| Local Accent Shifts 13:39 - Oct 28 with 1902 views | ITFC_Essex |
I come from the area of Essex where the local accent was essentially not too much different from the villages in and around Haverhill. I, in my 40's and most of the older people from these parts have the same accent, which despite being Essex is nothing like the "Mockney" speak usually associated with the county, which in reality is just Londoners now living in Basildon and Southend.
However, we've been colonised by the posh-London flighters in recent years, who speak that awful Made in Chelsea made up accent. I struggle to understand what they say, and they have to constantly ask me to repeat myself because they can't understand me. I often get asked "are you a farmer" ... no, actually farmers sound quite posh or even asked "where do you come from" .... here, where do you come from!
Anyone else from the wider region suffering as I do, with being a stranger in his own Town/County now? Ha! |  |
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| Local Accent Shifts on 14:11 - Oct 28 with 1787 views | LandOfMickyStockwell |
I consider there to be three parts to Essex. 1. Constable Country / Suffolk border ('farmer' if you like), 2. Mid-Essex, and 3. The Only Way is Essex part.
It's a heck of a lot worse up north. I was listening to this programme by Ian McMillan on R4 while moving north. I had to check that my new home was indeed a house. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programm |  | | |
| Local Accent Shifts on 15:18 - Oct 28 with 1636 views | Miaow |
I believe the British Library's website had a collection of recordings from c. 65 years ago of the accents of England/Britain but they haven't been available for a while due to a cyber attack. Hopefully they will be back on there again one day. For the Essex recordings, most if not all of the speakers were from the north of the county and I believe many were born in the 19th century. They sounded very much East Anglian, as you would expect.
I stumbled upon a video on YouTube recently that I think may have been recordings from the same survey but for the counties of the South East, and those were very interesting to listen to.
It won't be long before the traditional Essex accent is gone altogether, and I find that sad. |  |
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| Local Accent Shifts on 15:40 - Oct 28 with 1575 views | DJR |
I had a workman from a village near where I live in west Kent who had an accent which I thought was very similar to a Suffolk accent.
He was in his 50s, and I assume that he had what would have been a common accent when he was growing up, but for many years a version of the London accent has been the norm, greatly influenced by the number of people who have moved out of the city. [Post edited 28 Oct 15:41]
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| Local Accent Shifts on 16:13 - Oct 28 with 1487 views | ITFC_Essex |
| Local Accent Shifts on 15:18 - Oct 28 by Miaow |
I believe the British Library's website had a collection of recordings from c. 65 years ago of the accents of England/Britain but they haven't been available for a while due to a cyber attack. Hopefully they will be back on there again one day. For the Essex recordings, most if not all of the speakers were from the north of the county and I believe many were born in the 19th century. They sounded very much East Anglian, as you would expect.
I stumbled upon a video on YouTube recently that I think may have been recordings from the same survey but for the counties of the South East, and those were very interesting to listen to.
It won't be long before the traditional Essex accent is gone altogether, and I find that sad. |
It's a crying shame we have lost our accent and dialect to the incomers, thats for sure.
Even some of the general phrases are lost on youngsters. A few years back I called to get a new stock of paper off our supplier, they didn't' have the usual make so I asked for whichever the "bog standard" equivalent was. They went away and checked with a manager, to confirm to me that in fact, they didn't sell "toilet roll". | |
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| Local Accent Shifts on 16:28 - Oct 28 with 1437 views | NBVJohn |
I think that for many years now, the influence of TV and and the wannabes it creates has mutated many regional accents.
For example, I have an aunt who has lived in Brentwood for the last 60 years and Essex all her life - she’s in her mid eighties and doesn’t sound remotely like anything out of TOWIE. She sounds her h’s for a start.
There are many other examples but the comment that you received where someone assumed you weren’t local makes me quite sad. Utter stupidity. |  | | |
| Local Accent Shifts on 17:21 - Oct 28 with 1373 views | Swansea_Blue |
I can associate with being a stranger, but in my case I’m the incomer. I haven’t lived anywhere I've felt that home since 96, and that was Peterborough/Stamford (only briefly) and before that in 92 when I left Cheltenham and for some reason I felt more at home there than anywhere. It’s not just accents for me, but also the attitudes and behaviours of people.
Wales is weird to a Suffolk lad. In a good way probably, but they’re so open and in your face that it makes this reticent ol buh a bit nervous and self conscious at times.
