King Richard III

[CCW 1,310]

A couple of days ago I read an article about King Richard III of England with a digital recreation of his voice.  The subject fascinated me and I reached out @Mickwhitt for a perspective from someone in England.  With Mick's permission below is a copy of our conversation.  It has been mildly edited to correct some of my grammatical errors.

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Mick,

Never having been to England but having some ancestry from there certain things fascinate me.  I came across this article online and watched the video within it and wanted an impression from a native of the country.  Hope this intrigues you enough to read and give some comment.

Re-creating the voice of King Richard III using his skeleton and other clues : NPR

Craig

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Hi Craig,

Thanks for contacting me with such an interesting question. 

 

Me and the wife saw a short clip of the video on our national news program a few days ago. We both said then that it sounded nothing like a true Yorkshire accent.

 

But let's look at that in a it more detail.

I come from Yorkshire, but South Yorkshire. There is also North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire,  what used to be the East riding of Yorkshire became Humberside.  I was born in a village called Jump. It was purely a mining community,  very small but close to a number of other villages and small towns.  The general area is classed as Barnsley,  the largest town nearby.  I can guarantee that if I go on a foreign holiday people from Yorkshire can pick me out as being from Barnsley just by my distinctive accent. 

Next largest town to us is Rotherham,  not far away at all, in fact only a couple of miles further than Barnsley.  Up until joining the police at 22 years old I had never been to Rotherham. I found their accent incredibly hard to understand.  Not different words, just a completely different way to pronounce the same words I use.

The way they use the sound of A in words is totally different,  in Barnsley the A is said like in tar or car or jar.

In Rotherham it is said like an O. So if I Park my Car in the Garden someone in Rotherham would Pork their Cor in the Gordon. 

As a probationer I was sent to an address in the town of Rawmarsh. Unhelpfully this is always pronounced as Rawmish.  The address given to me by the local control room verbally did not appear in my street atlas. No matter how I tried I could not locate it. 

She had directed me to Peazle street, sounding like Measles is pronounced. 

When I finally found it by walking every street in the general area it was actually spelled Peasehill street. 

 

Sheffield is our big city, they speak very differently. When I went to work there as a cop I had to learn a whole new accent system. For a start the speak quite quickly, and this causes the biggest difference in the way they sound compared to Barnsley.  

We don't tend to say you, or yours; we say Thee, Thar or Thine. In Sheffield because they say these words faster it becomes Dee, Dar or Dine. Most of their T sounds end up as D. 

So if I were to say in English " What are you doing over there you?" That would come out as "What Thar doin oer theer , thee?" But in Sheffield it would come out "What Dar doin oer dear dee?"

 

So you see, saying what any one person will sound like according to his location is pretty hard. None of the vowel sounds in the speech sound very familiar to me. Much of it sounds either Irish or Northumbrian to my ear. But we must remember the experts are talking about medieval speech, something that has never been heard  and which can't really be devined from the written word. It would be really hard to write in broad Yorkshire the way I speak  because letters just don't sound the way we bend them. 

 

I hope you have found that interesting Craig,  I'm not great scholar but I do love the English language. I considered myself to be an accomplished word smith as a police officer and could write excellent reports. But I also had to be able to speak in the appropriate vernacular according to where I was working. I could slip seamlessly between Barnsley,  Rotherham and Sheffield in seconds if need be and could do it convincingly enough not to get spotted by locals. 

 

A cop moved up to Yorkshire from the south of England which is a world away verbally. He came to us in a very hot summer. One day he took me to one side and asked if I could help him. Everywhere he called people would say "Tha looks warm lad, dust tha want some watter? "

He couldn't understand what they were saying, in English it would be "You look warm young man, would you like a drink of water?" 

In the way he was used to speaking it would come out as "You look warm son, jue want sum wowa? "

 

I've enjoyed trying to describe that to you. In truth, Richard the third could well have sounded just like the avatar, it's a very good piece of detective work. But we will never really know until the time machine is invented.

 

Let me know what you think of the work they did on the avatar project. 

 

Best wishes Mick. 

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WOW!  Mick, this was four times more than I was expecting with too much information for just one read.  Later this morning I will delve into it again.  Would you mind if I copy this over to a public thread for others to read in a non tractor related post?  

