Scones

[Phil Pascoe]

Monoglot Cornish peakers died out hundreds of years earlier in the east that the west (probably because in the east they needed English to converse with the heathens in Devon - educated Cornish spoke Cornish and Latin ). Dolly Pentreath (D. 1777) is often said to have been the last Cornish speaker, but this is untrue. She was apparently the last monoglot Cornish speaker although it is said she did speak a little English.
There are supposed to have been incidents of children speaking some pure Cornish in Zennor in the early 1900s.
Your conjugation of the verb to be would make anyone in W. Cornwall wonder what planet the speaker had come from. I rarely visit places that language is spoken - here be dragons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_C ... lect_words is quite interesting. Many are still common, but many I've never heard of - I suspect many are well obsolete, very localised or historically job related. The picture is of Poldice - just up the road from me.

 

[MikeG.]

......Going back to the early-mid 20th century I think there was similarity in speech through out the west country which would be very difficult for an outsider to differentiate between, but the locals would be able to differentiate small differences........

I was at a large braai (BBQ) in Namibia a few years ago, surrounded entirely by locals other than one other Englishman who was well known to the guys there. They introduced me, and we chatted a for a few minutes, then I asked him if he was from Swindon. I've never been to Swindon, but I knew which west country accents he didn't have, and narrowed it down to Wiltshire or Gloucestershire (but not Brizzle). He was from a village just outside Swindon. How I could know this was a complete mystery to the Namibians, who couldn't distinguish between any "British" accents. In places like Australia and Africa there hasn't been the time for English speakers to diverge into local accents to any great extent, but us Brits have been at it for so long that we take it for granted that we can tell not only geographic location but social class/ educational background from just a few sentences.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I was in NZ with my sister and we had a conversation with a good friend of my bil (a very well educated Maori) who was astounded when my bil said that after eleven years living in NZ he could tell with certainty a Kiwi from an Australian (some accents are quite close, but not all) - any fool can tell, apparently. I asked him if there was any difference between my accent and Mike's - mine is Cornish, albeit not broad being with non Cornish people - and my bil's is very broad Plymouth even after years in NZ. He said they were both the same.
My sister, bil and mother were out one day there and someone commented that it was nice to hear accents from home - he wasn't sure whether they were two Jacks and a Janner or two Janners and a Jack. My sister lived for ten years in Plymouth so had a hybrid accent (it's worse now, it's 30% Cornish, 20% Plymouth and 50%) Kiwi. :lol:
When my mother first married she lived in Penryn, and she said amongst the older people it was easy to tell Penryn people from Falmouth people by their accents. The two places are all of two miles apart.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

... us Brits have been at it for so long that we take it for granted that we can tell not only geographic location but social class/ educational background from just a few sentences.

It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him. G.B.S.

 

[MikeG.]

I....... my bil said that after eleven years living in NZ he could tell with certainty a Kiwi from an Australian (some accents are quite close, but not all) - any fool can tell, apparently.........

Yep, they're completely different. New Zealanders mangle their "I" vowel into something almost like a northern "U". Ask them to say "fish & chips" and you'll know instantly. Everything else is just softer, gentler, than an Aussie accent.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

But not all of them - some are very similar.
Yes, I ate loads of fush'n'chups.

 

[samhay]

Yep, they're completely different. New Zealanders mangle their "I" vowel into something almost like a northern "U". Ask them to say "fish & chips" and you'll know instantly. Everything else is just softer, gentler, than an Aussie accent.

As someone who has live in both countries, I'd say that's about half right and certainly true about the i/u mono syllable of the Kiwi accent. The Kiwi accent is also more clipped and there are quite major differences in local colloquialisms.
There is some variation in the Aussie accent. I always thought it was somewhat regional, getting more extreme as you went further north, but it may be more of a city vs rural thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variation ... an_English

There is also some minor variation in the Kiwi accent, but the only really significant accent is that from Southland, where they roll their /r/ 's.

I'm told the Kiwi and South African accent's are also similar. They are both clipped, but otherwise quite different to my ear.

 

[samhay]

double post.

Oh, and it's scon (as in gone) in NZ and Australia as best I recall.