Constable country should be annexed to Suffolk really, as it’s got little in common with the rest of the county. |  |
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| Local Accent Shifts on 19:51 - Oct 28 with 1202 views | MedwayTractor |
Following on from two comments in the replies:
My wife's grandfather was a Honeywood from Manningtree, born in 1900. I met him only once, his accent was pure East Anglian.
I live near Maidstone, the horrible south London twang is everywhere, but I know a few older locals who speak with a distinct Kent accent, although it is nothing like an East Anglian one.
I was brought up by a Scottish father and a north country mother, she was bit of an accent snob (think of Mrs Slocombe from Are You Being Served), so I had no Suffolk village accent at home, what there was had been drummed out of me by the time I left to study and then work in London in the late 60's. I find, however, that whenever I venture north of the Stour, the accent comes back. Likewise, my wife's Dorset accent comes back as soon as she crosses the New Forest, although she left there in the late 60's. |  |
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| Local Accent Shifts on 19:56 - Oct 28 with 1191 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| Local Accent Shifts on 15:18 - Oct 28 by Miaow |
I believe the British Library's website had a collection of recordings from c. 65 years ago of the accents of England/Britain but they haven't been available for a while due to a cyber attack. Hopefully they will be back on there again one day. For the Essex recordings, most if not all of the speakers were from the north of the county and I believe many were born in the 19th century. They sounded very much East Anglian, as you would expect.
I stumbled upon a video on YouTube recently that I think may have been recordings from the same survey but for the counties of the South East, and those were very interesting to listen to.
It won't be long before the traditional Essex accent is gone altogether, and I find that sad. |
They're all in East Suffolk! |  |
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| Local Accent Shifts on 20:51 - Oct 28 with 1118 views | ZapatasMoustache |
| Local Accent Shifts on 15:18 - Oct 28 by Miaow |
I believe the British Library's website had a collection of recordings from c. 65 years ago of the accents of England/Britain but they haven't been available for a while due to a cyber attack. Hopefully they will be back on there again one day. For the Essex recordings, most if not all of the speakers were from the north of the county and I believe many were born in the 19th century. They sounded very much East Anglian, as you would expect.
I stumbled upon a video on YouTube recently that I think may have been recordings from the same survey but for the counties of the South East, and those were very interesting to listen to.
It won't be long before the traditional Essex accent is gone altogether, and I find that sad. |
That's a fascinating collection, I hope it is available again soon.
Putting on my pedant's hat, reluctantly ;-) - Essex isn't part of East Anglia purely on the grounds that it was settled by Saxons (up as far as Ely), hence -sex as with Wessex and Sussex, rather than Angles. Our local ancestors were from the same neck of the woods as Brummies and Geordies, surprisingly, but not Essex/Sussex types. Kent is a whole other matter. |  | | |
| Local Accent Shifts on 22:51 - Oct 28 with 1031 views | Coastalblue |
I grew up in Essex and have always had that horrible estuary English accent, really wish I didn't but not enough to do something about it clearly.
At school there was a real mixture of accents ranging from the traditional Essex accent for the area, the mockney and then similar to mine.
I grew up on the Dengie peninsula and on my infrequent trips back these days it's very rare to hear what I would have probably considered a local accent 50 years ago in my school days. |  |
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| Local Accent Shifts on 09:24 - Oct 29 with 814 views | ITFC_Essex |
| Local Accent Shifts on 20:51 - Oct 28 by ZapatasMoustache |
That's a fascinating collection, I hope it is available again soon.
Putting on my pedant's hat, reluctantly ;-) - Essex isn't part of East Anglia purely on the grounds that it was settled by Saxons (up as far as Ely), hence -sex as with Wessex and Sussex, rather than Angles. Our local ancestors were from the same neck of the woods as Brummies and Geordies, surprisingly, but not Essex/Sussex types. Kent is a whole other matter. |
That's not strictly correct, plus the distinction between someone who was an "Angle", or a "Saxon" was a few metres of fields, and those were broad terms even then, there were Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians and even Franks who came over and settled. To everyone else, they were simply called Saxons, because thats broadly what they all were, and the later "Anglo-Saxon" distinction came from when the Saxons of Britain had to define themselves differently from the Saxons on the continent.
