Robin Hood & the English Accent
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 2 ส.ค. 2024
- A Yank in Sussex sounds like a Yank, inside and outside of Sussex!
One of my favorite films is Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner. He was criticized for not attempting an English accent, but which one should he have tried? I don't think it would have worked out well, no matter which one he would have attempted. But Costner isn't the only Robin Hood without an English accent! As I will show here. Also, after searching for the Sussex accent for some time, without success, I finally dug up a recording of such an accent from the 1920's.
The British Bride said that she hadn't heard an actual Sussex accent in decades, so it may well have died out.
I got the Sussex accent video from the "videocurious" channel, at: • Sussex - Dialect Briti...
As a Brit I always find it amusing that Americans say "ROBIN Hood" as against "Robin HOOD". 🤣
I saw the film at the Cinema on its release. I am from the North of England and when it jumped from the White Cliffs to Hadrian's Wall in a flash my wife and I looked at each other and burst out laughing. 😜
With regard to the old Sussex accent - you can hear similar, but not identical, accents in some of the recordings from WWII, for example of troops coming back from Dunkirk. My Paternal Grandfather, a Plumber from Worthing, who grew up on a Downland farm, also had more than a trace of it.
Hello, Sussex resident here, this was great, really interesting to hear the old Sussex accent.
Very nice history lesson! Enjoyed watching and hearing all the attempts or no attempts of being "English"
The epic of Beowulf would probably be a good counterpoint to the Canterbury tales.
Rollo the Viking and his men were the same as the vikings settled in the Danelaw and whilst the Saxons etc languages would be different, I wonder how much difference between the Danes/Normans would actually be as you would think some folk memory would be retained especially as they still travelled and would have trade links with their past especially the Isle of Man which was Rollo's previous seat before the French king gave him an upgrade. Similar to the trade between Cornwall and Brittany for the same reasons.
Great video and information great job well done thanks for sharing cheers 👍👍🇬🇧
6:48 man, that sounds so savage :)
Thank you for very interesting work on Sussex! A few points regarding RP, it is not what usually nobility or royalty speak who often use different vowels for example. The importance of RP is not to achieve social status but to reach a level of global clarity and consensus of the english language in order to safeguard maximum comprehension. Very important in our times of mass communication. Furthermore RP adds more credibility to what you are saying (rightly or wrongly). South east standard english is not quite RP either although quite near.
also there is almost 40 different dialects spoken in the UK , so you were close
A very interesting film. I have often wondered why American actors always try to replicate either Received pronunciation or London accents. There are many other regional accents in England that contain elements far closer to American speech, the most obvious being west country with its heavy rhoticism. The speech of northern and central England pronounces 'Grass' in the same way as most Americans.
As a Londoner I didn't find Russell Crowes attempt too bad, he sounded fairly close to an east midlander, and I could not detect any Irish in it.
Want to hear old Sussex. Head down to Rye.
Very interesting!
It’s curious what has happened to the accent of us native Sussex folk over the decades. But within what might now be called a general SE accent there is the effect of class too, and also the migration of many Londoners down into Sussex, generally roughening and degrading local language.
Along with it now seemingly being fashionable to sound rough & uneducated amongst some people, with deliberate use of the glottal stop and the consequent banishment of the letter ‘t’ from their vocabulary.
American actors sometimes get flak for their attempts at a British accent, but for a view from the other direction there is probably no finer example of terrible American accents than the hilarious romp Carry on Cowboy, with many cringeworthy attempts at ‘American’, along with some real US accents for comparison…
You know your history , Robin Hood , may not have been a real person , as that is up for debate by historians , they believe the tale of Robin may have been based on a real person . but not called Robin Hood
No he would have a Nottingham Accent.
I do wonder if today's Nottingham accent was a 'thing" back in the 14th century when the first Robin Hood tales were told? As one authority has it, "The East Midlands dialect of Middle English which extended over a much larger area, as far south as Middlesex, is the precursor of modern English spoken today, which has descended from the early modern English of the early 16th century." The East Midlands is of course where Nottinghamshire is located!
If that be so, then we may all be speaking the old Nottinghamshire accent! 😁
How's about using a west country accent.
I've tried, but I can't make it work. My British Bride can do a west country accent, however. And she's originally from Birmingham.
I'm not good with accents. I can speak German fluently, but I cannot make myself speak English with a German accent. I don't know why.