0:00 RP (Received Pronunciation) and SSB (Standard Southern British) 0:49 The King's vowels 2:45 The King's consonants 4:09 Weakening and 'mumbling' 5:15 Emphasising and gesturing

The Laughing Man

Ай бұрын

I'm you 999th like and am an impressionist/linguist. It's wonderful to hear your analysis of King Charles. He's a great speaker and it's honestly quite soothing to hear him.

It would be interesting to see his accent compared to William or Harry, to see how much they've been influenced by Charles' RP and Southern Standard British English

smkh

12 күн бұрын

@Gavalav and as they say, there is no posh side of Croydon!

josee allyn

4 ай бұрын

Princess Diana had a ghastly affected "Thames Speak' accent that was popular when she was a young woman. Both pf her sons have some unpleasant 'twangs' which even Eton couldn't quite eradicate.

Eric

4 ай бұрын

@Chairman Meow Harry is going more North American of late -in the vowel sounds if not the pitch.

Eric

4 ай бұрын

@Kim She lived a long time, language and pronunciation changing around her. Also, a person's voice does change with age. It was clear she tried to pitch it lower in order to avoid squeaking and squawking and scratching, as old ladies can end up doing. My mother firmly believed that the one beauty a woman never has to lose is her beautiful voice, so she fought hard against squeaking and scratching also. Generational?

Jill Osler

5 ай бұрын

@The join You've forgotten to mention their mother's lovers!

As a person who's mother's tongue is not English, I find the King's accent pleasant and understandable. When we combine this accent with the King's timbre of voice we receive speeches lovely to listen. I wish to us all more voices like the King's one

OfficerButton95

17 күн бұрын

What's your mother tongue? You don't have to answer if you don't want to. Just curious. Hope you're having a great day! 😊

Ladyarthuria

3 ай бұрын

Yeah very classy.He should do asmr 😂

mx mars

5 ай бұрын

Yeah, he has a nice sounding voice

Anastasios Gounaris

5 ай бұрын

“Whose”

Graciela Lopez

5 ай бұрын

@Travis Sample 24

As a non-native English speaker I found this video incredibly instructive and clear to understand why the King's accent sounds distinct when I don't have the knowledge or ear to do so myself.

Dr Geoff Lindsey

6 ай бұрын

Thank you.

I quite enjoy how Charles speaks. Sounds a bit formal, but at the same time, rather relaxed and relatable.

I have often wondered how/why he could sound so down to earth & friendly while maintaining unmistakably posh RP characteristics - and then comes this excellent video! Many thanks. As you point out, aside from purely phonetic features, his general mannerism plays a big role; so does, perhaps, our knowledge that he can be an absolute comedian when he chooses to. Whatever you think of him as a person, long live the king's accent!

Ellie #PutinsMommyNeverHuggedHim

5 ай бұрын

Edward and Sophie are my favorite - very down to earth. Edward’s real passion has been the theatre, he worked as a production assistant and really loved it

Sasuke Sarutobi

5 ай бұрын

@Dr Geoff Lindsey I do hope those accents and impressions include Min's "manual trill". Seeing him performing that would be something else.

Q Higuchi

6 ай бұрын

@Lucy Fisher Oh no Lucy, my apologies - the RP itself is a lovely variety. In fact, that is what I aspired to when I spent a lot of time learning English; I am almost emotionally attached to it. You know, it was the combination of being a King and having RP that I was talking about.

Lucy Fisher

6 ай бұрын

You make me sad - can RP speakers not be down-to-earth and friendly? Perhaps we just need to try harder!

Reza Shia

6 ай бұрын

@Dr Geoff Lindsey I wonder what he made of the accent of his one time favourite comedian Spike Milligan?!

Just discovered this channel. It is everything I ever wanted, thank you for your content!!! Delighted to hear about the differences between traditional RP and modern SSB!

Eric

4 ай бұрын

@AztlanOz Meow!

English Pinkish

5 ай бұрын

Dear Geof. I would like to apply for online lessons with your guidance. Do you still teach at all?? Kind regards

Matthew Bartsh

5 ай бұрын

Yes. One feels...I mean, I feel the same way.

AztlanOz

6 ай бұрын

I believe in gender equality, he’s not posh he’s just an old slapper, thats highlighted by his choosing that strumpet over his (former) good wife

Slangy Russian Words

6 ай бұрын

Top

As a Canadian, all I know is that I can understand every word that the King says. With many UK TV shows I keep the close captioning on because frequently I need to have the "new" English deciphered. The words are the same but in shows like Shetland I miss many many of those words.