Essex was absorbed into East Anglia under the Vikings, at one point ruled by Guthrum, it remained that way post Danelaw, moving the regional "capital" to Colchester, and even Harold Godwinson was Earl of East Anglia after the English reconquista, which then included Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambs and Essex, which remained the case post Norman rule, who moved the regional seat from Colchester to Norwich.
East Anglia was a "major" kingdom, with Raedwald being a "Bretwalda" - a claim to be ruler of all Britain, whereas Essex was only ever a minor kingdom which vanished due to the Danelaw and absorbed into the "Greater Anglia" area along with Cambs. Essex is very much East Anglia, both historically and culturally.
Essex also has the biggest base of Town support outside of Ipswich and the immediate. | |
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| Local Accent Shifts on 09:28 - Oct 29 with 807 views | ITFC_Essex |
| Local Accent Shifts on 22:51 - Oct 28 by Coastalblue |
I grew up in Essex and have always had that horrible estuary English accent, really wish I didn't but not enough to do something about it clearly.
At school there was a real mixture of accents ranging from the traditional Essex accent for the area, the mockney and then similar to mine.
I grew up on the Dengie peninsula and on my infrequent trips back these days it's very rare to hear what I would have probably considered a local accent 50 years ago in my school days. |
People from Suffolk sometimes think im from London, if that helps! People from London have no idea where I am from, and guess as badly as Bristol!
I once met a Iraqi living in Scotland who was sure I was from Glasgow because he couldn't understand me, which was fair claim i'd say. He'd been settled there a decade and still couldn't understand a Glaswegian and just equated anyone he couldn't understand with that. | |
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| Local Accent Shifts on 11:54 - Oct 29 with 704 views | ZapatasMoustache |
| Local Accent Shifts on 09:24 - Oct 29 by ITFC_Essex |
That's not strictly correct, plus the distinction between someone who was an "Angle", or a "Saxon" was a few metres of fields, and those were broad terms even then, there were Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Frisians and even Franks who came over and settled. To everyone else, they were simply called Saxons, because thats broadly what they all were, and the later "Anglo-Saxon" distinction came from when the Saxons of Britain had to define themselves differently from the Saxons on the continent.
Essex was absorbed into East Anglia under the Vikings, at one point ruled by Guthrum, it remained that way post Danelaw, moving the regional "capital" to Colchester, and even Harold Godwinson was Earl of East Anglia after the English reconquista, which then included Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambs and Essex, which remained the case post Norman rule, who moved the regional seat from Colchester to Norwich.
East Anglia was a "major" kingdom, with Raedwald being a "Bretwalda" - a claim to be ruler of all Britain, whereas Essex was only ever a minor kingdom which vanished due to the Danelaw and absorbed into the "Greater Anglia" area along with Cambs. Essex is very much East Anglia, both historically and culturally.
Essex also has the biggest base of Town support outside of Ipswich and the immediate. |
Yeah I was being a bit facetious, they are somewhat fluid terms! But in government terms, it's Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambs usually. | | | |
| Local Accent Shifts on 12:17 - Oct 29 with 672 views | soupytwist |
I currently live in Bocking, having bounced around Essex from Colchester and its environs, down to Basildon and along to Southend during my childhood and teenage years and then working my way back to the north of the county via Chelmsford.
I don't speak with a north Essex accent but I still hear one round here occasionally generally from older people. The painter and decorator we use has one, and he's in his late 70s. To be fair, his son does too. The older bloke who used to run CJ Eley's garage in Braintree had one and my neighbour across the road also in his 70s does too.
Even dyed in the wool (or should that be silk?) Braintree types my age don't have an old-style north Essex accent. It's a shame. |  | | |
| Local Accent Shifts on 13:10 - Oct 29 with 592 views | ITFCMonk |
| Local Accent Shifts on 12:17 - Oct 29 by soupytwist |
I currently live in Bocking, having bounced around Essex from Colchester and its environs, down to Basildon and along to Southend during my childhood and teenage years and then working my way back to the north of the county via Chelmsford.
I don't speak with a north Essex accent but I still hear one round here occasionally generally from older people. The painter and decorator we use has one, and he's in his late 70s. To be fair, his son does too. The older bloke who used to run CJ Eley's garage in Braintree had one and my neighbour across the road also in his 70s does too.
Even dyed in the wool (or should that be silk?) Braintree types my age don't have an old-style north Essex accent. It's a shame. |
Good to know there’s another town fan here in bocking! We’ll have to meet up for a game on TV here sometime? :) |  |
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