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A question about accents on Downtown Abbey

A

Ambi

Well-Known Member
I know I am very late to watching this show - I never care about hype, and we're watching it just to have something to enjoy watching.

But I was wondering if anyone who has seen the show can tell me more about the accents? Can you tell where the different characters are supposed to be from based on their accents?
 
Ambi said:
I know I am very late to watching this show - I never care about hype, and we're watching it just to have something to enjoy watching.

But I was wondering if anyone who has seen the show can tell me more about the accents? Can you tell where the different characters are supposed to be from based on their accents?
Click to expand...

I'm guessing you're not from the UK? Sorry if I have assumed wrongly. I am from the UK, and yes, I can work out whereabouts in the UK someone is from based on their accent. I think many people from outside the UK have an assumption that everyone has the stereotypical English/British accent, but that is far from the truth. Two cities can be relatively close to each other, and have massive differences in their accents.
 
xudo said:
I'm guessing you're not from the UK? Sorry if I have assumed wrongly. I am from the UK, and yes, I can work out whereabouts in the UK someone is from based on their accent. I think many people from outside the UK have an assumption that everyone has the stereotypical English/British accent, but that is far from the truth. Two cities can be relatively close to each other, and have massive differences in their accents.
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Yes, I've been born and raised in America. Just hoping there are some UK fans here of the show who might be able to tell me what they've noticed about the different character's accents. I can tell they are quite different, especially among the servants.
 
What I should do is find some youtube clips that show the characters talking, then UK members here could tell me about the accents! Maybe when I have more time I'll find and post some clips.
 
Ambi said:
What I should do is find some youtube clips that show the characters talking, then UK members here could tell me about the accents! Maybe when I have more time I'll find and post some clips.
Click to expand...
It'll probably just be received English ( also called Posh )or otherwise known as standard English it's what's taught at drama schools Or in elocution lessons .
If not that would be a west country accent !maybe Devon or Wiltshire, you probably recognise the East London accent which is usually spread out over drama programmes.
 
I believe Downton Abbey was based on the history of Highclere Castle, which is located in Newbury (to the left of Reading and below Oxford on a map of the UK). I have a friend who lives near by, so I've had a wander around a few times.

The characters in the main family all speak in a form of received pronounciation, but toned down a bit for viewers to understand. You rarely hear that dialect outside of private/grammar schools, politics and drama class these days, as it's considered a bit 'stuck up' or old fashioned by a lot of people. The character of the mother (Cora?) is originally from America, so her accent likely sounds more familiar to you. To an British person, her accent is clearly Americanised, although her vocabulary is very similar.

I haven't seen the entire series, so I'm not sure of all the different character names, but if you list some then I can probably find out for you. I studied linguisitics for the main part of my degree and love studying different accents, so happy to do some reasearch!

Google Maps - Highclere Castle on Google Maps.
 
xudo said:
I'm guessing you're not from the UK? Sorry if I have assumed wrongly. I am from the UK, and yes, I can work out whereabouts in the UK someone is from based on their accent. I think many people from outside the UK have an assumption that everyone has the stereotypical English/British accent, but that is far from the truth. Two cities can be relatively close to each other, and have massive differences in their accents.
Click to expand...

I find that quite an interesting dynamic that cities relatively close to one another can yield townspeople with very different accents. Usually in the states such a dynamic involves a degree of distance. Though I've found attitude can vary from one town to another, though usually based mostly on per-capita income considerations.
 
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Ambi said:
What I should do is find some youtube clips that show the characters talking, then UK members here could tell me about the accents! Maybe when I have more time I'll find and post some clips.
Click to expand...

That's a brilliant idea!
 
Judge said:
I find that quite an interesting dynamic that cities relatively close to one another can yield townspeople with very different accents. Usually in the states such a dynamic involves a degree of distance. Though I've found attitude can vary from one town to another, though usually based mostly on per-capita income considerations.
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Doesn't have to be a city @Judge.
Towns, villages and Hamlets can have differing accents with just five miles distance.

I live in a town that sits of the banks of a river that leads into the North Sea.
I can stand on the banks, look across the river and see the small town opposite.
The accent in that town is different from the accent in my town.

By road it's approximately 4.9 miles between the towns, probably much less as the crow flies.
 
Mr Carson sounds like he's from Yorkshire, although I'm not sure which part of Yorkshire

Mr Bates is definitely Irish.

Mrs O'Brien I'm guessing maybe from Bradford?

Anna sounds like she's from Humberside/Hull.

