A London Accent from the 14th to the 21st Centuries
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Published 2020-12-24
If you have any specific questions, I'm more than happy to answer them in a comments and provide a page reference, or a reference to another piece of research. I also have a few videos on similar topics. My videos on the consonants and vowels of Old English go through some of the methods by which older pronunciation is reconstructed.
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CORRECTIONS:
Julia G. commented that 1646 recording mentions the display of a crucifix at a time (presumably the 1570s-1580s) when the open practice of Catholicism was considered high treason in England. I admit I had the timings slightly wrong here - although I think it is possible that some families privately kept hold of Catholic items and displayed them occasionally, it would have been dangerous. The mention of the crucifix was designed to provide a contrast to his comment at the end of the recording, which refers to the fact that Christmas was soon to be illegalised altogether.
Leona Bastet commented that 'spooked' (to describe a horse) is not appropriate in the Middle/Early Modern English period - the word 'spook' seems to be a later Dutch loan word! This was a result of me not really knowing which texts to look for the appropriate word in, and going for the modern one I'm most familiar with. Sorry about that!
All Comments (21)
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I’m from 14th century London I can confirm this is accurate
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Damn, this guy had to live for 7 centuries just to record this video. what a legend
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It’s crazy how you do all this and don’t consider yourself a linguist yet. This is incredible work.
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The effortless delivery of these monologues is what's the most astonishing here. Pure mastery
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This sounds like my Welsh uncle sobering up when he comes over on Christmas Day every year
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1400s: yiddish grandpa 1500s: nordic lad 1600s: german grandma/posh irishman 1700s: an american immigrant 1800s: an australian immigrant 1900s: an audio book
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1946 sounds soo much like how my great grandmother used to speak. I was born in southeast London and the accent is spot on.
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People don't say it enough here, but THANK YOU so much for not running ads on your videos
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as a swedish and english speaker, the 1406 accent is so trippy; my ears can't decide wether to process it as english or as swedish.
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As a non-native English speaker, this is an ultimate listening test
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Endlessly fascinated by how the English language has changed over the centuries. I was reading Chaucer about a year ago and was having a hard time understanding it. Then I started to read it out loud and then I realized that he was writing phonetically and that the words hadn't really changed that much. Thanks for doing this. I was born in Puerto Rico, raised in Arizona spent my life living in New York City and Los Angeles. I'm a dark skinned Hispanic that is endlessly fascinated with Ango-Saxon culture. I do hope you were able to make that film.
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i love how he speaks in these accents and dialects naturally with stuttering or slips and tone changes rather than a robotic script like a lot of other language channels do it feels really real
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You can really hear how Germanic English really is with the 1406 version.
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As an American, it's fascinating to hear it get closer to a North American accent through the late 1700s, and then diverge after that.
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The second section is astonishingly Nordic-sounding. And the change from the mid 17th to the early 18th century is just extraordinary! Marvellous video, thank you!
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This is brilliant it sounds like a mix between Scottish, Scandinavian, Irish and a lot of other modern English accents, sounds very accurate
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The 1706 and 1766 accents give you an idea also of how the American colonists of the time sounded. I'm always amused when movies about the American Revolution depict the British soldiers with posh, non rhotic pronunciation. The reality is they wouldn't have sounded much different from the American colonists they were fighting.
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I'd love to see a period drama set in England using the actual language of the time
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In doing my family genealogy, I found the earliest immigrant to America was in 1650ish. I often wondered what he sounded like. You gave me a clearer idea of how he may have sounded. He seems even more real to me now.
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I'm just so impressed that you took on this challenge in the first place - and executed it perfectly. Utterly fascinating. And I love that, just to be kind, you added your family's Etsy shop links.