 

Since my wife and I retired we have driven from Connecticut about two hours northeast of New York City to Texas numerous times.  Over 4000 miles round trip depending on where we went.  Our daughter lives in Katy, TX which is a westside neighboring city to Houston.  Our son was in El Paso for two years until this past summer. As we interacted with locals from each area I never experienced a time when I could not understand what was said.  Accents were different but words came out the same.  Only once when in Texas did an owner of a sandwich deli ask if we were from Connecticut based on a word that I used to describe the sandwich I was ordering.  I used "grinder" instead of "sub" and he knew it immediately.  If you do not know a sub is a sandwich in a long roll. Growing up it was always a "grinder".  Only other word I can remember is the one I used for a water fountain when growing up in Rhode Island.  To me a water fountain was a bubbler.  When I first moved to Connecticut I asked my office mates where the bubbler was and they all looked at me as if I was nuts.   

 

Thank you for taking the time to educate me.  Fascinating!

Craig

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Hi Craig, 

 

I'd be happy for you to put this in a thread on the public forum. 

 

It is fascinating how we all speak the same language but in such varied ways. We have different words for somethings in different parts of the country and that can be fun.

 

But also remember we are made up of four distinct countries each with their own different language. Wales for example is a very different kettle of fish. And the Welsh people often deliberately speak Welsh to exclude English tourists from a conversation,  we have been at war with them and the Scots for many centuries so it's not surprising lol. 

 

America fascinates me too, it seems to me more like 50 different countries than states; the laws can be so different for example.  We have 43 different police forces in England but the laws are all identical and equally enforced. There are no private police officers either which I think you guys use.

 

Just baking my Christmas cakes this morning, traditionally my mum used to do them, but she passed a few years ago and I took up the running.

 

Please chat again soon.

 

Mick and Sandra 

 

 

[ri702bill 8,637]

Funny how groups of folks in relatively close proximity their accent is different.

I worked 50 miles from home towards Boston. A lot of coworkers had that heavy South Boston accent when speaking; I was often asked to repeat what I said in my RI accent - never could figure if it was for their amusement or they truly did not understand what I said..... 

[8ntruck 7,224]

Language is a fascinating subject. 

 

My wife and I grew up in mid Michigan.  The accent there is considered to be 'neutral' Midwestern.  We lived for several years in south central Kentucky, where there is a noticeable southern accent.  Yet folks from the area around Louisville speak with an accent closer to the 'neutral" Midwest.  Folks from Eastern Ky have a completely different 'southern' accent.

 

 I imagine all languages have regional accents.

[ebinmaine 69,357]

Very interesting subject to me as well.  

 

The 6 states of New England have a good solid handful of very different accents and even local dialects.  

Back in north central Mass we said grinder for sub as well. 

Coke Pepsi etc are soda. Never pop. 

A natural sweetener is called shoogah. 

 

Many of us dump the letter "r" more often than use it. 

Pahk the cah 'n the doe-ahh-yahd (dooryard) which is Maine speak for the area near the most common entrance to the house. Often Not the front doe-ah or door. 

 

 

In some areas of the country they ADD a letter "r" where it isn't in the written form of the word.  

Warter  for water.  

Washington is Warshington or Worshington. 

As one could imagine that creates some interesting miscommunication between the locals of the respective places.  

Here we wear shawhts in the summuh. Out they-uh shots is fuh takin' meds..

 

Around Maine there are a few areas that the accents are thicker than most. Right here in the western hills is one. The "Downeast" area up by Machias is another. 

 

My maternal grandparents from north central Massachusetts had a very strong New England accent. 

Potato 🥔  was budaydoe or bahdaydah. 

Green beans 🫘 were a staple part/paht of the diet but Grammy called em bee-yunns. Two distinct syllables. 

 

 

Excellent thread folks.....

 

 

 

[Pullstart 63,330]

Heck, @ebinmaine didn’t even know what he named his dog, but alas I figured it out for him!  To that NE ear, it sounds a lot like Meeah.  But deep down, I know that he named his dog Mirror.

[ebinmaine 69,357]

11 minutes ago, Pullstart said:

Heck, @ebinmaine didn’t even know what he named his dog, but alas I figured it out for him!  To that NE ear, it sounds a lot like Meeah.  But deep down, I know that he named his dog Mirror.

 

 

Kevin old boy we have LOTS AND LOTS  of interesting names for that dog....

[MainelyWheelhorse 717]

Speaking of dogs, one of my dad’s friends had a dog named Nobody…..