The origins of colonial accents can be traced back to where most of the settlers came from. As such, the West Country of England contributed largely to the accents of the Eastern United States and much of the West Indies. By contrast, the settlers in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa were an incredibly mixed bunch, with the largest language group coming from the militia who were from the region in and around London, hence their accents continue to sound like a mix of London and in particular, Kent.
This is a poem included in Rural Rides of the Country Churchgoer, from the early-mid 19th century, by newspaper publisher of Irish origin, Joseph Leech. He travelled the region doing reviews of local vicars, anonymously, with his horse John Bunyan, so the regions clerics were allegedly living in fear of his reviews. This is by him, to himself I guess, in the guise of a simple local yokel. I love it.
Caleb Clodpoll Writes a Poem
Good zur- I bee a zimple country wite-
I rede a bit, and meake a shift to rite.
When I wur young I wurnt zent much to skool,
An that’s th’ razun I be zich a vool:
But I wur alwiz meade my Church to tend.
Caze Mother zed it wood my mannurs mend.
And zo it did: vor you’ll be pleaz’sd to hear
I still on Zundys do at Church appear,
I love old Mothur church – indeed I doo -
An I do love the voke az love her too:
Zo ye’ll nat wonder I’ve regard vor yoo.
I like to rede wat in the “Times” yoo zay
About yer trips upon th’ Sabbath day
Too diffrunt churches in yer naiborood-
An I beleve yeel do a deal o’ good.
But that zays nothin – wat I want too tell
Iz, that yeel plaze out voke oncommon well,
If yoo at our rite purty little place
Zome Zundy, ere ’tis long, wool show yer face,
Weeve got a vine old Church, and Castel too,
Wich I be zure ye wood bee glad too vue.
The poortly hostess az doo kip th’ Swan
will treat you zur jist like a gentelman :
John Bunyin too, athin hur snug warm stabel,
Of corm may yet as mutch az hee be abel.
But stop – kind zur, I humbly ax yer pardun -
Praps yeel be axed to dinnur wi’ th’ Warden!
Yeel nat hav, az at Winterburn to goa
Our ov yer way a haaf a mile or zoa
Arter th’ Wardun’s rezedens too zurch,
Vor yoo woool vind his ouze close by th’ church.
Hees a good sort of man, an I’ve no dout
If yee do call yeel get a good “blow out.”
Wen ye doo cum, I hope ye wont refuze
Too gi’ us timely notis in the’ nuze.
I goot our skoolmastur too luck this o’er -
But I doo think ’tis woos an twur afore:
He put a lot o’ dots and grut long strokes,
Becaze a zed twood zute th’ larnid vokes.
But yeel ixcuze, I knaw, theze simple letter -
I wood a rit it, if I cood, much better.
Thanks for your historian’s eye view of N American and Autralasian colonial accents. Guy Gibson makes reference to drawling r/t conversations with his Aussie mate (and low flying expert) Micky Martin. This is found either in Paul Brickhill’s book, “The Dam Busters”, or his own autobiographical account, “Enemy Coast Ahead”. It’s a very long time since I read these. Gibson (Southern English) and Martin understood each other well in an almost private patois, and I have long wondered about the very point you have backed up with historical fact about the Down Under accent group.
In a similar way, having an entire half of my family from Devon and Somerset, it always struck me that West Country, as a rhotic family of accents (not just one – BBC producers, please note) fed into colonial American. Also, I wonder if Irish brogue has influenced US accents. Any clues on this?
Reading the verse you quote brings back my grandparents’ voices, but more especially, the area of Exmoor that one of my aunts moved to for about 10 years. For those interested, find Timberscombe, then Wheddon Cross. Aunt Phyll soon slipped into the local speech from her original South Devon. Exmoor is, to my ear, slower, with more change of pitch, and less of a tendency to compress words: example –
My Gran; “Ee wuz uh gurt big theng” (all low and rapid)
My Aunt Phyll’s friend Annie from Exmoor; “Ee wuz a greaaaaaat big thing” (sing – song with crescendo in the word, great)
In both cases, the emphasis fell on “great”.
In what London likes to think as real English, this is, literally, “He WAS a great big thing” – emphasis probably on “was”. In the Chiltern Speak I have lived with for many years, something more Midlands – like would be used – “Eee won’ alf a biggun” (emphasis on (h) alf, and the “ee” sound going for ever))
University tea room culture meant that I got picked up on my pronunciation whenever I thought of my West Country side and thus slipped into the argot. I evolved a step by step analysis of the (at least 5) blocs of West Country speech I was aware of, with examples – a bit like my show off above, but longer and deliberately boring. After 10 years, my long term colleagues got the message, but, in a University, new faces come along, so……….