Janet MacKinnon

3 ай бұрын

@dean white Dearie me!

josee allyn

4 ай бұрын

Me too...but I was born and bred in Britain.

caleb wheeler

5 ай бұрын

@Toothless Scottish

Toothless

5 ай бұрын

I haven’t seen Shetland and don’t know what the accents are, but often those regional accents are ‘older’ than RP, not newer

dean white

6 ай бұрын

Shetland? You are not alone there. They are Scots, no one can understand them :)

I like his accent, easy on the ears, clear, using few words, well chosen and articulated. Once heard him recite a poem, is a wonderful speaker, could easily do an audio series.

As a French I find the King's accent very pleasant and understandable to listen to.. Well spoken English is always a pleasure to the ear..

Martine in France

4 ай бұрын

@josee allyn Your knowledge is impressive! 👍Local regional dialects are vanishing and being replaced by the actual language in all countries I think. Not for the best unfortunately. Younger generations are moving ahead fast to change original languages. We no longer speak and write the way we did only 30 years ago. Yes, in France South Western accents are different from South Eastern ones.

josee allyn

4 ай бұрын

@Martine in France Thank you for your reply. As I said, my French is minimal but I struggle on as my husband is deaf and I need to translate. He speaks and writes French really well, but deafness in old age is a real problem. I think that the reginal accents are valuable , but vanishing fast as media takes over the languages. It is fascinating to me that so many of the Old Languages that were ironed out with the introduction of constructed 'French' still exist, at least in part in rural France. Occitan, was the most widely spoken and written language and indeed Dante decided not to write in it , but 8 verses are still in the language even though the rest is in Italian. That my neighbour who was born and raised in The Limousin, still uses it mixed in with the much later French is interesting, at least to me. The vision of Our Lady in Lourdes spoke in Occitan, not French. I learn a great deal at Mass as The Romance Languages based in Latin are easier to understand than English which is a mixture of mostly Germanic languages and some Old French. Very few Saxon words survived the Danish/French invasion of 1066.

Martine in France

4 ай бұрын

@josee allyn not all French speak correctly unfortunately, as in all languages, particularly today. Many regional accents too.. I 'm glad you meet people understandable. I find with American accents if they speak too fast, it takes a few minutes to adapt and finally understand. Same with Canadian, French and English. It' s when living in the country that you learn a language and I remember watching BBC in the UK taught me a lot! It was such a good English. I've never been to the US or Canada unfortunately but worked in an American environment which helped me a lot as there are slight differences.

josee allyn

4 ай бұрын

The French speak clearly and correctly. I travelled to France (from USA) with a Canadian family in the next row who spoke beautiful French. From their looks they were not Canadian born. It is good that the language is uniform and understandable from Canada to Haiti to Africa . I have a house in a remote town in France. One neighbor is understandable ( my French is minimal!) and we chat for hours. My other neighbor is inscrutable and mixes Occitan with French, I am quite lost !!

Martine in France

5 ай бұрын

@J M yes, all languages change, as society changes and not always for the best!

I think even Queen’s accents had changed, if comparing her earlier speeches with more recent ones

josee allyn

4 ай бұрын

You are correct. When Elizabeth came to the throne as a very young woman she spoke 'nicely' in the way that most young women did. There was a titled nincompoop who hit the headlines of the gutter press by mimicking her voice and mocking her. She changed her voice a little after that , but what a sad affair to treat a very young woman that way. She outlived the titled nincompoop by many decades, as they would now say, Karma!

Ellie #PutinsMommyNeverHuggedHim

5 ай бұрын

@Steve Kirby Just curious - why did you put the words PR campaign, image, and Royal in quotation marks?

Ellie #PutinsMommyNeverHuggedHim

5 ай бұрын

@Samantha Irene ah, you meant the first *reply.* Yes, I think we all got the joke, but decided to debate another issue 😉

Slick Rick

5 ай бұрын

@Steve Kirby Thanks for the insight, I learnt something new 😊

Shaun McKenzie

6 ай бұрын

Everyone's accent changes over time. Language isn't static.

His accent is very poised and clear. Also, he's a good speaker too, which helps alot in understanding what he's saying even for people who aren't native English speakers like myself.

Just found your channel 🙂 As an Aussie, it fascinates me that a small country like England has such a huge range of accents, from west country to Cockney to RP to Scouse and so on. Our accent is comparatively uniform, even though we're a huge continent with hundreds or even thousands of kilometres between major population centres. Re: the royals, I've often noticed that William and Harry don't sound as 'posh' as their father. It makes them seem more down-to-earth somehow.

josee allyn

4 ай бұрын

I think there are five languages in Britain.

Leif Goodwin

5 ай бұрын

We have a longer history, Australian aboriginals excepted, thus we had areas occupied mainly by Celts, Anglo Saxons, Danes and Norwegians, which left their traces on the speech patterns. And of course over time accents diverge over many centuries when you don’t have radio and TV. And we have a different class structure, with a history of nobles such as barons and lords, and they educated their children separately from the masses, developing a distinct posh class based accent. The late Peter Sellers was in the British forces, and would get into the officers mess because he could mimic a posh voice. Back then upbringing was all.

