Are other UK accents so common place you don't notice them?

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TheJonatron@reddit

Whenever I visit England (I'm Scottish) I forget I'm away from home because English accents are so normal from TV and then I get a blank stare and need to repeat what I said at a quarter of the speed and much more enunciation.

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SplitOpenAndMelt420@reddit (OP)

Yeah, this was a sort of thing I was curious about. Does it work the other way? Is there much Irish, Scottish and Welsh representation on UK TV overall?

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Puzzleheaded-Lynx204@reddit

Definitely less, but there is an effort. Diversity in media here doesn't just mean racial diversity - it also includes diversity from different nations and accents from different classes (because that is also a thing). So for example BBC children's TV presenters will be required to come from a range of different regions from all four nations. And cartoon characters (my son watches Numberblocks a lot) - from memory, One is Scottish, Two is Essex, Three is Yorkshire, Four is West Country, Five is Northern Irish ... you get the picture.

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luciferslandlord@reddit

My brain doesn't say "foreigner" for UK nations haha. I do notice if someone has a different accent though. I am from South East England.

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SplitOpenAndMelt420@reddit (OP)

How often do you think you encounter the other accents? Like on a daily basis?

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EmberizaHortulana@reddit

Depends, I’m a southerner and I work in an office with Scottish people, Welsh, Northern Irish, Irish, Yorkshire, Mancunians, etc. so I hear the different accents pretty much every day.

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luciferslandlord@reddit

Nah, probably not that often. But if I worked with a scot then obvs I would. Instead I work with a scouser, so I hear that accent everyday. It's hell haha

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SplitOpenAndMelt420@reddit (OP)

It's actually brings up an interesting question if you don't mind- do people from England think of people from Scotland and Wales and Ireland as from a different country? Or is it more like, and I apologize for the comparison, they are like different states in the US?

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Exotic-Cod4067@reddit

Ireland is independent from the UK, its not a part of britain.

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SplitOpenAndMelt420@reddit (OP)

Apologies I meant Northern Ireland

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oliviashrewtonbong@reddit

I am from Wales and no I don't treat people from England Scotland etc as foreigners. There are people that do but they will generally be hardcore nationalists which is a small but not insignificant number. As for accents perhaps not day to day in real life (but again it's not *that* rare) but there are so many accents and you get so much exposure that you just sort of know by watching TV or whatever media the young people today consume

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luciferslandlord@reddit

Urrm, that is a hard one and honestly it depends who you ask. Some Scots, Northern Irish and Welsh het really funny and 100% believe they are separate countries. Most people recognise that they are all different countries that are unified as Britain though 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧. English people are the least likely to think of the countries as distinct and see them all as one big thing. However, English will sometimes refer to whole place as England and that annoys everyone. When we watch the footy or rugby we are 3 countries. When we watch the Olympics we are 1. When we watch the tennis we just complain that Andy Murray is boring.

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SplitOpenAndMelt420@reddit (OP)

:) appreciate the answer

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rtrs_bastiat@reddit

Neither I'd say. From an English perspective we're all just British, I expect that's the majority view of the English at least.

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BenRod88@reddit

We can tell an accent here even from a different part the same region that could be just a few miles apart so yes, you can tell other UK accents and easily

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SplitOpenAndMelt420@reddit (OP)

I understand that the accents are pretty distinct. I guess I was just more curious if you hear them so often that it's not even a rarity.

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Cheese-n-Opinion@reddit

I work in a fairly diverse office, both in terms of areas of the UK and internationally. But any single given accent is rare (besides local one) so you do notice it. The novelty fades pretty quickly though. In England I don't think we see Scottish, Welsh and N. Irish as foreign at all, and in all honesty even people from the Republic of Ireland don't feel properly foreign.Iys hard to quantify say the average Welsh person feels at least as familiar to me as someone from the other end of England.

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luciferslandlord@reddit

Welsh are the og isle dwellers

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BenRod88@reddit

In cities it’s very common, I’d say smaller communities are less common but it still happens

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Puzzleheaded-Ice2523@reddit

if i go anyway more than 20 miles from my city people ask me where im from, its pretty easy to recognise other accents in this country especially a scotsman, welshman, irishman, northerner, southerner, West Midlander and East Midlander (basically anyone)

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SplitOpenAndMelt420@reddit (OP)

Do the accents from the other countriesnot stick out more than regional accents from your country?

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WatchingTellyNow@reddit

No, not really. They're accents, not extra heads.

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luciferslandlord@reddit

Nah, come on. You can at least tell that people from Scotland, Wales or NI are from those places, right? You could likely not tell if someone was from Reading or Bristol though.

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elementarydrw@reddit

Bristol has a very distinct accent though.

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WatchingTellyNow@reddit

True, but Bath has a very similar accent... Suppose it depends how granular you want to get. I get Durham and Newcastle accents confused.

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elementarydrw@reddit

They were talking about Reading, in Berkshire though, not another city/town in the South West. Yes, 2 west country accents would be confusing if you aren't local, but you can usually easily tell someone from the home counties vs west country.

