Liverpool Accent/Dialect

1) Influences

The city of Liverpool started as a port town near Lancashire, mainly trading with Ireland. By the 18th century the city was trading on an international scale. This lead to a variety of accents being found there.

2) Origins

The original accent was a hybrid of the local Lancashire accent and the Irish trader's accents. As the port grew and more people were coming there, there were a whole jumble of accents in the city, like Welsh, Dutch, Scandinavian, German and Scottish. These went on to influence the accent further, eventually creating the traditional accent of Liverpool. The accent became known as the 'scouse' accent, possibly because of the, Norwegian, word 'lapskaus', which, in the 19th century, was a meat stew eaten by sailors. This would fit with the city's port roots.

3) Characteristics

The accent is divided with the south side being more lyrical and the north being more gritty. The main aspect of the Liverpool accent is it's rising and falling tones

4) Famous People with the Accent

There have been many famous faces with a scouse accent. In the music industry, perhaps the biggest band of all time, The Beetles. To this day there are still talented musicians from Liverpool, like The Wombats.

And also in TV land, there are people with the Liverpool accent. Like Neil Buchanan a.k.a 'that-man-from-Art Attack'. And the legendary, Paul McGann, the eighth Doctor Who.

5) Map

Merseyside area where the scouse accent originated.

6) Typical Words/Phrases used

Liverpool speakers tend to say 'you' as 'use', say 'me' instead of 'my' and 'Giz' instead of 'give us'. 'made up' is a common phrase used and adopts a different meaning, one of being overjoyed. And 'sound' is used to express being happy/fine: 'I'm sound'.
7) Accent Details

Scouse vowels at times tend to show great exaggeration in words like 'book' whereas the south side would probably use a more RP-style pronunciation. The overall pronunciation of letters is different as well, z and s are used as the same sound also t and d. At the ends of some words k is pronounced like an x. the Irish pronounciation of h is often used in scouse accent.
8) Historical Factors

(I feel like I kind of answered this in 1 & 2)

Language Change

Language's are always changing to accommodate the constant moving of the world. The language spoken today is hugely different from the language used 200 years ago. In some cases, the most common of phrases are outdated by 10 years time.

Some would argue that language should stay the same and remain in it's traditional form, preserved. This would give benefit to other generations who have trouble keeping up with the changes. Though language does need to change, advances in technology and the way we live our lives necessitate the need for new words for these concepts.

I think that language should keep developing, because everyone is living life at the same pace, so they can adapt to the gradual change in language. It's not like it happens overnight.

The most frequent influences on language at the moment will be the ones brought on by popular culture, they have a wider spread and are more likely to be accepted into the mainstream language. Though it would only take one person to start a phrase, to make it part of the language if enough people adopt it.

Modern language is changing all the time, but words can survive if they have a lasting effect. Like smart-phones, a big phrase now, but when the next new type of phone comes along, this will be pushed into the pages of history. If a word has enough of an influence for years to come, then there is no reason why it wouldn't be still around, because people would want to use it.

The Invention of the Printing Press ...and Beyond!

In the 15th century, the invention of the Printing Press changed how language was used and transferred. Before, books were hand written with the dialect of the person copying the book. With the Printing Press came a standard copy of texts, so that many editions of a book could be produced and they would all be identical - which is pretty amazing!

This went on to give Literature a much greater interest, as over 20,000 books were available and so much easier to gain.

Though there was still a difference in dialects that broke the continuity within books because there was no standard form of speaking.

So there was a necessity for a comprehesive archive of words, and the origins of the first dictionaries was set. The first book to be classed as a dictionary was Mulcaster's 'Elementarie' in 1582 which had just 8000 words. This helped to standardise some spellings and meanings. Progressively these volumes became more detailed. Cawdrey's 'Table Alphabetic' covered 3000 words with more detailed definitions.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary (1755) had a huge 40,000 words, and was the most comprehensive dictionary to date. Though this was not complete as would be known by modern society. This is because Johnson ommited words he felt did not have a place in the Dictionary and used his own opinions in his defining of words.

