#Or Queens English/Recieved Pronunciation

[birchbow]

thought experiment for fun and absolutely no profit

Premise #1: most people I've heard tend to read Eridan's lines with varying amounts of English accent. Eminently reasonable as far as I'm concerned, his habit of dropping the "g" off words and the way most people pronounce "ww" and "vv" make that a very easy read

Corollary: if we have violetbloods with a moderately posh English accents please consider: Recieved Pronunciation fuchsiabloods. everything else about the way they talk exactly the same except now also they sound like fuckin. queen whatever it was

Further corollary: a lot of people have considered Gamzee with varying degrees of vaguely American-south drawl. have u considered instead. iss a mothefuckin' miracle innit bruv. :o) Have you considered it. it's very silly. highly recommend

[irisbaggins]

The Longman Pronunciation Dictionary actually has transcribed Mordor. I was looking for mutineer, but hey, it’s fun to learn!

[the-gotham-hyperion]

Everyone thinks British accents on men are hot - but what’s the opinion on British accents with women? 

[katabasiss]

some of u will really open discussion about cultural sensitivity and classism and then immediately turn around and mock british speakers for words like ‘innit’ and ‘bruv’ like mate idk how to tell u this but that’s derived from the sociolect multicultural london english (regarded as an multiethnolect) and deviated into the phonology for the prototype accent of estuary english 🤡 like u really gonna make fun of an accent that’s developed from and still heavily associated with working class and ethnic communities like that huh 😤 like mate if u wanna bully a british accent bully queens english/recieved pronunciation 🤡 like way to perpetuate the systemic classism in britian huh

[sockmonstergotstyle]

A short summary of ‘British’ accents in tsc, for anyone confused

I decided to make this post some time ago after it was said kit will be moving to Devon, because I could just see the “OMG kits got a sexy British accent” posts on the horizon. In fact, the British Accent is a theme I see often on tumblr, and the misunderstanding surrounding it is quite frustrating. But it’s also made me realise that a lot of people don’t seem to know much about the UK? So I thought this would be a cute idea.

So here we are! This is an English class folks.

Let’s start with the most important point — the ‘British Accent’ isn’t real, because the phrase ‘British’ would imply everyone in England, Scotland and Wales speaks like that. Accents change literally from town to town in some cases, so this is definitely not true. I know many like to believe because the UK is small we all sound the same and drink tea with the queen, but that’s not the case.

What you mean by ‘British Accent’ is likely actually something called Recieved Pronunciation, or RP for short. RP was first developed for BBC broadcasting years ago and is designed to sound posh and clear so those listening could make sense of it, as well as giving the radio station a uniform sound as all workers were taught to speak RP (some schools taught it also, many also calling it Queen’s English). So the only people who sound like the Queen are the upper class, because they were really the only ones to care about RP and it’s kinda stuck.

The other equivalent to the “British Accent” is probably a posher Southern English accent, like Tom Hiddleston or Benedict Cumberbatch. Again, that’s not a regular occurrence, and is definitely another example of RP filtering into higher society. In fact, I’ve never heard someone irl speak like that.

So what are the more likely accents of British tsc characters, if they don’t all sound like the Queen?

We’ll go through in bullet points, shall we?

Will — he’s Welsh. I don’t know much about Welsh accents since I’ve never been there (if any welsh people wanna jump in here go ahead) but I’ve met enough people from Wales to tell you that they also do not sound like the Queen. Will’s accent might have changed a little with him living in London for almost a decade, but probably not much, and Cecily will likely have quite a thick Welsh accent since she grew up there.

Charlotte, Henry, the tid Lightwoods etc — I don’t remember if it is said they were from different areas or all born and raised in London, but if that’s the case then the accent comes down to where they lived in London (again, I can’t remember). From their status among the Shadowhunters and therefore the city, I’d say they are the most likely to sound like the posh “British Accent” although RP wasn’t well known until later and they aren’t upper class mundanes, so even that’s iffy.

The Starkweathers — the Starkweathers we see in tid are from York. York is in the North of England, and so off the bat their accent is very different to the Southern characters. The Yorkshire accent itself is interesting and I don’t really know how to explain it other than glottal stops are a thing and some letters just don’t exist anymore in verbal communication. But I can say it is definitely not posh lmao. We don’t talk posh up north. **EDIT: I literally just remembered game of thrones is a thing wow listen to Jon Snow speak, or even better that ginger lass he hangs with in one of the earlier seasons**

Annabel and her family, possibly Malcolm also — Annabel is from Cornwall. I can’t remember where Malcolm is from but I know he lived with her there, so he likely picked up on parts of the accent too. Again, I’ve never been that end of the country, but Cornwall is also in the West Country, just below Devon. I imagine there are slight differences in the accent as there is everywhere, but that it is still mainly the same (I live in the north east, so while my accent is mainly the same as everyone else in the north east there are still small differences in my accent and the accent of the towns like half an hour from me). I went into more detail about the West Country accent below, so I’ll leave it there. But in summary, still not RP.

Finally, Kit. Obviously Kit isn’t from England, but I’ve seen a lot of speculation that the move to Devon will give him a ~Sexy British AccentTM~ and that is really what sparked this post. For a start, although Kit will possibly pick up some slang or a slight accent, I personally doubt his accent will change much in the few years he’s there before twp. But for those who like to think it will: Devon is in the West Country, the very South West of England. They have quite a specific accent, and some might say it sounds a little pirate-like as @kit-herondale-blackthorn said, although this is mainly down to the curled ‘r’ sound (they don’t actually sound exactly like stereotypical pirates). Again, that accent is absolutely nothing like RP, so if Kit is to develop a “British Accent” it will be the Devon accent, not the Queen’s or Benedict Cumberbatch’s.

I think that’s everyone? I didn’t mention Jem because although I imagine he has a slight English twang he was of course raised in Shanghai so I don’t know how those two accents would mix.

So yeah, there’s my vague run down of the “British Accent” in tsc. Join us next week for the debate over why a line in Lady Midnight claimed Toad in the Hole is a dessert.

Enjoy my incredibly accurate map by someone who stopped studying Geography in year 9. Hope this clears up some confusion (is London in the right place! Is Yorkshire even in the right place? Do I even know where I live?).

Fellow British fandom members please feel free to jump in and correct me and/or have a say

[hansolsdeliciousanus-remade]

Accent anon - when you say non specific do you think its like recieved pronouciation?

a little bit? its not quite the queens english cause i do sometimes slip into black country or welsh but its not a strong accent. so yeah i’d say it’s probably received pronunciation