Tilsa Thomas

5 ай бұрын

It must be because Britain is the origin of the English language & its people speak their mother tongue in distinct ways like the Spanish, Italians or Brazilians of the different regions of their countries....

Toothless

5 ай бұрын

@mai mohammed I believe he just means time for the accent to keep evolving on its own, away from the influence of other countries/places

Toothless

5 ай бұрын

It’s to do with age, rather than size. In a 1000 year old country where ordinary folk couldn’t afford to travel outside their little villages until a couple centuries ago, you have many accents that evolved in isolation

His Majesty could've been a voiceover artist, he has such a beautiful spoken voice, deep and resonant.

Ellie #PutinsMommyNeverHuggedHim

5 ай бұрын

Charles and Harry aside, anyone have anything to say about Andrew? no? just me? okay

Ellie #PutinsMommyNeverHuggedHim

5 ай бұрын

Let’s not get into the Royal dramas here. 1) King Charles is PERFECTLY CAPABLE of his duties, he’s been trained by the Queen his entire life. 2) Prince Harry isn’t stupid. He’s lovesick and blinded by his marriage to the wrong person, exactly as his mother was.

Lioness Cougar

6 ай бұрын

@LoveIsAll Maybe that why he was born with heart of compassion and love like his mother Princess Diana. That's is why he shines head and shoulders over the Brits line you. He so blessed to have billion of people around the globe who adores him of all nationality.

LoveIsAll

6 ай бұрын

@Lioness Cougar Unfortunately it goes with the empty space between his ears. He's always been a dunce and still is.

Lioness Cougar

6 ай бұрын

I prefer Prince Harry's speaking voice. It is so beautiful.

He speaks quite beautifully when you take the time to listen to him. It's a fine thing hearing the king in his elements.

The Laughing Man

Ай бұрын

Many Americans speak quite the same way, more particularly very old Bostonians from recent years and New Yorkers from the early twentieth-century and late nineteenth century.

I love how King Charles speaks. He sounds very honourable. His voice is soothing and very manly.

Always been fascinated by the way people speak including facial and body gestures. As well as class accents, we have regional accents and dialects. I'm so glad I stumbled upon your video and have subscribed for further information. On a personal level, my job means I frequently get to speak to very well educated people whom are usually very wealthy, and people who are not very well educated and are quite poor. I end up mimicking slightly not to mock but to smooth the conversation. I must get the book

Andrew Willans

6 ай бұрын

@Charles White correct.

Charles White

6 ай бұрын

* who are usually very wealthy

Dr Geoff Lindsey

6 ай бұрын

Thank you. Adapting our speech to those we're talking to is called accommodation. I do it a lot -- it's not really deliberate but of course I notice myself doing it.

As an italian, the king's pronunciation, it's a lot easy to understand because he pronunce the vocals similarly we do in italian

It’s Sub-lime

Ай бұрын

@Arol007 Greek but mostly grew up in the UK, I believe

Arol007

Ай бұрын

His father was Italian prince, wasn't he?

As a Canadian, I found this fascinating and great fun. My grandfather, born into a middle class family in Battersea, emigrated to Canada in the early 20th Century, reinventing himself by adopting an upper class accent. I grew up with RP in my ears, so when I played Madame Arcati in Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit”, she must have sounded very posh, because RP was the only English accent I knew how to imitate. I never slurred quickly through words, though. 😉

Tony Baroud

6 ай бұрын

👋I’m really impressed with your comment, if you don’t mind friendship where are you from?

Heather Stubbs

6 ай бұрын

@Tom P That would explain why the family was there. Isn’t it interesting to see how cities expand! I’ve read the Sherlock Holmes stories, but that was decades ago. Anne Perry mentions places in her stories, too, that were in the countryside in the Victorian era, but I know from having been there were in the thick of London by the time I was there. I lived in Vancouver during university, and while riding the bus home one day, I was chatting with an elderly man who told me that whole area was forest when he was a boy. Vancouver had expanded that much, just in one lifetime! Thanks for sharing your knowledge with me. It sounds as if you’re a historian.

Tom P

6 ай бұрын

@Heather Stubbs Coal would likely have come up the Thames and been distributed by rail from Clapham Junction railway station or thereabouts. There are many railway sidings in Battersea to this day. Land was cheap there and of poor quality. There was a lot of industry along the Thames and Battersea power station to the south of the river and Lots Road on the opposite bank, although not built when your grandfather left. prior to the turn of the 20th century there would largely have been villages to the south of Battersea with the big housing construction which resulted in everywhere being absorbed into Greater London starting around 1900. In the Sherlock Holmes stories, Chiswick, now in west London was described as being in the countryside.

