30 Dialects of the English language in the UK 

That is the result of standardized education. It's a good thing these accents are being recorded, because they will soon be lost forever. A sad byproduct of standardization.

The main things to blame for the loss of accents in the UK are the effects of mass media. Since most TV shows are in some American or the Received pronunciation the weans pick up on it more which leads to em losing bits & pieces of their own way of talking. This is pretty easily seen in Northern Ireland where I know my wee brother doesnae know certain words meaning in our dialects. He'd likely not use words like Scundered, wean, craic, & so on. I didnae use them but I kinda realised I am from Northern Ireland & I should speak more like it so I deliberately started to say words like this more to try & preserve the dialect but the amount of american terms the weans use shows how the internet has caused this erosion of local culture by leading to this. But then again pretty sure the exam board in Northern Ireland doesn't mind the use of Northern Irish terms like yous, you's or however ye wanta spell it.

Multiple lols

Omg 😂😂😂

Probably because the old people were only too happy to talk to them, whereas, if they asked somebody younger they were most likely told to 'F@#K OFF!'

OMG HAHAHAHAHHAHA

"Master, you have given Dobby socks. DobBy iS FrEe"

I wouldn't doubt it. I'm not from the UK, but here in the US, I can break up the city of New York into at least six different accents, and that's just one city out of dozens.

+myowncomputerstuff only dozens of cities in the us have accents?

Texasyellow Monkee I didn't want to say "hundreds". That would be pushing it. But surely a few dozen of the major cities have distinct accents. The smaller ones just cling to the accent of the region. For example, the people in the city of Casper have an accent that's not really distinct from the rest of the state and neighboring states.

myowncomputerstuff being frm ny i guess southern accents all sound the same to u lol...its coo all ny accents sound similar to me too...southern drawls vary city to city...state to state...

Texasyellow Monkee I know there's a variety of accents down there. They are just more region-specific than city-specific. From my experience, I know inland Kentucky has a particularly raspy sound to it that locals have called the "smoky mountain accent", Virginia also has a very high pitch twang on short vowels sounds once you distance yourself from DC. And the coast sounds drastically different from the Appalachians. Then there are pockets I've visited that hardly have a general southern accent at all. Atlanta seems to be losing the accent gradually, and southern Florida is just full of influence from northerners (and Hispanics near Miami).

Anglus Patria racist

@Anglus Patria it still is though. 80.5% of England identified as NATIVE white British according to the latest official census

@Anglus Patria you have no comeback so you just call him a racist?

@@portelm3137 Name country in the world that wouldn't have a problem with being replaced out of your own home.

Well this country is less english, but NO ONE EVEN REALISES THAT THIS BASTARD HAS A FACIST FLAG IN HIS PROFILE PICTURE. THIS IS ENGLAND NOT GERMANY.

The Welsh one is all to cock also, thats a south Wales accent. The 'Gogs' up North is different from that.

+Zig Zag And the west

Ano go between eh edinbuggers and the weegies and wan canny understand eh other at aw

No one cares about Scotland

MKRM27 hahaha try all the Scottish people?? And if we're no here , what country are you going to steal oil from? Gonna start another illegal war?don't think you can claim that EVERY middle eastern country has nukes,but fucking try if you want . We scots and the Norwegian folks are laughing

claire cheskin exactly in the north it’s more strong but I’m the south (where I’m from) it’s a little more faded

Grandma - you have the same name as my second account and profile picture

claire cheskin exactlyyy 😂

Grandma - I’m from north wales x

No

Time tends to do that to people.

in the uk are only living old granpas lol

+Zig Zag yes, so funny, congrstulations for your joke. Your medal is in the way.

