The Birmingham accent

Some research shos that Shakespear had an influence on the Birmingham accent, and it is believed that Shakespeare spoke in an accent similar to todays "Brummie" accent.

Immagrationn from other countries also has a major influence on the accent.

Some celebrities that speak with the bummie accent: Jasper Carrot, Ozzy Osbourne, Frank Skinner, Adrian Chilles

Characteristics of the accent is the melodic and sing songy way of speeking.

Some words which belong to the dialect are:

Pop 

Another word for a glass of fizzy drinks, do you want a glass of pop

Rock 

A children's hard sweet (as in "give us a rock") (In the Black Country it would be "gie us a suck" Suck being a hard sweet)

Snap 

Food, a meal, allegedly derived from the act of eating itself (example usage "I'm off to get my snap" equates to "I'm leaving to get my dinner"). May also refer to the tin containing lunch, a "snap tin", as taken down the pit by miners

Scrage

A scratched cut, where skin is sliced off. For example 'I fell over an badly scraged my knee'

Suff 

Another word for drain, as in "put it down the suff"

Language change - is it a good/bad thing?

Language change can be a good thing because it keeps everything interesting and current. It also stops language being boring and is a way to build your own personal identity. Another postive is it can help to close the gaps between cultures.
Language change can be negative because people may not always understand what others are saying and words can loose meaning.

My Veiw

I think that language change is positive because language needs to be updated to suit the time. Despite this being my veiw I think that slang and made up words are not good for language because people cannot always understand you and they often hazve negative connotations.

What do you think are the most important influences on language change?

I think that telivison and radio are the biggest influences on language change because people listen to them and pick up some new words. For example people have started top say "proven" when a few years back they would have said "this is proof" or "it has been proved".

Do you think some of the more recent additions to the language will survive? (e.g. peng, bare, butterz, mandem, bbm, cba, lol, i-phone, i-pad, smart phones, fraped ....etc).

I dont think these will stand the tick of time because they are just passing crazes and are only used in informal social situations and it is mainly youngsters that use them.

Key events in History

The printing press: 1476

The printing press had a huge impact on the development of laqnguage, this is mostly down to thepublication of books and the education of the people.

- Spelling was more standardised, pronouciation was developed.

- Standard english form is recognised, the grammatical changed slowed.

- Publication of books and education.

Dictionaries:

The first book that listed english words was Richard Mulcaster's 'Elementsaire', this was published in 1582.

Robert Cowdrey wrote the forst alphabetical English dictionary called 'Table Alphabetical' which was published in 1604, it listed approxiamtely 3000 words!

Samuel Johnson's dictionary was different and more influencial because it listed 40,000 words and was done by the help of volunteers.

The idea for The English Oxford Dictionary was thought of in 1850's, although it was eventually started in 1879, The plan was to create a vast and comprehensive collection of english words from the early middle english period onwards.

The Online English Dictionary was created in 2000, and it was easy and simple to use; also it was more updated then any other dictionary before, you could search for words much easier and there are also quotations on there.

I am very suprised at how much the english language has changed since the 5th century. Listening to the saxons speak and write, it is uncomprehensible and doesn't even sound like English.

More English

Accents and Dialects
An accent is pronounciation and the way people say things, where as dialect consists of features such as the actual vocabulary and language.

Invasions and war played a big part in developing our language's for example the anglo saxons invasions in 449 AD which included words such as "cheese, angel, bishop, paper and elephants" In 787 AD the Viking Raids began and this produced words such as "widow, harbour, glitter, weak, tight"

In 1066 AD the Norman Conquest (Battle of Hastings) took place which brought in administration and religous words such as "goverment, liberty, crucifix and saint"

A some what breif summary of what I learnt on a fine Monday morning in my favourite lesson ever! x

When researching the Birmingham accent I found that people have a lot of preconceptions and prejudices for the accent and people especially from the South of England perceive it very negatively. This is mainly because they’re ignorant but could also be because sitcoms on the television often portray the “Brummie” character as boring and unintelligent.