Thomas sounds like he maybe from Manchester or Leeds (unsure)

Mrs Hughes is Scottish

Daisy and Mrs Patmore sound like they maybe from Manchester.

Mr Moseley maybe from Leeds

Dr Clarkson is Scottish

I'm unsure where Ethel and William are from?

The above are my best guesses after listening to them

I'd be interested in the answers from others :)
 
Well yikes, the first thing I have to say is - oops. I realized that I spelled it "Downtown" abbey instead of Downton, lol! It might be too late to change that now. But, I have finally come across a youtube video that showcases several accents - these are deleted scenes. If anyone would like a crack at identifying the accents, in addition to @Gracey above, I'd love to see your guesses! I have to say, I am having a harder and harder time understanding British shows and movies - and I've been watching things like this for decades. I'm not sure if that's because my hearing is worse, or if the accents are stronger in the things I am watching now? I first noticed it with the Harry Potter series - that was the first time that I actually missed some lines, like completely couldn't understand them - only a few lines. (We understood most with rewinding - but a some we couldn't understand even then, lol!) With Downton Abbey we have just turned on the subtitles so as not to miss anything - because we would definitely miss a lot. Maybe we are just getting old and slow, lol :) Anyways, here is the video:

 
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There is one character whose accent has gotten much easier for me to understand - in the beginning, we couldn't make head or tails of what Daisy was saying - but now we can understand her fine.
 
Another question - so I had mentioned all of the upperclass people seem to speak more similarly (to my ear), whereas the servants speak with more accents, assuming they would have come from various places. BUT....I'm wondering if British people would consider the "upperclass" accent to be normal or snooty - or maybe in England it wouldn't be snooty, would it just be "posh", lol? The other thing that I think is funny - it actually took me a few episodes to tell that Cora was American - her accent was not so obviously American to me in the first couple of episodes, anyway, moreso as the show went on. But for some reason I just can't stand the way her character speaks - it's overly saccharine.
 
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Judge said:
I find that quite an interesting dynamic that cities relatively close to one another can yield townspeople with very different accents. Usually in the states such a dynamic involves a degree of distance. Though I've found attitude can vary from one town to another, though usually based mostly on per-capita income considerations.
Click to expand...

I read somwhere an accent was about 13 miles.

In the uk at least. I would agree. 26 you can definitely tell ,39, over 50... things get strange
 
Ambi said:
Another question - so I had mentioned all of the upperclass people seem to speak more similarly (to my ear), whereas the servants speak with more accents, assuming they would have come from various places. BUT....I'm wondering if British people would consider the "upperclass" accent to be normal or snooty - or maybe in England it wouldn't be snooty, would it just be "posh", lol? The other thing that I think is funny - it actually took me a few episodes to tell that Cora was American - her accent was not so obviously American to me in the first couple of episodes, anyway, moreso as the show went on. But for some reason I just can't stand the way her character speaks - it's overly saccharine.
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All what you call The upper-class of speaking what is called received English The ladies maid,kitchen maid,The server ,cook are all speaking with a Yorkshire accent .I couldn't watch your clip as its banned in the UK so I just found some scenes from the kitchen .
 
Fridgemagnetman said:
I read somewhere an accent was about 13 miles.

In the uk at least. I would agree. 26 you can definitely tell ,39, over 50... things get strange
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Fascinating when I suspect I'd have to go maybe 1000 miles just to encounter people with very different accents based on regional differences. Yet back home on the east coast that distance would decrease dramatically. Or at least it used to. I'm inclined to think that America's regionalism is decaying rapidly with so much migration of the population.
 
Judge said:
Fascinating when I suspect I'd have to go maybe 1000 miles just to encounter people with very different accents based on regional differences. Yet back home on the east coast that distance would decrease dramatically. Or at least it used to. I'm inclined to think that America's regionalism is decaying rapidly with so much migration of the population.
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I wonder if it hearkens back to feudalism. A little.

Where in england all the vassals wluld likely speak a different language to the next county... not much chance of running away.

I guess tight knit, working class communities, not travelling around.

I also think,in america particularly, television is a kind of 'glue' which prevents the natural change of vowel sounds and idioms departing too much from the 'norm'
Like the way on morning tv in new york, the big deal they have about selecting the xmas tree... giving the state this idea its this kind of close knitted,small town.

Loads of interesting books on language development.

I remember working in an office - we would have shared memories,jokes and references. To me,my isight at the time, this was the formation of new language in the smallest group you could get.
 
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