neadods: (hamlet)
[personal profile] neadods
YouTube link of a man reciting Sonnet 116 in Received Pronunciation followed by original pronunciation.

The weirdest part of all this is that OP sounds like someone who spent 20 years in rural Ireland and followed them up with 20 years in rural West Virginia... something that sounds like hillbilly and yet it's some of the most enduring and erudite English in the world.

Date: 2011-03-14 12:31 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] paratti.livejournal.com
Doesn't sound Irish at all to me. More Mummerset (Somerset, Devon, East Dorset) with a dash of Northern flat vowel/word clipping.

Which is odd, considering Shakespear was a Warwickshire boy writing in London and our regional accent differences are still marked today and would have been even stronger back then.

Date: 2011-03-14 01:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] clanwilliam.livejournal.com
Mummerset to me as well, but northern Mummerset which would work for the Warwickshire bit - a place with converging accents, after all (even pre-Industrial Revolution).

Most definitely not Irish, though. The nearest to Irish I could get is when I lapse into a Somerset accent and I try very hard not to, because I speak with an Irish accent, and I sound like I'm taking the piss. (My husband remains deeply amused, particularly thanks to my habit of saying "thank 'ee" - in my Irish accent! - when we're on his home turf.)

Date: 2011-03-14 01:09 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] neadods.livejournal.com
There is a certain amount of "like this Yankee would know the difference" going on here. West Virginia and productions of The Irish RM I know. Never been to Mummerset.

Date: 2011-03-14 03:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] easy-living.livejournal.com
It sounded West Country to me as well, Somerset/Dorset and the Bristol area (although not Bath obviously, where they're far posher and closer to RP, LOL)

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