Heather Stubbs

6 ай бұрын

@Tom P This is very interesting! When I was studying in London in the early 1970’s, I I looked into applying for landed immigrant status. That’s when I learned that my grandfather was the son of a coal merchant’s clerk, born in Battersea. Who knows why the family was there? I guess that’s where the work was. By the time I was in London, my relatives were in Richmond. I’m a big fan of Anne Perry’s mystery novels, which are set in London about the time my grandfather was born. She describes the rough areas of London vividly.

Tom P

6 ай бұрын

@Heather Stubbs It's Bow bells, the bells of St Mary-le-Bow in the City of London. At the time your grandfather was born Battersea would have been a pretty tough part of London.

British accents fascinate me. As an American I can’t “do” any of them , but from study and watching various media I am starting to get good at identification. I recently asked an English expat at my AA meeting, after listening to him speak, if he was from Leeds, I was close he said - Halifax. I was “chuffed” to be just a few miles off! Also I now know there’s a city named Halifax close to Leeds lol.

josee allyn

4 ай бұрын

A farmer in a small town near York (think All Creatures Great and Small!), once said to my Father in Law, that he had been to Leeds once and didn't like it so he wouldn't go again! Leeds is quite fine , but it was the end of the earth to people in The Wolds, even though there were perfectly good bus services ! York musem has recordings of Yorkshire accents from way back before everyone spoke BBC English (which turned into ThamesSpeak). Manyof the voices are unintelligible to our ears but thank goodness someone had the foresight to record them.

Ellie #PutinsMommyNeverHuggedHim

4 ай бұрын

@Roger Stone i can’t begin to imagine what three or ever four e’s sound like. i’m gonna google this!

Roger Stone

4 ай бұрын

You can recognise the genuine Leeds accent from the name of the city. Natives pronounce it with at least three 'e's in, and possibly four or more. "Leeeeds."

Eric

4 ай бұрын

See? Before that you thought it was just Canada!

Ellie #PutinsMommyNeverHuggedHim

5 ай бұрын

@Nick Hickson No one asked, Nick.

The King's speech... wasn't that his grandfather? 🙂 For me as a Dutchman, there are similarities with Princess (formerly Queen) Beatrix, and her son, King Willem-Alexander. Whilst her pronunciation is very formal, his is more like the standard region-less accent (which the Dutch like to call "accent-less") that you need to speak to get ahead in life. But she was born in the late 1930s, whereas he is from the late 1960s.

A fascinating rabbit hole: being a black man from Montgomery Alabama, I've noticed how much my sister sounds like a South African and how much I sound Irish with our vowels. Sowell famously pointed out how black people picked up the 'cracker' white speech [which is very true] but I think an upper class city like Montgomery may have picked up more upper class sounds for blacks. I think this is the most fascinating speech story in history

This is wonderful. I studied with Gimson and O'Connor >50 years ago, and it is lovely to see those phonetic symbols revisited and reappraised in the context of the King's accent. Thanks for not being judgmental - you give a very fair and measured account, particularly with the fascinating element of dropping entire words and phrases. Will take a look at your book.

Thanks for talking about this relaxed speaking style characteristic of RP, I've noticed that before with people like Winston Churchill but I didn't know it was something any linguists paid attention to

no body

5 ай бұрын

@slifty thanks

slifty

5 ай бұрын

​@no body at any rate that is what we are going to try to do said in the "we shall fight on the beaches" speech by churchill, but he said these words in a single seconod

no body

6 ай бұрын

@a cloned sheep Not being British, I'd love to know what that last part means.

a cloned sheep

6 ай бұрын

i always thought it was because of, or is said as a joke for, Churchill's gargantuan appetite for alcohol. i would also be remiss to not point out, ahem, underidoderidoderiododeridoo, at this point.

What I particularly like about Charles's accent is his voicing of what I call the "strangled vowel," as in Paul, thought, or caught. Most Brits pronounce it way back in the throat and quite exaggerated. His pronunciation is much more subtle and, to my ear, pleasant sounding.

I could understand every word in King Charles' recent speech, without having to put subtitles on. He has a wonderful voice that was a pleasure to hear. So many people mumble nowadays that it makes a refreshing change to hear the language spoken clearly. Bless him.

Elizabeth M

5 ай бұрын

You should look up when he led a reading of The Night Before Christmas a couple years ago. It was SO delightful. I'm a total Grinch but I absolutely loved it.

jane sansome

6 ай бұрын

I agree I love listening to his voice he speaks the same English as his mother

Justin Elliott

6 ай бұрын

I could listen to him read the phone book and love every moment

Jorunn Richardsen

6 ай бұрын

I do like his voice very much.

I simply love King Charles accent and tone. He's so refined and easy to understand.

