All the UK people?

Question

Do you have different accents as we do in the US? Do you describe people from the north as talking northern and so forth. Like here, people talk very different in each state. Is that how it is over there? Just wondering.

Answer 1

Yes we all have different accents - in fact considering that the UK is such a relatively small country we have quite a large number of accents which only cover compartively small regions. Here's some examples of accents and where they come from:-

Scouse (from Liverpool)
Yorkshire
Geordie (from the Newcastle area)
Brummy (from Birmingham)
West Country (from the South West of England, although within that it's possible to distinguish people from Devon, Cornwall, Somerset, Bristol etc etc)
Cockney (from the East End of London)

To an untrained ear many accents may sound the same, for example someone from Wolverhampton may sound much like someone from nearby Birmingham but if you actually live in that area you notice subtle differences that distinguish one from another.

I was born and brought up in the East End of London and used to speak with quite a broad East London "Cockney" accent (although I'm sure that a true Cockney, born perhaps only a mile away from me, would say that all I had was a "London Accent"). I have now lived in Southampton for nearly 30 years and now speak a strange mixture of London and Southampton/Hampshire accents! My children sound even more "Southampton" than I do despite listening to my (and my wife's) London-ish accent at home because all their friends have local accents.

You can listen to some different accents on this website:-
http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/dialects/

Answer 2

Not from the UK, but yes, they do. Everything is regional. Think about Jason Statham and Ian Fleming. Very different regional accents.

In fact, fascinating tidbit ... I'm from Baltimore (in the US), home of the famed accent, which is said to descend from Cornish immigrants that settled in the area in the 1600's. And in case you don't know, Cornwall is a region in England. Yes, like the Cornish Hen. And Welsh rarebit is really rabbit. Screwy Welsmen. Huzzah.

EDIT - GLH's answer is a lot better than mine. Just providing illustration.

Answer 3

Yes. We can identify very specific geographical areas from the accent, such as a particular city or whether they are from north or south London.

Answer 4

Very similar to how you describe it in America.
Different regions produce different accents.

Answer 5

I think that in every country there are different accents. In my country there are at lest four different ones.