I assume it's because younger people are less likely to speak these regional dialects, due to the influence of TV and radio and the stigma around these seemingly old-fashioned dialects that are at odds with the cosmopolitan dialects heard on TV and the radio. I think the Manx English heard in this video has been supplanted by English English dialects but I could be wrong about that. I was listening to 'Manx' (Gaelg) speakers on RU-vid and they seem to 'speak Manx' by saying Manx (Gaelg) words in a Manx accent. If it were 50 years ago or more, maybe that wouldn't be so bad but the phonetics of modern Manx English (which seems to be mainly a recent import from mainland Britain) is probably very different from the phonetics of the Manx language as it was spoken by the real native speakers of the past.

The geordie bloke would be about 30. We sound older because of dialect is quite rough

As someone who has heard spoken bits of Appalachian English in real life ( ozark / south Appalachian accent ). Yeah, a lot of these come off familar and pretty understandable. It seems UK speakers don't understand it, but Appalachian English speakers do more than standard English speakers.

@@MaoRatto What?

​@@thomsboys77 Here's an easier way of putting it... It seems like the UK don't have an easy time understanding it.... It just sounds very familiar and reminds me a lot of the accents regionally. It is easy to and noticed most people in the other comments don't understand it. East Midlands so much like Appalachian to me outside of the vocabulary and the R sound.

You definitely see a LOT more varied accents in the older English speaking countries. You should visit England to encounter yourself! I'm half Irish and living here now, and again there are so many different Irish accents per region.

I know, right? They're far more different from each other than, say, Kent and what's called "south-east" here. Somerset wasn't there at all - a land of silence between the West country and Devon...

YES!

Catherine Butler well I agree on the Wales front but the way they have done the south east is ridiculous anyway. Hampshire shouldn't be lumped in that category

was that north wales then? (assuming because he said machynlleth was "down") i lived in mid-wales and no one had that accent there

Or between glasweigen central or ediinburgh accents

First

And in every other region including within this video, but if you read the title it says ‘30’.

Kristin P. we don’t talk like that at all lmaooo

I’m from the East Midlands as well and what you describe sounds genuinely fascinating. I’d be intrigued to hear that.

Real British accents before 3rd world immigration destroyed our country.

@@grimaldus1967 More like American cultural imperialism.

will deely how is that racist?

@@TH-sw1yx Learned from the best!

RIR.16AA xenophobia 😍😍😍

To be fair, I'm a native English speaker from the UK, and I found it hard to understand a few of these. Very poor audio recordings for some, and I think very outdated accents.

Native American English speaker here, most of them were difficult to understand entirely and a few sounded like foreign languages.

Im a native english speaker and i can barely understand half of these lmao

As a native American English speaker with Appalachian influence and exposure via real life. These accents are pretty inteligable via Appalachian English sounds very similar to a lot of these. A lot of it has to do with bad audio or weird stress patterns. Sounds like spoken middle english at times.

To be honest, it's a running joke that rural Yorkshire is essentially its own language

Who is an an American? You mean ananas?

There's more than that Steve. I'd hate to be compared with modern day Bradford or Huddersfield accents. Compare Castleford with Halifax.

Steve Kellett ezzle roadddd

Blast Thunder I’m from Hull, well East Riding to be exact but I can honestly tell you there is a big difference from even Leeds accent to a hull one you can tell somebody is from Hull by the way they pronounce the letter O’s in words and when I was working with people from Leeds they say the word now as naaa and also they skip words like they’ll say “I’m going across t’road” 😂😂

Not such a joke in Hull. I can usually tell which side of the river Hull someone was brought up on, just from their accent, and to a certain extent, I'll get an idea of which area beyond that they're from: in some cases, right down to which housing estate they hail from.

Yeah, but Hull isn't Yorkshire.

Sounds Germanic.

Studio Avocat Haha that's great :)

No it don't. (English launage/accent) I am English so I'm not being harsh

+SynthesizerSounds it doesn't just vary between north and south but between English and Welsh speakers

+SynthesizerSounds The Cardiff accent is distinctive, too - very different from a South Wales accent.

+SynthesizerSounds way more than 3. In fact once January exams are over (I am a student) I plan to do a video on Welsh accents

Trent Report Agree

+Trent Report yup apparently the whole of Wales sounds the same and the only difference in Scotland is from the highlands to the lowlands which as a Scot my self i can say is complete and utter shit

I was born in Wales, lived here my whole life... but don’t speak welsh So what am I?!?

