British Accents: West Country

The UK sound is a rich array of many

beautiful regional accents and some of

them differ vastly from one another so

it's no wonder that a non-native english

speaker might find it difficult to

understand the natives. In this series

we're going to be going on a trip of

discovery listening to lots of different

accents from different regions learning

the phrases that they use and finding

out what are the key features of each

accent. So who are we meeting today?

This is Tom. Tom is from the West Country

Hello Tom, say hello Tom, alright!

Now the West country accent is

wonderful and there are certain phrases

that you would only hear from someone in

the West Country for example - Alright my lover

hello mate, gurt lush, very good, 'ark at he,

listen to him haha

in any case, anyway, skew-whiff, crooked

Where be to? Where are you going?

Chucky pig, wood louse. Now as you

probably gathered the West country

accent is lovely it's a very fun accent

isn't it Tom? But some people will

associate the West country accent with

farmers which is bizarre but i think

that potentially comes from the BBC

radio program The Archers, and what was

the other drama you were talking about?Poldark

which is a drama all about farmers? That's

true yeah, and they have this West country

accent but you have to be aware that

just because someone has this accent it

doesn't automatically mean they're a

farmer or from a farming family so

let's look at some of the common

features of the West country accent now

so we're going to start off with a

rhotic R as you probably know from

some of my other videos a standard

British English accent doesn't have a

rhotic R we only pronounce the R if

it's at the beginning of a word or if it

follows something like a th but when

you're speaking with the West country

accent we do pronounce the R so for

example if we were to say the following

words farm so i do a long vowel AH

but Tom did AR and made the R rhotic

let's say that again, farm, I'm going

down to the farm

i'm going down to the farm, warm,

It's quite warm today

lover, now

you notice the at the end of the world

lover, I'm doing the schwa ending which

you would normally do for an ER ending

but Tom is curling into the R so

lover

it's lovely isn't it? He is my lover

He is my lover. Is he really? He's not!

And the final word we're going to look at is first.

So you'll notice I'm doing .... nice and

open and Tom does .... first, there we go.

I come first.

The next common feature we're going to

look at is the I diphthong. In the West

country accent this is more like ...

it's more rounded with the OR vowel

rather than the a vowel at the beginning

so in standard English we have I, but

in west country we have .....

okay so let's look at this in action so

we'll use the words guide

guide me home. White

Is it going to be a

white Christmas? Is it going to be a

white Christmas who knows! Life

I'll give him the kiss of life

I'll give him the kiss of life (Giggles) who is this man? I don't know.

The next feature is the ng sound only

when we have an ing ending so for

example I would say walking

walking walking

I'm out walking with my dog. I'm out

walking with my dog

you'll notice that Tom is doing an IN ending

meaning he's using the tip of the

time high upon the alveolar Ridge

closing it at the front, in in, whereas i

use the back of the tongue high closing it

off at the back: in in. So let's try that

again

walking walking, there we go. You could

also say talking

I was talking to my mother. I was talking

to my mother.

Another feature of the West country

accent is the .... vowel, so for example I

would say up. So you'll notice Tom is

making more of an .... sound

whereas mine's more open and light

good. That's have a look at some other words:

above, up and above,

love, I love it up and above

I love it up and above. It's

such a great accent. The final

feature we're going to look at today is

the west country accent relationship

with plosives, particularly the T sound

so when a T appears at the end of the

word in west country they generally

odmit it

so for example I would say: this and that,

this and that,

also when a

T is in the middle of a word mostly

when it starts the final syllable it

becomes a glottalised T, so for example in

the word water, or butter

and finally better

That butter is

better, that butter is better

mm-hmm so there you have it

five simple features and a handful of

phrases to help you get along if you're

ever speaking to someone from the west

country. So all that remains to say is

thank you very much Tom for coming along

Tah-dah loves. Don't forget to subscribe

and remember there's going to be plenty

more in this series of accent discovery. Bye