As a non-native English (I'm Italian motherlanguage) there are some kind of English accents that helps me to understand a speech. There are other accents where I am struggling to catch the speech. Liz Truss' accent it is pleasant to me because I can understand enough, especially when she is not talking faster. Some American accents look like more easy to understand to me but some others not. I've got more difficult in writing, especially talking than in understanding the listening.

I really appreciated your analysis of King Charles' accent. On a side note, I must confess that I stumbled upon your website a few years ago and became a great fan ever since. It would be interesting to make a video about Bertrand Russell's unusual accent even within the spectrum of classic RP. The most unusual RP I've ever heard.

As an SSB i find this fascinating. It would be interesting to know how other Royals speak/spoke, Victoria, Edward VII etc. Our accents appear to be more diverse that in many other countries

An Anglomaniac from Iran here🙋 Linguistic nuances always fascinate me, and this video made my day, even in this difficult times of protests.... #mahsaamini

Lovely! Your videos are so useful! Have you done one on the Trans-Atlantic accent? I'd love to hear your in-depth analysis!

I don't care if it's old fashioned English. I think king Charles has a great voice and a fantastic accent. However cute and lovely his mom was, he's the better spraker. And there's always that little twinkle in the corner of his eyes... that's his sense of humour that wants to jump out

This is fascinating! Please do more on the King, and other older royals with this accent. Subscribed! Please do voice quality that you mentioned at the end. I like it that you give clear examples. Younger female voices with this accent ( Kirsty Allsop, Sarah Beeny, Louise Thompson, singer Wendy James' gorgeous 80s voice) would be interesting too. Thank you!

Great analysis thanks. Very interesting to me, being a native English speaker but not from Britain I really enjoy understanding the variations in English and being aware of my own influences.

He speaks exactly as English language should be spoken! 👍I am a professor of English language and literature.

reza karampour

6 ай бұрын

Search . ' What the Media Won't Tell You about King Charles . '

Thanks! That cleared up a number of questions about RP for me. (Stephen Fry also totally does the 'mumbling' like that.)

Dr Geoff Lindsey

5 ай бұрын

I discuss Stephen Fry in my Weak Forms video: kzread.info/dash/bejne/d5WMu8OsZZvFm8Y.html

I am a subscriber and enjoy many of your videos. Imitating Charles has been a "party piece" of mine for years, and I met him a few years ago. He did all the things you demonstrate! Definitely my favourite so far of your videos.

Indeed the speech of your new King and your new Prime Minister are a world apart. I'm a dutchman and learned to speak English in the seventies and Charles sounds just as my English teacher learned us do it. I have no difficulty to understand him. When I hear Ms Truss speak I am constantly distracted by things that sound very strange to me. For instance there is the pronunciation of the r. That seem to be replaced by a w "Bwillanty Bwitish".

Dr Geoff Lindsey

6 ай бұрын

I think a huge number of people around the world are still being taught RP pronunciation, meaning that modern speakers are harder to understand. The main culprit is the inability of British EFL phonetics to update itself.

In my less than humble opinion, I speak RP English. The genesis of how I speak and sound is more likely the outcome of undergoing both NHS speech therapy and private voice training during my teenage years. All this activity had one aim: to eradicate a stammer that had taken over my identity and social development in adolescence. In working with me on my stammer, I rated my private voice coach as more effective than her NHS counterpart, for the voice coach had been a continuity announcer at BBC radio during and after the 1939-45 war, thereafter switching career to that of a voice coach at London's Central School of Speech & Drama and RADA. With my stammer under control, my career morphed this way and that in the UK and far beyond, finding myself working as a jobbing voice actor in public announcements and video narrations, a stint as an academic and, for the most part, a wordy wordsmith in publishing where my ability to communicate is more often than not carried out on paper than by way of vocal utterances...

My grandfather very much spoke like this, my dad and his brothers were all born in the 50's/60's and still sound posh but it's definitely not quite as pronounced. Myself having lived in Australia since I was a kid still have quite a lot of RP influence but obviously a lot of Australian too so my accent is very mixed (I used to work in film and always got the piss taken out of me by Aussies when asking which "r'm" cast and crew were staying in at hotels when on away jobs). My cousins in the UK have a really weird accent, it still has traces of RP but also quite a big influence from Multicultural London English. It's amazing to see how an accent can evolve over such a relatively short time.

vdenise

6 ай бұрын

i can relate with your story , my self an Australian but both my grandparents English, they arrived in the country right after 2nd ww , their accent influenced the hole family and i have the same problem with my accent, people have trouble understanding where im from

As a phonetics student, I find this video absolutely fascinating!