+Akela 14 a non-Welsh speaker. Also pedantic as the OP said that said accents were different (and they are) not that either was good or bad

Welsh Boy ppppttthh I rather die thanks.

There is more than one accent in North Wales. North East Wales has a strange mix of Northern Welsh and Scouse with hints of Cheshire and Shropshire. North West Wales has a harsher sounding but still "sing-songy" version of South Welsh.

@@carlh429 Don't call north western Welsh south Welsh!

I once went to north wales on holiday and I thought the accent was fairly similar to a scouse one

@@mangocrumble3419 it is it's like a mix between Welsh and Scouse because near the border Similar to how people from Northumberland sound a mix of Scottish and English

Good point.

you forgot to add some old norse words as well...

+Randomstuff Of course, like TAKE, LEG, SKY, WANT, TELL.

"HAHAHA UR LANGWEJ IS GAY" - Random Spaniard 2016

How to make a germanic language 1: Steal every world you can from the romans. 2: add random fucking symbols and noises. 3: Make an anagram of these words. 4: Enjoy!

For real cosmopolitanism, also add American mis-spellings.

+GoatFader Whatis needed is CURRENT recordings of UK dialects. Posts on youube also cover slang from different geo. areas of USA. Most of that slang is from the 1880s - 1900. Not current at all. Criminy!

+GoatFader Are you embarrased of your accent of what? Stop denying how you speak i have been to UK and i KNOW EXACTLY that they speak like this. This video is good for us foreigners to hear how you speak

+Diamant Kusen I have lived in the UK all my life, I live in the East Midlands and that accent sounds NOTHING at all like how most speak, mine is a mix between the more posher British accent but also has a little mix of dialect slang and accent from the east. But the voice in this video was totally wrong

+Chloe Price, I didn't know you were British!

Perhaps your voice was the voice which was totally wrong... You have the posher sound. Perhaps the voice was from someone who didn't or tried to avoid the posh sound.

that's because its an old recording. People in Sussex did indeed used to speak like that.

Sophie Jenkins Now no more, it's seems that there are likely lots of cockney,south-eastern and Scottish accent speaking people here.

+Jazir Kamal the British library has recordings from between the fifties and seventies of different dialect I believe some of the clips are from there. It is all online. Strangely some accents have got stronger since, such as the Northumbrian/Geordie accent and Cockney

+Peace and Justice Sophie J is right. The Suffolk recording is from the Survey of English Dialects done back in the 1950s and early 60s. The Suffolk recording in this video is of a retired gardner from East Harting called Harry Prior who was born in 1881 making him 135. Also East Harting is in the far west of the county. But either way, no wonder you don't recognize his accent.

+Trent Report Maybe the Sussex accent might be rare these days. Because many people from the north,London,Scotland and Ireland have migrated to this county.

Thing is, I could understand most of these English accents shown pretty well. Same can't be said for German

brandybuck1984 way too many generalisations, the whole of Yorkshire = 1 dialect? Whole of Wales = 1 dialect? Only 2 dialects in Scotland? Only one accent in the West Midlands and the East Midlands only has one too? At least the south east is covered reasonably well and the north west is fairly well covered.

Cephlin The purpose of this video is not to be comprehensive, it is only a selection. Plus I am not a native speaker, so it is sometimes extremely hard for me to identify dialects and see if an audio record is really relevant.

Hera but Robin Hood ^_^

Cephlin lol

+brandybuck1984 You can't have every single local dialect, then there would be hundreds, or even thousands.

This is english ignorance from the post at its finest there are plenty more than two accents in scotland don’t believe this wank

theres a differnce in the accent, from those who live west of the tyne bridge and those who live to the east. the west side is diluted by northumbrian.....its around byker where the accent is thickest. tynemouth accent is more diverse, lot of posh middle class folk live there.

