By the way - your video is bostin!
My mum is from Sheffield (West Riding, I think?) & Dad was from Cambridge (both still have their accents, lol). And I was born in Brum, so mine and my sibling's accents were a mix of mum's & dads pre-school, and from then on, were a bit of a Heinz 57, haha. Then I moved to London for ten years after college. The Londoners took the pee, and when I visited home, my friends took the pee. 😳
Hiya, The British do tend to be very good at picking out accents down to quite a small area, I'm from Wolverhampton {about 15-20 mile outside of Birmingham). Most people can tell the difference between a Birmingham and Wolverhampton accent, There is also the Black Country (The Black Country is the area roughly in-between the to Cities which tends to join and incorporate areas of the Two) and not only has it's own accent, has it's own language that a lot of Brits struggle to understand.
The atypical British accent is known as 'Received Pronunciation'. Or if you like Old style BBC announcing. Especially in the BBC News. Over the past decade or so accents have been more readily accepted.
When i was 13 i went to see the Commodores in Birmingham they were from Tuskegee and knew Birmingham Alabama. They didn't just say the name. They joked about it and we loved them. They connected with all of us.
Lots of different accents in the UK,I live in Greater London and London has different accents, People in East London ( Cockneys ) sound different from South Londoners.
I was born and raised in Scotland and what people from outside Scotland don't realise is that we have different accents too, people from Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Dundee all sound different and have different dialects and as a Scot I struggle to understand someone from Aberdeen
I've got a london accent. We had a new starter at work this week who was American-ish (she came from Ireland but parents and friends were all American). She could not understand a word I said to her. Genuinely had to repeat everything 3 times in different ways until she got it. Bizare to me as it was the first time I've had this happen from memory.
West country (Somerset, cornwall), Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Northern Irish, Brummie, London, Yorkshire, Geordie, Norwich, etc.. are other accents you could study for sure.
Oh yeah and Liverpudlian.
"Learn it me" = teach it to me. "Give it me" = May I have. Grroit =Great!
Ham is an old English word meaning an estate. Therefore the estate of the Birning family. Yes Ozzy Osbourne is a popular midland export, however ELO the Electric Light Orchestra, were also from the city as were the lesser know band Magnum. The band Judas Priest were from the town of Walsall near Birmingham. Robert Plant from Lead Zeppelin is from Wolverhampton.
My father is from Birmingham although left the city in his youth to move into the rural North. I don't have the accent.
I like the Brummie accent, but I did live in Brum for seven years when I was in my twenties.
Many of the English dialects have names, not just Brummie. Other good dialect names include Geordie (Newcastle), Scouse (Liverpool) and Cockney (20th century East London ... but now being superseded by 'multicultural london english', a blend of Cockney with dialects from India and from the Carribbean). I have avoided the word accent because these dialects include local words (and sometimes local grammatical features) as well.
The Birmingham accent is believed to the be part of the Anglo saxons language where most of people in Anglo saxons time spoke very similar then William the conker came and the language started a bit of French was starting to come in and it mixed with the old English language so Birmingham people spoke a bit like the old English in the Anglo Saxons times which is quite the interesting to know people of Birmingham speaking old English and most of are Ancestors and
I'm loving your struggle, Tyler!
Every time I hear the Brummie accent I hear the words "Crossroads Motel,may I help you?"🎩
Years ago. I was going to interview someone to fill a role. My colleague warned me that ‘he sounds slow, but that’s just cos he’s from Birmingham’
(Not realising that my parents were Brummies.
If you went from the south of England to the north of Scotland, or the west of wales to the east of england you find enormous variation in accents.
And he still wouldn't understand any of them 😂😂
@@101steel4 🤣🤣🤣
It always makes me think of an old advert 'We want to be together.'
Showing your age there! (I remember it too lol). The advert was with the guy who plays Arthur Weasley in harry potter, right?
@@Fluffnugget78 Yep, lol. I also remember the Anthony Head serial with Gold Blend, the will they won't they thing. The milk one and 'Accrington Stanley' lol
@@wereleopard58yepihavetwo2 Accrington Stanley, who are they?! lol. They don't make adverts like they used to.
@@Fluffnugget78 No, they don't lol.
I remember asking my uncle where he came from as his accent was strange….8 miles away!
If they had interviewed someone from Wolverhampton or Dudley they would have said they were brummie accents but brummies would say it’s yam yam (Black Country) this region is not in Birmingham
I love how he calls the lady being interviewed as having a strong accent. Oh my sweet, summer child 🤣
I wish you would do a video on "Cockney Rhyming Slang"
Apples & Pears = Stairs
Hank Marvin = Starving
That would be interesting to see your reaction..
It's a form of speaking that comes from London
What Tyler decribes as a 'normal English accent' is called 'Received Pronunciation'. It tends to be used by people from the South of England, and/ or by very middle class people.
The Birmingham accent is seen as a very low status accent (not by everyone) and companies with large call centres don't tend to locate themselve in the West Midlands for this reason. It's a ridiculous view- and I quite like the accent - maybe because my grandparents lived in Wolverhampton (about 15 miles from Birmingham) and so it's familiar and comforting to me. It has a very sing-song lilt to it.