This was good for a time, but words had been omitted and Johnson's own bias and prejudices meant that there was still no definitive and impartail record of every word. Then came the Oxford Dictionary (first thought up in 1879). This would be a thurough and complete guide of every word, combining the forces of several compilers to give a detailed dictionary. This task was undertaken without really considering the difficulty this would cause. The dictionary eventually took more than fifty years to compile. This was 178 miles of type!!!

And so this new form of dictionary became the norm, up until today. But over the years the dictionary had to be updated frequently so  in 2000 the Oxford English Dictionary Online became available so that definitions could be found in seconds and they would be updated with the most recent deffinitions. It is amazing to think of how much words have changed over the years and in the Oxford dictionary you can see that progression.

The dictionary has become part of our language but for how much longer? Soon maybe the dictionary will only reside online. But as the words in it have developed and changed so must this list.

Accents, Dialects & RP

In different regions, factors change language so that it becomes synonymous with that region. This is usually due to historical invasions that have led to the native people adopting some of the invaders terms and accents.

The main change will be in the dialect, a specific variety of English that is used predominately in that region. It influences the language in three ways; lexis (vocabulary), grammar (structure) and phonology (pronunciation). This phonological influence is what changes the sounds of certain words and gives the accent to a place.

It is hard to define what the default accent for Britain is, with so many accents, but the widely accepted British accent is Received Pronunciation (or RP). Otherwise known as Queen's English or BBC English, though these are misleading names as the Queen is known to speak her own kind of English and the BBC  now represents even the most diverse parts of the UK, so doesn't have a universal accent. A better way to describe the accent is as the traditional English with the absence of non standard constructions and it has no regional dialects.

Though it is what would be described as the default accent, it is only spoken by 2% of the UK, making it a poor representation of the collective UK accent. RP does have uses, however; RP is the accent used to teach English to foreign speakers and is also the accent considered when Dictionaries are colected.

It may be scarce in modern times but back in the early days of Radio and Television in 1922, RP was chosen by the BBC as their accent and formed their identity. All speakers involved with the BBC would speak in an RP accent because the BBC beleivived this to be the most easily understanable accent. And that is how RP came to be associated with the BBC.

RP takes many forms. The three main forms being:

1. Conservative, which is the traditional form of RP spoken by older generations.
2. Contemporary, which is the way it would be used by the younger generations.
3. Mainstreme, which is the neutral form.

Attitudes to the Birmingham Accent

The Birmingham Accent is seen to have a negative reputation around England. To the majority of people around Britain, the people of Birmingham are seen to be 'unsafe' and 'dirty'. Though, surely,  Birmingham is just a city like any other, so where do these conceptions come from? Could it be the native 'brummie' accent that is causing the problem?


The Birmingham accent has been studied by many to determine what about it makes it so synonymous with being annoying.


On a blog (almostwitty.com), the blogger cites the 'brummie accent' as being monotonous and says that it makes the speaker appear 'stupid and dumb'. The writer has long associated the people of Birmingham with being constantly drunk. This has led to them building this negative stereo-type of the people. The writer even acknowledges that these are noting but irrational prejudices but still associates the people of Birmingham with this stereo-type.


It's not easy for people who live in the Birmingham area to adapt to this kind of reputation with some even saying that they feel the need to eradicate their accent when applying for a job outside the Midlands (source: The Birmingham Mail).


There has been a study at the University of Birmingham (source: BBC News), that suggests that foreign visitors to England don't realise the negative connotations associated with the 'brummie accent' - and therefore have no such prejudices. The study acknowledges that although the 'brummie accent' is not inferior, it is often seen that way by the people in Britain. This has been attributed to the 'social snobbery' of other regions, 'negative media stereotyping, the poor public image of the city of Birmingham, and the North/South geographical and linguistic divide.' The researchers even went as far as to say that this kind of discrimination should be made illegal because it has no basis.


Although the phrase 'brummie accent' is common, from my point of view it seems to have no connotations. The 'brummie accent' is just an accent to me and I don't get any immediate ideas about a person by their 'brummie' accent. Apart from this I was aware of some of the thoughts about the Birmingham accent but I didn't realise that this had such an impact that people might not get a job just because of something as trivial as their accent. I realise now that problems could easily arise for people with a 'brummie' accent because of this stereo-type that has been created around them but I can't see why. It is just an accent, so why does it matter to anyone?