This feature was first published in February 2025 in My Mensa Weekly, our exclusive newsletter for Mensa members. Find out more about becoming a Mensa member here.
Words: Jonathan McIntosh
From Glaswegian to Cockney, accents and dialects represent regional characteristics and the ebb and flow of history. We consider forces that have shaped the UK and Ireland’s catalogue of accents and dialects while acknowledging the vast body of ongoing research into this fascinating subject.
Origin stories
While accent is how words are pronounced, dialect is concerned with the differences in vocabulary and grammar and both stem from two main catalysts: invasions and migrations. In broad-brush terms, several events and developments have played into the variations of spoken English that we are familiar with today.
Back in the 5th century, north-west European Germanic tribes invaded England – Angles settling in the Midlands and the eastern regions, Saxons selecting south-west of the Thames and Jutes choosing Kent and the south coast. Each tribe’s mother tongue developed into the West Saxon, Kentish, Northumbrian and Mercian dialects of Old English.
From AD 800, invading Vikings brought the Old Norse language to our shores and new dialects emerged. After the Normans invaded England in 1066, yet another language – French – began to filter into the language of the upper and ruling classes, particularly words linked to law, art, religion and governance. The same is true for the Middle Irish dialect, which was prevalent in Ireland between AD 900 and AD 1200.
Old English had developed into Middle English by 1100. In medieval Scotland, Scottish Gaelic was the norm, especially in the Highlands and western regions. By the 14th century, however, in the Lowlands and south-east Scotland it was gradually replaced by Scots – a close relation of Old English. Between the 12th and 14th centuries, Middle Welsh was Wales’s main language, but its official use was banned and replaced by English following Henry VIII’s Act of Union in 1536.
As Middle English morphed into Late Middle English, influenced by the language of the royal court and Christianity (with its religious terms borrowed from Latin) we see the first shoots of Modern English; its standardisation and proliferation was boosted by the introduction of the printing press, which arrived in England from the Continent in 1476.
Events such as the 1611 translation of the King James Bible from Latin to English, the popularity of William Shakespeare’s works, the classical learning of the Renaissance period, the 1707 Union of the Crowns and, more recently, the proliferation of mass media and communication in the 20th century have all contributed to the dissemination of Modern English across the UK and Ireland.
Why accents and dialects vary
Yet despite proliferation of a standard form of English, accents and dialects developed countrywide – and they continue to evolve. Today, there are around 40 different UK accents and dialects, each possessing vocabularies and grammar distinct to their region and its social and cultural history.
Until the late 19th century, communication and travel between areas was limited, and working people tended to live close to their places of work – both urban and rural. This allowed distinct regional accents and dialects to develop within relative isolation from outside influences and gifted each accent and dialect its characteristics.
The 20th century brought improved access to education and the media, and opportunities for social and geographical movement. Alongside this, immigration brought different languages as well as distinct dialects and accents to the mix, one example being Multicultural London English (MLE). Linguists believe MLE resulted from a blending of Cockney and Jamaican Patois, which has since been shaped by the additional 300 languages spoken in London, and the cadences and lexicons of Caribbean, South Asian and West African populations, who migrated here after the Second World War.
The Our Dialects project celebrates diversity in spoken English and revels in the way we use different words to say the same thing. For example, a type of round bread called a ‘bap’ across Northern Ireland is called a ‘roll’ across Scotland and, variously in England, a barm, batch, cob or muffin.
This project has gathered data from more than 14,000 English speakers from the Isle of Lewis to Cornwall, aged between 10 and 89, since it began in 2013. For a deeper dive into their findings, this paper is a good place to start.
Perceptions and bias
While there is so much to celebrate in the diversity of English dialects spoken by people of different ages, ethnicity, gender, class and sexuality, there is a downside too. The 2022 Speaking Up research project found that young people from the north of England and the Midlands were more concerned their accent would result in negative judgement than those from the south of London. Of the adults surveyed, 25% said their accents had been criticised at work while 46% had been singled out in social situations.
Received Pronunciation (also known as BBC or the Queen’s English) was rated as the country’s “most prestigious” accent, with African-Caribbean, Indian, Mancunian, Scouse and Brummie rated the least. These results mirror the outcomes of similar accents surveys in 1969 and 1970, suggesting accent and dialect bias is still prevalent in the UK.
Those of us who may alter our accent, dialect and diction in different situations are exhibiting what is known as linguistic accommodation, which reflects our subconscious efforts to be better understood while minimising judgement. According to the Accent Bias in Britain project, however, accent and dialect bias is a social artifice. They argue that no accent or dialect is linguistically better or worse than another but that our society applies prestige, ideologies and stereotypes.
The UK and Ireland have some of the most robust accent and dialect diversity in the English-speaking world. But due to the internet, ease of travel, mass communication and pop culture’s influence, some linguists warn that dialects are becoming increasingly homogenised. If history has shown us anything, however, it’s that language isn’t meant to stay static. It shifts and reshapes to best fit those who use it. And, because of this, our accents and dialects will keep on evolving.
A history of Received Pronunciation
Listen to the origins, development and modern-day use of the accent that’s been rated the UK’s most prestigious.
Image credit: Shutterstock