The sing-song aspect being similar to Welsh isn't a coincidence- Birmingham is relatively close to the Welsh border.
The short 'a' sound is used acros the Midlands and the North, whereas the long 'a' is very Southern.
A lot of call centres are located in the North East: Newcastle, Sunderland, Teesside etc. People quite like northern accents. They're seen as friendly. You do have to soften your accent a bit so southerners can understand you and some places are pretty strict about not using local slang.
@@DraggonnyI remember getting a scouse call centre. I had an easier time understanding an Indian one 😂
It's funny you say that about the call centres - I (from Dudley) used to work in a Wolverhampton-based call centre for Lloyds Bank. My Black Country accent isn't that strong (one of my colleagues thought I was Australian) so most people I got on the phone thought I was from the south, supposedly from places like Bath and Swindon. Only the local callers could tell I was one of them.
It did teach me that not everyone calls roundabouts 'islands' though 🤣
I live in Gloucester and oddly my pronunciation of "a" has changed in the last ten years or so. I used to use a long a and now I use a short a. I have no idea when or why this began to change but interestingly enough people perceive me as friendlier since it did.
Have to listen to Scouse and Geordie accents there difficult and strong, West country is very noticeable and then Scottish, welsh and northern Irish English
I have a non-UK question on accents : Americans and Canadians have both told me they have different accents - I have never been able to tell the difference (watching films). Can anyone give me some differences, I would be very grateful.....
Ask them to say "about" 😉
My experience is the Brummie accent is usually mis-interpreted as Australian by Americans
"All" English accents 😉
Find some Jasper Carrott. Especially the bit about his trip to Old Trafford on an away day
Yeah, the Brummie accent is a lot more musical sounding than most other ‘English’ accents. Our proximity to Wales and long history gradually meant we picked up some Welsh sounding tones 😊
According to the experts it’s also because we are the closest to the old Anglo Saxon and it’s unique for that because it’s not just an accent. It’s a dialect.
Watch Cat Deeley and Ossie Osbourne in the old days. Don't think they have lost their accents altogether now though. The chat is faster when in Brum, which is harder to catch on to.
When I finally moved out of my parent's house and bought my own first home it was in the same town where I was born and had lived all my life.
Whilst moving my belongings the few miles from my parent's house to my own first home, as my partner and I were emptying the car and carrying everything into the new house, we got chatting with our new neighbours. It was then that my neighbour asked my partner, "Where are your from? Because it's not from around here". My partner told the neighbour the name of the town where she was born and grew up. That town is only 30 miles away from our front door!
This is a good example of how much the accents change in such a short distance here in the UK. Just 30 miles and yet the neighbour immediately picked up on the different accent.
Try understanding Stoke-onTrent. Spoken only within a tiny area of N Staffordshire.
Cos' kick a bo' 😉
the first video you showed was the best one for learning the accent - she has a range of videos
But she is from Wolverhampton so it's not relevant
Everybody has an accent. I hate when people say they “don’t have an accent” that’s fundamentally misunderstanding what an accent actually is
If you heard the Birmingham accent against others like the Welsh accents, Scottish accents, Geordie accent, Liverpool accent, Northern Irish accent, Yorkshire accents we all sound completely different.
Yup, even a 'neutral' accent is still an accent 👍
Você Tyler é um americano simpático e muito bonito.
i was born in 63 now obviously i did not get my accent until i was at a young age , but also i got my accent from my grand mother and also my grandad .
in the early seventies some of us with a thick accent the schools wanted to change the accent .
I learnt the proper English but still kept my roots
how you officially speak is out of the nose upper section of the mouth and top teeth .
we also put words together from a sentence into one word
The women in the cap doesnt sound like a brunmie
Pedantic comment coming up; One of the two ladies on the sofa was from Wolverhampton so had a 'black country' accent, and although only 10 miles from Birmingham the accent is stronger, and they are referred to as 'Yim Yams', on account of the use of 'yam'(you am) instead of 'you are'.
I grew up just south of Brum so for 18 years spoke with a light brummie accent. I think (hope) it's worn off in the years since. There's a car channel called Carwow where Mark speaks exactly like I once did. There are also some distinct differences in accent in different parts of the west midlands. We lovingly call our relatives from Stourbridge "yam yams"
yes we hear the brummie accent as clearly as american's hear a new yorkers accent, the neighbouring towns might get mistaken for brummies as a person from new jersey might for a new yorker
I live in the West Midlands, you have the brummie accent and you have the black country accent. You should give the Black Country Accent, the start of the industrial revolution. Peaky blinders was also filmed there. There are lots of historical places, Dudley castle, Crooked House (just made the news) enjoy if you take a look.
I hate to say this but the lady on the couch was actually a Wolverhampton accent rather than a Brummie one. The Labour Party MP Jess Phillips or ali Campbell of UB40 are probably the easiest example of a Brummie Accent you can find. If you want another Wolverhampton accent i'd suggest Noddy Holder from the 1970's band slade Search "Nibble Nobby’s Nuts - Not Noddy’s Advert".