Fascinating stuff. The other day, I finally got round to watching Prince Andrew's infamous interview with Emily Maitlis, and it struck how much more "modern" or "middle-class" his accent was than Charles's. Of course, he was born in 1960, ten years after Anne, when those cultural and linguistic shifts you mention were beginning, so that must account for it in large part. On the other hand, William sounds posher to me than Andrew, so maybe there are other, more individual factors involved.

My accent gets commented on all the time, although I'm Scottish most people think I sound more Irish. My accent isn't as strong as my Scots friends, neither am I Irish either. When I was younger I was told I spoke 'posh so changed the way I spoke to get better rapport with patients/clients. I'm all mixed up. I'd love to have speaking analysis done to identify what is going on.

Cindy Bryant

6 ай бұрын

My grandparents were of Scottish ancestry. Sometimes Grandpa would start talking and we would all wonder what on earth he was saying. For fun he was talking in I think it was called Broad Scots like his grandparents. Fascinating!

Your videos are just as fascinating for a native english speaker as for a non-native! I'm an engineer by schooling and trade, but linguistics is an area that's always fascinated me, and these breakdowns of features English has, from a perspective that doesn't make any assumptions about what the listener's dialect sounds like, are very interesting to see!

I think the King’s speech pattern and accent is “elegance itself.” I could listen to people like him or, say, Sir David Attenborough speak all day.

Dr. Lindsey, thank you for this video! Very informative. I think the King has such a wonderful timbre and quality of voice. Maybe you can make that your next video! Again, thank you for your time and efforts in making this.

One thing that interest me is how his way of speaking changes between being in a formal setting vs more casual or private setting. We have seen clips when the late Queen Elizabeth was in the role of granny to her grandchildren, or having friendly conversations with her staff. It is like they have different personas depending on context, with different ways of speech.

Faithless Hound

Ай бұрын

@clod8 The Queen was heavily criticised for her way of speaking in the late 1950s by Lord Altrincham and deliberately changed it, presumably with professional help like her father had.

clod8

6 ай бұрын

That seemed to be the way in the mid 20th Century; even Americans changed their accents on radio, films and tv from the 1930’s-1960’s. I think the Queen was very conscious about how she was “supposed” to sound.

Tony Baroud

6 ай бұрын

👋I’m really impressed with your comment, if you don’t mind friendship where are you from?

chumleyok

6 ай бұрын

Who doesn't

His father has a very similar style of analyzing his own speech mid speech, correcting himself almost as if he is talking to himself then moving on and cutting himself short as if he is on a timer. He commonly uses “you see” at the end of his sentences. My theory is that shortening long winded words is status driven. Lengthy short words and verbs with little value can be drawn out as to hold the floor and take time to think, curate and articulate your language and curate your language. Shortening extensive vocabulary is in a sense showing humility or rather hiding away from trying to sound pompous or knowledgeable because it is in a sense “trying to please and prove to others”. I think this was built into the affectations of old British aristocracy.

By chance, I came across this video in my feed: very interesting. I speak with what I’d describe as an RP accent, fine tuned, I suppose, when I was young, during my studies in speech and drama over about seven years. This was really an ‘extra’ while at school. I’ve always retained an interest in the subject, and l look forward to your other videos - and reading your books.

reza karampour

6 ай бұрын

Search on KZread . ' What the Media Won't Tell You about King Charles . '

I'm American and the King is one of the few Brits I can immediately understand every word he says. I feel like I'm coo crazy when I feel like I need subtitles to understand someone speaking English just because they're British. One example of that would be the actor John Boyega. In interviews he speaks so fast and doesn't seem to enunciate

Mohamed Ahrouch

3 ай бұрын

S T R A N D C A S T do you think that he's well sized ?

Mohamed Ahrouch

3 ай бұрын

S T R A N D C A S T who

Bryon Letterman

6 ай бұрын

@Mohamed Ahrouch I already stated that I'm an American.

I saw your blog post about the obsolete use of IPA in English years ago, and found it to be one of the best ressource on pronunciation online. It came to me as a big surprise when I saw KZread recommending me your channel just now, and realising it was the same Geoff Lindsey. Thank you for your work

How did Dr Geoff Lindsey get the King to show up for his video and say "do like and subscribe!" at the end? I admire this level of commintment :D

Great video! Could you do one analyzing the speech of J.R.R. Tolkien? The clip from the 1968 BBC interview for example. As a non-native speaker, I've never heard someone talk quite like him

josee allyn

4 ай бұрын

Because he was not British?

Well, that was interesting. I have never given much thought to how people speak. I am sure that some actors would find this information extremely useful. Liked and subscribed.

Dr Geoff Lindsey

6 ай бұрын

Thank you!

Very interesting video. I especially enjoyed the King's super fast speaking. I had never paid attention to that before because it sounds so effortless. Sure, as "effortless" as ballet dancing. I recently watched Jordan Peterson interview Matt Ridley (The Viscount Ridley). The Viscount's accent sounded really beautiful to me. Please consider discussing his pronunciation in one of your videos.