By the way, I think the only folks who really DO say “Oo – arrrr” are Forest of Deaners. Any correction gladly accepted. It is “Oo – arrr” that clever people in cities and the media find so amusing that they use it a spice flavouring for any article or show set outside the M25. So we have Irish actors playing Oxford Chiltern (Midsommer Murders), and Reading (Morse), presumably because they know how to sound their “Rs”.
My own father – born near the setting for Gray’s “Elegy on a country churchyard”, but moved to Studham at a young age – said “oh aaah” to express agreement, almost like a Midlander. When visiting my sister some years ago, south of London, her neighbour reckoned that (nice non BBC phrase that) I sounded “more Midland” compared with her.
I once copied those words of my father’s at school and was roundly ridiculed – odd, given that the country town where my school was situated then still had a strong local (and non BBC) accent. As a thinking person with wide interests, I just find it all fascinating, but we English have a supreme talent for snobbery, and speech is a ready set of targets for petty bigotries. “Misommer Murders” is openly staged to give the majority of urban dwellers a reinforcing stereotype view of The Country. This perhaps echoes the same fear of dangers in the wet and dark that lead to inexorable destruction of areas like Chiltern for roads and railways and housing estates (or perhaps that’s just “follow the money”).
My own adopted home town, once with a distinct accent from surrounding villages, now offers a bit of local, but more London Overspill, and the multiracial curled – tongue gang talk available anywhere. These will take over with help from broadcasting, but only while some new wielding of English is being born and straightens its legs. Then it will mutate again.
And so we come back to the private patois aspect of accents and dialects. Many commentators will rhapsodise about West Indian or New Orleans patois, but I want to end with something less obvious. Shortly after World War 2, the ex – combat pilot, Charles (“Chuck”) Yeager found employ on the “X – Plane” project. Suffice to say he became one of the top dozen test pilots in history. As a Virginian, he had a certain country drawl (back to drawl again), and he and few other “country boys” revelled in their patois – once again over the radio. Some of the Apollo flyers later did the same.
It seems a universal instinct: to talk so those stuffy types from the big city, or teacher, or the local plod, or the magistrate, has to keep asking what you said. My father had a friend who did it, and it’s a sound instinct. Fancy folks need to be kept honest. And as an old boy I met some years ago said “Aahz the bust way I kin d’rect ee boy”.
Wow. thanks for all this. The accents that are adopted by way of mimicking ‘superiors’ are called Prestige. Bristol is meant to be the only city with a country accent, but it has at least 2 accents – Somerset, which is heavily German, and I have heard speakers use gendered pronouns, and Gloucestershire, the southern part of which was heavily involved in North America & Caribbean. Cheers
Hello Barb,
Thanks for that reply. Thanks particularly for the technical term “Prestige”, which I would not have learned elsewhere.
Gendered pronouns were commonly found in country speech. One of my grand obsessions is the game of cricket, which has evolved as a symbiotic organism with English speaking culture. Stevens, the great “lob” bowler of the 17th Cent, is reported to have said, “When I have bowled my ball (both words nearly rhyming with ‘howl’), I hev done with hurr, and leaves hurr to my field”. I believe Stevens was a Surrey man, from Chertsey (and don’t Aussies say, “She’ll be right”?).
The history of the game’s great payers – especially from earlier times, mirrors the changes in English. Some of the great country house owners would retain the services of top players in order to challenge other aristocrats and their sides to a game – with a barrel of beer, or port or something “on it”. John Nyren wrote of these days in “Cricketers of my time”, which was set in the 1790s.
Regarding use of pronouns, there is still a tendency in these parts to say things like, “I reckon ‘at’l rain” = I reckon that will rain, rather than, “I think it will rain”. I will still say this, as my father would, if talking in the street with people I know to be local.
My favourite piece of gendered speech was an overheard conversation between a pair of women of a certain age whilst stuck in a bus in traffic. They kept talking about her cucking and blowing and not getting any good results. I could not figure out what they were talking about, but did consider it was about … well, maybe the oldest profession or along those lines. But it turned out they were cleaners discussing a defective vacuum cleaner. I also heard a family in a supermarket discussing the contents of a jar of jam, trying to figure out the ‘gallonage’ of it.