I wouldn't say any accents in the toon have been diluted by Northumbrian. If anything, its up here in Northumberland that our accent is getting diluted by Geordie

@@whentheleveebreaks3962 It's all a matter of perspective, innit? 😉

@Gísiu Wolf The further out into the wilds of wannie you go, you can still find it mind. If you're in a pub in Rothbury or round Coquetdale it's still as strong as its always been.

they just have the stereotypical scots

Yoda I am Doric is not spoken in the Highlands or Inverness. Its spoken in Aberdeenshire.

I second this! Been searching for examples online for a while

Liam Cundle i'm from the midlands...

Ash Lol soo true! Derbyshire! 😂

Pogo The Clown you from Derbyshire as Well?

Midlands? What is that imaginary place?

john v Only the best place in the entire UK (West > East Midlands :D)

Unfortunately most regional accents are dying out - being replaced by more general ones. Some accents have become stronger though Dialects with their own words and vocabulary are long gone from the areas close to London with standard upbringings - academic speech defines the populations of these counties. However, there are still some speakers of almost all of these and I wish for one day to have children taught phonics in their local speech and their parents can speak to them in dialect (wishful thinking but oh well) By the way, this isn’t even all the accents. Wales and Northern Ireland have at least 5, Scotland could have up to 20. England has many more not mentioned here like Mackem, Smoggie, other Teeside accents, Wigan, Black Country, Somerset, Herefordshire, Salopian, and the counties of East Midlands have their own accents, while northern counties of York, Northumberland, Durham and Cumbria have regional accents within the counties, Cumbria even has different numbers depending on what town you’re in… there are many many traditional accents and dialects, but as I said a lot are dying out

I just could understand a thing the Manx English was saying.

That Contra Guy Me neither or the Scottish.

It's nothing like a foreign language. It's a dialect of English in England.

poodtang1 well you are just stupid and do not listen properly. I can understand all British accents.

lots of American Southerners got their way of speaking partially from Northern English

All the examples sound like they were recorded on different cassette tapes at least 6 feet away from the speaker, half of which are mumbling rapidly. It's just not terribly helpful. I'm a little confused though, some of these are more accents than dialects or am I plain wrong? Regarding accents for Scotland/Wales/Ireland, yes - lots are not represented here. I personally love Glascow's accent in English but each one is beautiful in its own right.

You mean you can’t hear clearly right? Me too.

Lol the only one I could understand all of what he was saying was the Michael rosen one

I'd rather us leave so we can control our own country and economy rather than some stuck up English toffs in Westminster.

Wales never broke off from anything. Welsh is a Saxon word which the Anglo Saxons called the native Britons. The Britons lived in what we now call England but were invaded by the Anglo's and Saxons and pushed the native's west into what is now Wales and Cornwall.

Wales are Britons who get there Celtic culture from mainland Europe probably from Migrating tribes from Gaul which is now France as most of Europe back then were either Celtic or Germanic Britain:Britons recent study's suggest are a mixture of hunter gatherers who got trapped here from the last ice age and migrating tribes from the Basque Country.

Just ignore those Americans, if they don't know about such a great country, jokes on them. By the way, this is coming from an English person.

+Opptonic you are represented in Parliament, learn economy and realise as much as you hate it, London helps, yes you should be represented more in the flag etc but still leaving the UK would damage you, I've been to Cardiff many times and although it's nice it doesn't have the financial district, tourism etc like London does, I'm from Suffolk as well before you think I'm some sort of Posh twat

+Phan Dill What accent do you have then?

+Phan Dill where to in Bristol my lovva

Rob Kinnon-Brettle me lubberrrr*

I is from brizzle too me luvver x

+christopher smith fuck off England is in the UK therefore it's the UK, if someone said they went to Europe on holiday and visited Madrid, you wouldn't say "so Spain"

UK is in Europe and always will be

***** Every country is in a continent. There are 7 continents in the world and the UK is in one of them - Europe

Jenson Wilkinson it's eurasia

Trollaman Zerreitug no it's not! Europe and Asia are two very seperate continents

+Andrew Collins Because Scottish people speak ENGLISH. When they say 'English' they don't mean England, they mean the language.