I have noticed that Princess Anne's accent has changed over the years. From a strong posh RP to a softer posh RP. RP was taught in Australian schools last century. No doubt many other countries around the Commonwealth.

Just came across your channel, and have to say you are both a good educator and entertaining! I think the person who has the most clear RP accent i've ever heard is Miriam Margolyes. Listening to audiobooks narrated by her is really relaxing.

wow.. this is brilliant. liked & sub'd. i've also noticed a "buckingham palace" micro accent shared by prince andrew and the duchess of cambridge in which vowel elision is so clipped now that they hardly pronounce vowels at all - only voiceless consonants. it struck me as i realised that when andrew said "m'strepsteen" he was trying to say "mister epstein". kate's vowels are so consistently absent that i actually find her utterances quite hard to understand. my brain has to work hard to insert the missing vowels

RicktheRecorder

6 ай бұрын

All young people today, including the posh, gabble and elide so it is hard to follow what they are saying.

Wreck-It Rolfe

6 ай бұрын

It's interesting, as in other accents it's more common to drop consonants.

Sean Daugherty

6 ай бұрын

If you think their differences in accent are hard to understand, just put yourself in my shoes. I'm from California, and my aunt is from the northern part of Florida, very close to the state of Georgia. I prefer to text rather than talk to her on the phone because I can't understand a word coming out of her mouth!

iTube22100

6 ай бұрын

I assume from your nickname that you are English mother tongue. It is comforting for a foreigner like me to know that even a native speaker has a hard time understanding Catherine and, as far as I'm concerned, William and Harry too as it was Prince Philip!!!

Interesting video! Can you also do a video on analyzing the accents of Elizabeth II or George VI ? From the recordings they sound different from King Charles, perhaps more classic RP?

Charles White

6 ай бұрын

Not RP.

I just watched your video where you explained why the common phonetic symbols are wrong.... and I have to say that that video was so amazing to watch that I ended up subscribing and went to see some other videos of yours, but that left me with a new dilemma. If /uː/ is wrong, and /ʉw/ is correct, then how do you pronounce this /ʉ/ phoneme? And how different does it sound when you include that /w/ or glide to it?

The Crown on Netflix was the beginning of my current obsession with RP. As an American it took me a few months to even slightly get the hang of it. A couple years later I still end up sounding like I’m from Liverpool most of the time lmao but I’m ok with that. ❤

I'd love to see you do Winston Churchill, of whom many recordings are available on KZread. His RP, from the first half of the 20th century, seems to be more clipped than King Charles's present-day RP.

As a French people trying to really improve my pronunciation and prosody, theses videos about the differences beyond classic IP for RP. IPA which I learnt after highschool because nobody in France during English classrooms want to teach it, to relearn German, English, Portuguese and for my hobby : conlonging. The differences between the official written phonology of English and the reality I heard from TV is quite huge. You show so much expertise and peadagogy(gia ? tha hability to give knowledges to students, how we say/write it ?) and your accent is very clear to me whereas from American or young Londoners it's often needed to me to put English subtitles sometimes. Where does your accent come from ? As a French I can't The other one about contractions was plusplus-supergood 🙂 It was said that contractions with not were not informal. And I tried to avoid them. 🙃 I did not understand too how to pronunce basic words in a fluent and fluid sentences such as : to, two, too, as, and, where, were, was and so many others. We can boost our level when we discover the famous Schwa (pronunce with a v in French, German also), and boost again when we better understand the new SSB. So a great massive thanks to you, in a lonely comment because I was quiet about this before. It's important for me to encourage a great original and no-French channel. Your work, It's just gold for stangers who prefer British EnglishES over the American One that we hear most of the time. And a great ressource for curious natives too, for sure. I'll also get a deeper look on CUBE pronunciation dictonnary ! If you're golden, CUBE's true cavern of Ali-Baba :-)

Being American, I tried 'incredibly difficult' and realized right away that I can't say it that fast because I pronounce all the letters. Here in the South we are imagined to only speak with a drawl and sloppy disregard for parts of words. That's something I try to avoid.

Splendid and very informative videos. RP and its variants fascinate me and I love watching your videos and learning from their insights ! Love to see more videos like these !

Also just showed up in my feed and really enjoying these fun and concise videos - must have been because I was searching for an explanation for why in so many British shows I hear singular/plural forms of the verb "to be" mixed up, especially in phases like "He were a very angry old chap", rather than the more normal (to my American ears) "He was a very angry old chap". It appears in both historical and contemporary settings and doesn't appear to be strongly related to class or educational background. Not really about pronunciation (which seems to be the core of this channel) but maybe a subject for a video?

