I have an awful, awful East Belfast accent... Deep and vaguely threatening-sounding, until I get excited/wound up, then it's much higher pitched and shouty

Oh yes, it's occasionally very nasally and certain words come out posh-sounding compared to the rest for some reason. Oh, and I've found the accent holds me back when I go to pronounce some words

Anyone who's ever been to Belfast probably recognises the above...

I don't know if they're still around but I did some podcasts for Custom PC if anyone wants to hear what I sound like, no idea where to get the links though.

Although I'm not using my 'normal' voice, you can hear me in the following videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2ULll2wN5I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbjymG6F-3w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YukOHBfxtr4

very strong very fast east end of london accent ...
(born in bow E3 dragged up in forest gate E7)

I am not sure, but once when I was a student in college in Birkenhead, I cracked a joke and the Mancunian lecturer said "you Scousers are all the same." I'm WELSH!

There is a large population of people from England in my area and it's bound to influence my accent, and seeing as how many of them are from Merseyside then I suppose someone from Manchester could pick that up. However, from time to time I have noticed a real (north Wales) Welsh pronunciation of a word I've spoken.

I once dealt with a Polish truck driver who was living in and working from Eire. I couldn't place his accent at first but I realised that he was from the European mainland. When I had the full story, I said to him "So, you've picked up some of the Irish accent" to which he replied "No, I haven't" in a pure Dublin accent.

I was born in London, spent most of my early life in Milton Keynes and have lived in Manchester for the last 10 years. People can tell that I'm from down south, but my accent is very neutral, especially when compared to my brothers.

Yorkshire (south) but a little diluted due to spending years away from "home" in Coventry and Nottingham.

Although my dialect (you were asking about accent, right?) is a lot different from when I lived in my home town to now.

Let's not confuse accent and dialect.

Dialect is the use of words that are peculiar to a certain area. For example, dumbledore is a dialect word for bumble bee; in other places the insects are known as bishy barnabies. You can use those words, no matter what your accent is.

Someone from Barnsley will have a form of Yorkshire accent which is distinct from the north Yorkshire accent. The Barnsley resident may also have certain dialect words that may be unfamiliar to their northern cousin, and vice versa.

Still in Yorkshire, in the city of York, there is the famous tourist area known as The Shambles. As a word, it means mess, muddle, confusion, disorder. But in the local dialect, derived probably from Anglo-Saxon, it means the area where the butchers had their shops and slaughterhouses. Shambles in a dialect means something different to the word in everyday use.

I'll collect my dictionary on the way out...

There are very few surviving dialects in this country that get a regular outing. One is the kind we speak, the other is Geordie. Others are kept going in a folk craft kind of way, but they are not in regular use.

What is interesting is the cause of the death of dialects in this country. It was the railways, and, according to the history teacher I had, the dialect we speak is not a London derived one, but one spoken in the Midlands. It was spread by rail travel and, if his information was correct, disseminated to the masses in music halls.

I had, until very recently, a clip of TinBath on my XP machine back at home.


Well we can't have everyone tarred with the same brush (8-p)


Some would say too nice (8-p)

Aha - it was you.

I've been trying to figure that out for hours.

when I was there I found it really hard not to laugh at that very accent, especially when you hear kids speak, noone in actually speaks but they "bellow/shout" what they are saying with their heavy drunk belfast accent




what the actual f**k? you sound like one of those irritating salesman from the 60s with a moustache and weird greased up hair, and you sound like a 40+ year old in the vids too, what a weird weird accent you got and you actually have a teapot? how very british and again weird

A simplified view somewhat but as my english teacher once said "dialect is the words you say, accent is how you say them"

I even get pictures of her sent to my phone from her.
She's a very kind person to me.

Mark

You can't say that on the internet or someone will invoke 'PoiDH'.

Jon