Dialects of Britain

I'm a bit of a language geek, so yes, it's back to some more about the English language here in Britain (I did warn you). In America, we have our own regional dialects. Let's try to list some of them.. You've got the Northern bunch (probably North Dakota, Minnesota, Ohio, and such) they don't all sound the same as each other, but I would say similar, you've got the Southern bunch (pretty much West Virginia and downwards), you've got New England, you've got the Midwest and west (which I can't even tell the difference between even though I from the Midwest). There is a pretty good amount of variations. Oh! I almost forgot your good ol' fashioned Texan accent, it is worth mentioning after all.

I'm sure if you really were picky about how you class dialects, you could find some variations on each region, and add a few. (maybe more if you include city accents such as, Philly, New York [and it's Burroughs] and others). Now, with that in mind, let's compare that to what I've found about Great Britain.

Here in Britain, there seems to be a universally known skill that people have. They can tell you where some one's from (whether it be a part of London or a city somewhere in the backwoods) just by hearing you talk for a short period of time. People in town's that are a 15 minute drive away can have a different dialogue that my wife can pick up on and can tell me where they're from. Now, I don't know how well versed the entire population is, but it seems to me that most people can do this. Given this revelation, you can imagine how many different dialects of English there are in Britain. There are tons (to give an American expression).

Yes, the United States is much larger than the UK, but I would say, as a norm, most of the United States isn't that varied in speech. I think there's something about movies and tv, maybe even the fact that we intermingle and move around so much that there is still a good cohesion of language. That said, I have absolutely no theory on why in the world you can drive a short distance here in the UK and the dialect changes. It would be interesting to find out why, maybe someone's already found out and wrote a book on it. Maybe I'll have to look into that.

The good thing about most of these dialects is that if you know English, you're pretty safe in that you'll understand them. For about the first 4 months that I lived here I did have some problems understanding the Cardiff accent. I learned quickly to just give a friendly smile as I asked them to repeat themselves so as not to be rude. The main problem I seem to have is when people throw in a word that I don't recognize or say a word that we pronounce differently.

Because I like lists, let's go over a few words that are pronounced differently in Britain:



                                      American            British Pronunciation

                                    Controversy        Cont-trer-vissy
                                    Aluminum             Al-loo-minium
                                    Yogurt                   Yah-gurt
                                    Urinal                   Your-eye-nal
                                    Garage                  Gair-edge
                                    Titanium                Titt-anium







There are more and I will do my best to catalogue all the ones that I happen upon so that you can be aware of them.


- An American in the UK