Northern accents ‘to fade out within 50 years and some words face extinction’
Nowt divides the UK like the North/south divide.
But the lines may be on the verge of becoming a little blurred, if a group of scientists (southerners) is to be believed.
They predict that our accents are changing so much that by 2066, northern dialects and accents will largely have disappeared.
It means words like strut (rhyming with foot up north) are likely to change.
Backend (which means autumn in some northern parts) will completely disappear within 20 years.
However, it’s not all bad news, as they also believe that the difference between bath and baarrth, grass and gr-arse will remain strong.
‘Fall’ has already largely disappeared from its traditional region in the south-west, although it still dominates in North America.
This follows the decline of words to describe snails, such as ‘dod-man’, ‘hodmedod’, ‘hoddy-dod’, ‘hoddy-doddy’, which faded from English language over the last century.
South-western pronunciations like the ‘arrr’ sound in ‘farm’ are set to disappear from the region altogether.
Researchers examined the shift by comparing dialect data from the 1950s with a 2016 study of 50,000 English speakers.
Dr James Burridge, from the University of Portsmouth’s School of Mathematics and Physics, explained how the study was carried out.
He said: ‘We found that comparing the two [studies] was a viable way of exploring language change in 20th Century English.
‘We built a physics model, which accounted for people moving around their home location and sometimes going further afield – for instance for jobs or marriage – and we also accounted for how people learn language.
‘We ran the model with correct population distributions and migration patterns in the 1900s and then rolled it forward to 2000.
‘We then compared the model maps to the dialect maps and found that our modelling could predict how English language will evolve over the next 40 years or so.’
Dr Tamsin Blaxter, from the University of Cambridge, added: ‘It’s exciting that models from physics can be used to explain what we have observed about changing dialects, and even make predictions about the future.’
Dr Burridge added: ‘In about 1900, almost everybody said “thawing” pronounced “thaw-wing”, but the majority of people now pronounce the word “thawing” with an intrusive “r”, which means it sounds like “thaw-ring”.
‘Our model predicts this change happened over about 25 years.
‘We found the word has changed because it was tricky to pronounce and children are more likely to pick up the easier pronunciation.
‘This then becomes the norm. However, it hasn’t changed everywhere yet because some major cities like Leeds and Manchester have rejected the change.’
Dr Burridge said words can sometimes get ‘stuck’, creating boundaries between regions known as ‘isoglosses’.
He said: ‘On an isogloss there is often no dominant pronunciation, or there may be different words for the same object or action.
‘So children growing up on such a boundary have a hard time working out what the “right” choice is, as they’re exposed to language on both sides.
‘The word thawing has kept its original pronunciation in some northern cities because there hasn’t been enough of a push to move the isogloss boundary through them.’
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