'They were competing for supremacy': Which is the oldest English accent?
For example, rhoticity – which is when you heavily pronounce the "r"s in a word, such as in "harrderr" or "waterr" – is another feature that was common in English in the past, but then, faded in some regions. It remains alive in Irish, Scottish and American English, and in the southwest of England – another living fossil from the distant past.
Interestingly, American English has also held on to some older words that British English has let go of. "There are some older words that you think are peculiarly American, which actually have an interesting history in England," Montgomery says. Take "sidewalk" for example: in older forms of English, we would have used that word before we paved the sides of the roads, and sidewalk became pavement.
William: In my home region of East Anglia, some older sounds did actually make it through to the present day. How do we know?
Again, the clue is in how words are spelled – if they're spelled the same, they were probably pronounced the same way, and vice versa. So, "road" and "rowed" are spelled differently, but in most of the UK, they're pronounced the same. Same with "moan" and "mown" – different spelling, same pronunciation. But these vowels were once pronounced differently. "Road" was pronounced similarly to "rood". "Moan" was similar to "moon", Kerri-Ann Butcher tells me.
Texts show that northern English accents have been stigmatised by southerners since the 14th Century
Meanwhile, the "o" in "rowed" and "mown" came from further back in the mouth than it does today. Perhaps in the East Anglian town of Lowestoft, the easternmost settlement in Great Britain, you will still hear some older folk mooning about the people up the rood.
The "yod" is another tell-tale sound from the past. This refers to how the letter "u" is pronounced. In some words, "u" is pronounced very clearly like "yew" (e.g. "volume", "menu"). This subtle, added "y"-sound is known as a yod – and leaving it out is known as "yod-dropping".
Yod-dropping varies from accent to accent. In classic Received Pronounciation, a person would say "Tuh-yews-day" for the day before Wednesday. Americans drop their yods quite readily and tend to say "Toos-day". And in a regional Suffolk accent, "Tuesday" sounds more like "choose-dee", because the yod is dropped, and there's a couple of other things going on: palatisation (the tongue coming forwards to soften the "t" – another example would be "train" sounding like "chrain") and a vowel reduction ("day" to "dee").
Overall, yod-dropping is much more common today than it was historically. "Luminous" or "lucid" would both have started with "luh-yew..." in the late Queen's English, but now it is much rarer to hear this.
So if you still say Tuh-yews-day and luh-yew-cid, you're giving an old sound – the yod – a bit of new life.
Molly: It's satisfying to hear that my home accent, and northern accents in general, are guardians of some really ancient English sounds – it goes against the common view in England that the southern accent is somehow more standard. In fact, in daily life, northern accents often face a struggle for respect and acceptance.
Texts show that northern English accents have been stigmatised by southerners since the 14th Century. This bias is an example of "language being used to highlight the differences in culture, and in socioeconomic status," says Montgomery. The midlands and north of England have long been associated with heavy industry, mills and factories – and therefore, the working classes. That link remains today.
"This country is still obsessed with social class," Montgomery says. "What you have is people making really quick judgements based on how you speak."
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In studies and surveys, southern voices are rated highly on "status traits", says Braber, meaning intelligence, wealth and clarity. However, they don't perform well on "solidarity traits", so they're not seen as friendly or as trustworthy. On the other hand, north-eastern accents tend to score highly on solidarity traits, but not on status. Accent bias research in the UK shows that having a less-prestigious accent can even affect access to housing and employment.
This north-south divide may, however, might not be forever: after all, accents continue to evolve. "Language is continually changing, dialects are continually changing. Nothing's frozen in time," says Montgomery.
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