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Didn't realise Brummie had so many Cockney/Australian charac
teristics, or rather, traits shared with those two accents. I was looking at a few clips on youtube and they pronounce long 'a' as in 'age' with a broad open quality, and 'i' as 'oi.' Didn't think that was a characteristic of the English Midlands, only the South of England.
Not sure why it was rated the least favourite accent either, I think it sounds rather charming really.
Actually, it's funny you should start this thread as an amazing number of Brummies (people from Birmingham, England) are mistaken for Aussies when in the United States, so obviously the Americans think their Brummie accents sound very much like their own perception of the typical Oz accent, and perhaps I can understand that - Americans generally are far more likely to hear an Australian accent than they are one from the British city of Birmingham, which is known as the Second City here in the UK. Just look out for the many retail outlets and organisations generally in the Birmingham area which have the words "Second City" in their title names.
The Aussies often refer to British people as "whingeing Poms" - I think that epithet is very well deserved as by and large we Brits have honed down the act of whingeing, bitching and complaining about just about anything and everything under God's sun into a very fine art form indeed. If there was an Olympic slot on Complaining then the Brits would win the gold medal each and every time....we are ever so good at it, believe you me. Look at this group of warbling Brummies in full flow...whingeing away about their own home city....Birmingham (which, in the UK, is pronounced as "BURR-ming-umm" - no rhoticism allowed, unless you come from the West Country, and definitely, most definitely - NO actual sounding of the "Ham" - we leave all that to the Americans who have stolen the name for their own version in Alabama, and probably smaller versions elsewhere across their country. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2w84qzHdEms
You say "no rhoticism allowed" but you give a phonetic spelling which is clearly rhotic, I find that quite puzzling.
Right - I understand your puzzlement and the fault is entire mine.....in normal RP English English speech - the standard Southern English British accent most familiar to non British people - the letts "BURR" would have been correct in the way I used it for the pronunciation of Birmingham - it would be just the same as "BUH" or perhaps "BUHH".
So in that case I should have stated the phonetics as "BUHH-ming-umm", the form the majority of English British people would use - except perhaps those with a West Country British dialect in which case rhoticism applies, or those from Liverpool who would be more likely say "BEHH-ming-umm", or many people from Birmingham itself who would say something like "BOOO-ming-umm" - or something reasonably close to that. I quite liked Birmingham City Centre when I was there just before the Christmas holidays one year when I was at uni in Leeds, quite a long way away to the north of the West Midlands from a UK perspective of distance - we went as a group from there to see a play at the Alexandra Theatre. It was an extremely bustling and vibrant city and very cosmopolitan indeed, and it really was nice if a wee bit funny (in a really nice way) to hear people of various ethnic origins - Asian, African or Oriental or whatever - all chattering away in pure Brummiespeak......many of them would no doubt have been born and bred in Brummieland - Birmingham, the Black Country (nothing whatsoever to do with race!) or the West Midlands generally. In spite of the very wide ethnicity and mix of cultures and religious grouping of the population of the city and its environs it was nice to see a huge illuminated sign suspended across the entire width of New Street, one of the main shopping thoroughfares in the city centre, close to the eponymous main railway station - it flashed out "Happy Christmas Birmingham". I found the Brummies generally, of whatever racial origin, to be very friendly and openly communicative in a very spontaneous way....and with a sense of humour to go along with it, be it people you just met casually, or those employed in stores, restaurants, cafes or in the theatre.
Fact:
Birmingham, England, actually contains more miles of canals and a more extensive network of canals within its city limits than does that other city immediately associated with canals - Venice, Italy. They may not be quite as romantically connected, or laden with gondolas steered along by guys in costume and wearing ribboned straw hats as the Venetian versions, but there are more of them in Brummieland...many Brummie canals date back to the Industrial Revolution which first saw the light of day in that part of England. I liked Birmingham very much, and the Brummies I have met. They may have an accent which is not the most pleasant to the ear but all in those those I have met and know were/are ace. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqn8b2pq-pY&feature=related
Yes, as you say Damian there are some resemblances, although as an Australian the Birmingham accent still sounds very different. It's alot to do with the put/putt merger, and the very distinctive cadence of the accent. Kind of like Manchester mixed in with broad Cockney, don't seem to hear it that much on British TV programs, despite the fact Birmingham is England's 'second city.'