 

[Nigel Burden]

phil. ps link to the Cornish dialect above is interesting.

As someone born in Dorset with a Cornish mother and a Dorset father I was scanning through to see if I recognised any words. There are some familiar words that are used in both the Cornish and Dorset dialects such as Granfer for Grandfather. Others such as( cloam, earthenware),( scat, knocked,)( ess or iss for yes) and grammersow for woodlouse, were all words that were familiar to me, but not to my Dorset born wife. In fact she said that her family called a woodlouse a cheadlebob, which I'd never heard of until about thirty odd years ago when a girl I was working with used the word to refer to a woodlouse that was walking across the shop floor.

Much of the Dorset dialect would probably be difficult for me to understand as it's been diluted dramatically due to the influx of outsiders, particularly from London.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorset_dialect

Nigel.

 

[whiskywill]

grammersow for woodlouse, were all words that were familiar to me, but not to my Dorset born wife. In fact she said that her family called a woodlouse a cheadlebob,

In South Wales it's known as a Granny Grey.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

grammersow for woodlouse, were all words that were familiar to me, but not to my Dorset born wife. In fact she said that her family called a woodlouse a cheadlebob,

In South Wales it's known as a Granny Grey.

Speaking of names for insects , does anyone else call a wasp a Jasper? I don't know how local to East conwall that is.

 

[Nigel Burden]

grammersow for woodlouse, were all words that were familiar to me, but not to my Dorset born wife. In fact she said that her family called a woodlouse a cheadlebob,

In South Wales it's known as a Granny Grey.

Speaking of names for insects , does anyone else call a wasp a Jasper? I don't know how local to East conwall that is.

Yes, it's used up here in Dorset, so I would imagine that it's probably used through out Devon and probably Somerset as well. We also call them wapsies.

Nigel.

Nigel.

 

[MikeG.]

.......Speaking of names for insects , does anyone else call a wasp a Jasper? I don't know how local to East conwall that is.

East Cornwall!? I resemble that. Devon, to you, young feller-me-lad. And yes, they're jaspers, in the same way that grockle is correct and emmet isn't.

 

[Andy Kev.]

As a sort of postscript to the discussion, I stumbled on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKA7b7Zxi7A

After about 90 secs I wanted to murder the smug little w**ker :mrgreen: and that for a whole host of reasons and not just for his approach to the pronunciation of the word in question.

Enjoy.

 

[Doug B]

As a sort of postscript to the discussion, I stumbled on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKA7b7Zxi7A

After about 90 secs I wanted to murder the smug little w**ker :mrgreen: and that for a whole host of reasons and not just for his approach to the pronunciation of the word in question.

Enjoy.

Watching that makes me even happier in the knowledge I don’t do any of that, who on earth would want to be that pompous a pineapple [-(
:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[MikeG.]

......After about 90 secs I wanted to murder the smug little w**ker :mrgreen: and that for a whole host of reasons and not just for his approach to the pronunciation of the word in question........

Everything he said was of course 100% correct, including the pronunciation of "scone". The way he said it, though! I'm afraid I may have just had to drop a cream & jam laden scone down his jacket front. Accidentally, of course.

 

[Andy Kev.]

I know what you mean. It's possible to say almost anything without getting people's backs up. Lord alone knows who he thought is target audience was.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Lord alone knows who he thought is target audience was.

People who pronounce the word "sconn"?

 

[Doug B]

Everything he said was of course 100% correct

Well I’ve never seen anyone stir a cuppa like that & as for creases in your napkin facing upwards......well I leave that be with you

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I know what you mean. It's possible to say almost anything without getting people's backs up. Lord alone knows who he thought is target audience was.

It's for the upwardly mobile nouveau riche who feel out of their comfort zone when having to wine and dine with old Etonians and the like. What they don't realise is that Old Estonians mostly ignore all of that nonsense, so it it a futile attempt to ingratiate themselves with the upper echelons, not understanding that they will never be accepted by the true elite. Their grandchildren might, provided the Megabucks stay in the family.

Class is always fun. [youtube]9tXBC-71aZs[/youtube]