+OysterHunter Yes, most Scottish speakers speak the English language, however, Scots, a language in its own right, is not just English with a Scottish accent.

Andrew Collins But that's obviously what the video meant... English with a Scottish accent.

The Andrew Collins would be a good name for some kind of medal.

LDN EDD i thought proper Scots was mixed from Gaelic and English?

wayy george my g

Anglus Patria racist

@Anglus Patria the irony of complaining about "cultural replacement" in England but then ignoring when it actually happens for real to Wales, by the English. anglo fascism is cringe

@Anglus Patria lmao "larping twerp" can it get any more cringe

+christopher smith Pitmatic is a north Durham accent from the pit villages I believe. I have lived a long time in Teesside too. None of them were like Teesside, which has aspects of Yorkshire and North East type accents.

I went to uni in Liverpool. The scouse accent in this video was very mild. I was disappointed too.

For me that sounded nothing like a Liverpool accent

And a mix of Russian

I can understand most of it but I love Cumbria

There could be a few In Ireland

Touche

There must be at least 90 in Ireland

Probably double that in Wales lol

Thomas Warren I am also from the West Midlands, this is my interpretation of what he said "Mind you I don't know if there were any truth in it, to tell ya the truth because never nobody ever took interest and course I suppose would had"

same wtf

@@CosmicAngel_xo yes wolves fan

Thomas Warren it didn’t sound like West Midlands at all. Have a few friends from there, they sound nothing like it lol

shlups can confirm we don’t speak like that haha

The largest county on a small island = Yorkshire is tiny

Edward M. You say tiny there's 10s of dialect nuances in West Yorkshire alone and many 100s of dialect nuances throughout the UK. UK might be small however that's no reflection on anything!

What's your point? A RU-vid video can't cover a hundred dialects.

Edward M. There's other videos that cover more than 30, just seems like this video ignored most of the north of England/Scotland

+koala bear Scots is actually a variation of Northumbrian English.What became the south of Scotland was once the far north of England,Edinburgh is an English name(Edwin's Burgh') celebrating a Northumbrian king.

+koala bear "Scots" includes the varieties of English spoken both in the Lowlands and elsewhere in Scotland. It makes no sense to classify it as a separate language while the closely related dialects of Ulster, Northumberland and Yorkshire remain as dialects of English. Whatever justification you can come up for it, it'd not have anything to do with linguistics.

This comment not for you... But would like to take this opportunity to laugh at john Reid for blocking me because doesn't know how debate an argument like an adult What a child lol

Naa thun, aa's tha goen on?" - this is a greeting in Yorkshire dialect, which sounds nothing like the English version (Hello, how are you?), yet nobody claims it's a language.

Naa thun, aa's tha goen on?" - this is a greeting in Yorkshire dialect, which sounds nothing like the English version (Hello, how are you?), yet nobody claims it's a language. By the way, we have more than 100 dialects in Yorkshire.

The traditional accents of the south have almost completely vanished. That’s why.

+Lilith Biskup It's an English tv show, not a British one.

+Lilith Biskup Just so you know most of the accents in this video were just plain wrong

+Sir Higgins I meant that I like English accents in general, not just the accents they showed in this video.

Yeah I was just saying there are a lot more than just what they showed and even for Scotland they only showed 2 dialects and only 1 for Wales which is just wrong

+Sir Higgins It's not that these accents are plain wrong, its that many of them were chosen from the Survey of English Dialects, which focused mainly on elderly people in rural areas - many of whose accents are now extinct. Plus there has been some over-generalisation, there are dozens of different Welsh ones for example, and I am thinking of doing a video for them alone.

Beetroot in hamburgers, yeah

Karyna CC soy de Chicago, y no entendí nada de que estaban hablando.

Karyna CC encontre el manx particularmente confuso