Australians are also guilty of pronouncing the 'h' in ham. Come to Perth and hear them talk about 'Rockingham' (a coastal city just south of Perth which is actually probably about 50% British).
Both accents do that thing where you turn a long A into a long I, which we would normally associate with Australians, so I can see the source of the confusion. Remember that most people aren't familiar with ALL the features of a given accent, just the ones that happen to stick out to them. Those are the ones that will get the mental tag "oh, that must be such-and-such".
First the Americans "steal" Birmingham and then mis-pronounce it, and now it seems that the Aussies have "stolen" Rockingham and mis-pronounce that as well - when will this blatant larceny and grotesque gall ever end?
Rockingham - a wee village in Northamptonshire, England - where the locals most definitely do NOT "ham" it up......definitely an "umm" will do....as in "ROCK-ing-umm". Not far from Rockingham is the wee village of Fotheringay - pronounced more or less phonetically - on the outskirts of the village you will find a large mound covered by grass and shrubs and bushes and surrounded by a deep ditch...the remains of Fotheringay Castle which was the scene of the execution in February 1587 of our beloved Scottish Queen Mary - Mary Queen of Scots - executed on the orders of England's Queen Elizabeth I, (laughingly called the Virgin Queen) who later bitterly regretted her action. Rockingham Castle - it featured very prominently in the English Civil War - 1642 to 1646, and was used for filming in the TV series "By the Sword Divided", which was all about the English Civil War.
Fotheringay Castle......so it no longer exists, so Chepstow Castle will have to do even though it's in Wales, not England - but only just as the River Wye flows very close by and forms the border between Wales and England.
And nobody in Chepstow speaks Welsh, which is hardly surprising as a stone chucked from the ramparts of the Castle could quite possibly land in England. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VBh0sJYMiY
Geordie and Welsh accents sound alike. Try saying 'boyo' in a Geordie accent or 'howay the lads' in a Welsh accent...
Maybe it's that WE are pronouncing these names correctly, and the original inhabitants have merely developed a strange impediment to doing so. ;P
English names are notorious for being said different from how they are said. Leceister is 'Lester', Derby is 'Darby', Berkshire is 'Barkshire', Cambridge is 'Caymebridge'. So I don't think saying 'Birmingham' with the 'h' is too big a travesty.
Uriel - you may have a valid point there as it's true that there was quite a dramatic change in the way placenames and many ordinary words were pronounced since Tudor times and even later, and you newly established Americans, safely ensconced far away over the ocean becamne immune to such changes.
William Shakespeare, a rough and ready, lusty red cheeked countrylad born and brought up in the glories of the unspoiled Warwickshire countryside of the 16th century, may well have known of a small town similar in size perhaps to his own Stratford-upon-Avon, a wee place called Birmingham, in those days long before the Industrial Revolution turned Birmingham into a rapidly growing hive of industry. It's quite possible he would have pronounced the name of "his" English Birmingham something like the way the present day citizens of all American Birminghams do...with the "ham" bit clearly enunciated. This is just speculation so who, offhand and without consulting historians and experts in this topic, knows for sure. I find this quite interesting, but many of my friends are not quite so enthused so we tend to chat about other things.....
I love the blatant irregularities in many British places - both in England and in Scotland - Wales is a special case here, for obvious reasons.
You really, really DO have to be either a local or someone with fore-knowledge to know how to pronounce many placenames or even surnames correctly, in the accepted, official way..... Cholmondeley (Chumley) Featherstonehaugh (Fanshaw) Happisburgh (Hazebruh) Glamis (Glahms) Culzean (Cullane) Trottiscliffe (Trossley) Leominster (Lemster) Woolfardisworthy (Woolsery) Hawick (Hoick) Lympne (Limm) Horsmonden (Hormsdun) ...and many more... |