And I still missed the most famous Brummie of all Ozzy Osbourne.
Fun fact: Brummie comes from the word Brummagem, an alternative, and slightly pejorative, alternative to the name Birmingham.
At the start of the 20th century almost all the people in the UK stayed in their birth area with their accents that was before WWI. The men at least were sent overseas to Europe and African areas of the war, in other words they mixed with other accents so as a matter of understanding each other accents started to smooth out. After that period the biggest social pointer was what industries were in your area. Eg. Scotland was always known for ship building as well as Northern Island (birth place of Titanic) so they were good engineers. The Midlands AKA the area around Birmingham was always Iron making including mining for coal and Ore then smelting and Steal making. Fun fact the Navy had all their chains made in that area called the Black Country just SW of the city, but it was a lot of cottage industry my great, granma’s trade was a chain maker on my dads birth certificate she worked in the garden foundry. All this means was that people who lived around that area with their accent and the heavy industry jobs they weren’t recognised as being very well educated at that time. So the British Isles was parcelled out in job oriented expectations. Just a bit of old knowledge ok?
Nowadays people in the UK move around a hell of a lot more and the accents are more of a melting pot situation with the accents like different coloured paints mixed in a bucket. Can’t really differentiate easily nowadays
Cheers Aah kid (black county or Brummy saying - aah kid), going is pronounced GOO-IN as in arm gooin down the road!
Good upload - and I'm a Geordie (age 80+). Hello again and thank you for all your excellent uploads and commentaries. May I suggest that you take a look at and comment upon a WWII documentary called Stories from the Blitz | Documentary. It's not dead on accurate (from an ancient Geordies POV) but it does give a lot of perspective and info that isn't covered in the other documentaries I've seen on YT and other commenters said the same thing. I think a lot of your followers (even young what was WWII ones) will find very informative and balanced. Just one thing - crime was down South a LOT more than up North - the "London Spivs" are small time crimmos and have always been a pain in London's underbelly.
"Joel & Lia" ("Those Two Brits") -- OFFICIALLY OVER! Yay! (Hint, hint Tyler and Ryan.)
I live on the north side of a bridge between North Lincolnshire and East Yorkshire. The bridge is less than 2 mile long and the accent changes between the north and south side - alas for the north side ( it`s an ancient difference of opinion.... ).
Part of the reason there are a lot of similarities between the way people from the Midlands/the North and in the USA pronounce vowels is due to the fact that a lot of the English people who emigrated to North America in the 17th century (as a result of religious conflicts and non-conformism) were from the Midlands and further north. I'm guessing this had an impact on the development of American English accents.
Ironic that you're reacting to the Birmingham accent but don't have a single person speaking with a Birmingham accent. They're just talking ABOUT the Birmingham accent. I can talk about monkeys but I don't sound like one.
Needs more Jamelia.
As the caption said Cillian Murphy was born in Douglas, Cork, Ireland, on 25 May 1976. wikipedia.
My dad was from Birmingham. I miss his accent so much 😢
I live in Staffordshire, a very short distance away from Birmingham. And the accents here are so strange, there's hint of brummie with some people and a hint of black country and then also some other kind of accent I can only describe as a 'Staffordshire accent'. It's super weird how accents seem to change from town to town. My friends at university couldn't place where I was from, until I did a presentation in class and all of a sudden all they could hear is brummie. As soon as my presentation ended I went back to what they describe as' normal'. The nerves must've brought out the tiny bit of brummie in me
Yo doe talk proper like we dun. I'm a Yam Yam not a brummie. The Black Country is not Birmingham. Not a single person in Wolverhampton would say they are a brummie, would never happen 😂
I was gonna comment this. I spent the first few years of my life in Great Barr which, I would say, is straddling the Brummy and Yam Yam divide and almost all of my family are still over there. I've witnessed many a light hearted (and some not so light hearted) argument over the difference in accents and identity. It's also crazy how small the divide between the accents can be too. My cousin and his wife grew up within a mile of each other, just on different housing estates on opposite sides of a big main road. He sounds like a regular brummy (albeit with a really strong accent) and his wife sounds Black Country.
My friend was born and raised in Brum, even she cannot stand the accent 😅
When I lived in London people picked me up on the strong final g. The sing-song comes from the strong influx of the Welsh
Not a Single Brummie accent to be found, the first accent was more of ab americanised accent, like an American trying to fake an accent. The 2nd lady was from Walsall by the sound of it.
Learning why my own accent is different to others in the UK 😅
There is a Wolverhampton in my group who is researching her family surname WANE and it sounds more like WINE when she says it.
Actually originally as a Black Country lad (Tipton/Coseley) I can easily tell a Princes End (Coseley/Tipton) from a Dudley accent and the distance apart is less than 3 miles.
There are other videos with one person presenting a variety of different British accents.
I think that's Siobhan Thomas from 'Anglophenia' (?) She "does" 17 different accents, including Dublin, which as she admits is not a 'British' accent per se but because she can, she includes it. 😊
It was a good idea to switch between a tutorial and a "real" example. The British accent could be a fun rabbit hole to go down, how about looking at Geordie / Newcastle next?