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WatchingTellyNow@reddit

Yes, you can tell they're Scottish, Welsh, N Irish, but that's no weirder than someone having a Lancastrian accent. And there isn't just one Scottish accent, just like there isn't just one English accent, so what does it matter? And I've seen a NI person being accused of being Scottish, so it's not always clear.

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Puzzleheaded-Ice2523@reddit

couldn't have said it better myself. the accents change every 25 miles or so i believe and they all have their own quirks about them. plus different places have different slang, a man from Brighton and Liverpool can have a conversation and they would find it a little difficult to understand what they mean or even what they are saying.

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AwkwardTie9427@reddit

It depends upon your personal knowledge of each accent. I never heard the North East Newcastle accent before. When I heard it for the first time in my adult life, I thought the person was Irish!

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SnooDonuts6494@reddit

Sort of. It's not that I don't recognise them, it's more that I don't care - because I often hear ten+ different/distinct accents in a day. Scots, Scouse, Brum, Cockney, RP, Devon, Welsh, etc. I sometimes meet a person with a very clear accent, but don't think about it until much later. Maybe a different day, someone casually asks me "where is X from" and I have to think about it - and when I do think, I immediately know... but previously, it hadn't occurred to me to even wonder.

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RiverTadpolez@reddit

I can usually tell where someone is from *roughly* in the UK, but moreso in Scotland because I'm Scottish. I also often make a traditional class culture association with someone's accent straight away, so I might automatically clock someone as having a "posh scouse" accent, or a "working class south-east Edinburgh accent". One thing to note that if someone has a very posh accent then they don't have a regional accent at all - so an extremely posh accent from Inverness is the same as an extremely posh accent from Bristol.

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Either_Reality3687@reddit

I used to know a Scottish person he was the only one in a team i was on. We all got to call him Scottish. He even called himself that once when he called in. We can tell accents all the time.

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Rowmyownboat@reddit

The bigger the place - village, town, city - the more likely you will hear different accents. Accents change in just a few miles. Liverpool to Manchester is only 24 miles, but the difference in accent huge. TV is probably the most frequent encounter with regional accents. In my childhood, TV was mostly Received Pronunciation (like the late Queen Elizabeth II). Now, it is nearly all regional accents.

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HydrationSeeker@reddit

Britain is a small island, although it is densely populated in the cities. There are more people in London than the whole of Norway or Denmark. There are regional accents that are distinct to the sensitive ear after driving for 15 miles in any direction. Someone from Croydon will sound different to someone from Bromley. Who in turn would sound different from someone in Newham or Haringay. These are different counties in greater london. Now in my everyday, because I work public facing job (in healthcare) I hear all types of accents, mainly from South East England, however I myself am from South West England, my luvver. I do not think FOREIGNER when I hear an accent different to mine. lolol. I don't even think that when someone has an overseas accent.

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WatchingTellyNow@reddit

Unless you're from Devon and hear a Cornish accent, in which case there are definite "foreigner" vibes. And let's not mention jam or cream first or there'll be war! 😁

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JulesCT@reddit

I'm bigger towns or the cities there are so many accents (national and international) I dare say we notice but don't care. Definitely not shocked or surprised. In smaller, rural towns and villages there'll definitely be questions if it's clear "You're not from around here, are you?" sometimes laced with menace, sometimes just curiosity!

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Mikon_Youji@reddit

I notice when someone has a slightly different accent I suppose, but it's not alarming or anything.

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Petcai@reddit

What many people from other countries don't get is that UK accents aren't all from hundreds of miles away. You can have a new accent 25 miles away from where I live in every direction, and travelling 25 miles for work these days is fairly common, so almost everybody hears different accents on a daily basis. Accents from a long distance might stand out more, like I'm in Manchester and I'll notice a Cockney or Newcastle accent more because they're a couple hundred miles away so rare, but I could go to the local pub and hear 10 different accents and we'd only care if the football was on and their accent matched the opposition, meaning we could mock them if we won.

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SplitOpenAndMelt420@reddit (OP)

Yeah, as an American, I think I underestimate the amount of accents you guys pack in such a tiny country lol I'd have to drive for half a day to hear a different accent and even then it wouldn't be that much different from my own

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DumCrescoSpero@reddit

There's no 'official' number, but google says there's an estimated 56 accents within the UK. Like the above poster said, sometimes you only need to travel 20 miles or so to encounter a different accent - and this applies to each of the countries. For example, a Glasgow accent is noticeably different from an Edinburgh or Highlands accent in Scotland, or compare Dublin, Cork and Galway in Ireland. There are some interesting videos on YouTube which break down the different accents by area.

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Exotic-Cod4067@reddit

I can tell where someone is from in the UK or Ireland pretty accurately from their accent. I live in a different region now from where I come from and people can tell where i'm from instantly by my accent. I'd say thats true for most people from the UK and Ireland.

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Tallman_james420@reddit

Some of us are better at understanding and recognising regional dialects and accents than others. Generally speaking, if someone has a different accent, it will be noticed.

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qualityvote2@reddit

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