In the recently-former Soviet Union, I came across people - in an area where a jamming mast had been located - who had heard almost no spoken English in their lives, and who had taught themselves English pronunciation from dictionaries almost exclusively. They absolutely sounded like elderly Oxbridge professors. Not QUITE like the Queen asa little girl, but not far off it.

Thank you, Geoff, for this great video. Very interesting and inspiring!

Hi Dr Lindsey, what would be your advice for those trying to learn this accent for various reasons?

Marvin Clarence

6 ай бұрын

@Dr Geoff Lindsey Thank you, Dr Lindsey!

Dr Geoff Lindsey

6 ай бұрын

As with learning any accent, it depends largely on the person doing the learning: their own language/accent, their 'ear', their tolerance for technical detail, their motivation and the time they can put in. For those with a good ear, there's no shortage of recordings of Charles to listen to. If you want a range of old RP speakers, the Pathé news website (or channel here) is a fantastic resource. For those who can read technical material, there's no shortage of descriptions of RP, e.g. Daniel Jones's Outline of English Phonetics or the first edition of Gimson's Introduction to the Pronunciation of English. If you're coming at it from contemporary SSB, and know a bit about phonetics, you could even use my book to work through the differences. Actors are sometimes helped a lot by a simple, general piece of advice. According to the actor who played Charles in The Crown on Netflix, he was helped by his dialect coach's advice to 'talk through his teeth'. But that kind of thing doesn't per se fix all the details which can go wrong.

This is very interesting! I was especially taken by the bit on the Y in DEEPLY. When I was in the 4th grade (USA c1968), my whole class and I argued with our poor teacher, who told us that the Y at the end of a word is pronounced like a short I. She rattled off a bunch of examples, including my name (which at the time was Vicky). Normally, the teacher is always right, but a roomful of 9-year-olds won her over. This was in California and she was originally from the South, where they pronounce things differently (although I've always wondered if their textbooks taught them this short I for a Y). Anyway, later in life I came to learn that the American Southern dialect came from Old English and the Scotch-Irish slaves who populated the Deep South and Appalachian regions. I find this stuff fascinating!

Victoria Kimball

5 ай бұрын

@Matthew Laurence ... Okay, we'll call them "indentured servants" if it makes you more comfortable.

Matthew Laurence

5 ай бұрын

No, not slaves, poor immigrants. Native Britishers were not subject to slavery since the final Norse raids of about the year 1000.

I always felt the Queen had a "neutral" English accent, or the "Queen's English" as it was known. I'm Australian and consider the accent from senior members of the royal family to be in that style. I heard Charles speak to people in Bundaberg a few years ago. His accent is less neutral than this mother's but not so British as most.

reza karampour

6 ай бұрын

Search . What the Media Won't Tell You about King Charles . '

Fascinating! One of the things I find striking about Charles's speech, is how very different it sounds from Edward VIII's abdication recording. But then, Edward sounds different from his own brother (George VI) so ... ?!

Dear professor, is there any written material on the standard British accent ( upperclass) ?

It's bizzare, but King's way of speaking is for me both mumbling and being utmostly comprehensible. I don't fathom how it can happen :)

reza karampour

6 ай бұрын

Search . What the Media Won't Tell You about King Charles .

That /t/ softening caught me *really* off guard, as it's so obviously a /t/ in all instances but I'd never really considered that I could percieve that distinct of a sound that way. Australian btw.

Hi Geoff! Am I right to say coalescence is a thing of Charles's speech (e.g. Tuesday) but not in the late Queen's? Also, I feel like Charles's /r/ is really an alveolar approximant vs her mother's tap. What do you think? Again, thanks for your great work.

Charles not only pronounces words well, what he says is actually worth listening to. He was by far the best speaker at last year’s climate conference in Glasgow, much better than any of the politicians in attendance.

Thank you for another excellent video!

As always really great job on your part. There's however one thing I want to ask you about. What happens to diphthong "ɪj" in SSB when it is followed by "dark l" e.g. "appeal", is it still pronounced as a diphthong (or maybe it becomes some kind of a monophthong similarly to (ʉwɫ) > (u:ɫ/o:ɫ) )? As a non-native speaker whose native language is Polish I find "ɪjɫ" hard to pronounce.

Lucas

6 ай бұрын

Moreover even if "ɪj" is followed by a "clear l" e.g. "dealer" it's still very hard to pronounce for me.

Dr Geoff - can please you make a video on how RP is actually perceived in different countries? (including anglo-saxon ones)

I'd love to hear an analysis of how the late Queen's accent softened over the decades...

As for a suggestion to a new video: The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen talks English on a quite high level and yet her German accent is very distinct. Could you point out what distinguishes it to RP?

Very interesting to realise I've been taught unused posh English in class my whole life. All the vowel related sounds sounded way more natural the way he said them than the way they are spelled nowadays.

Price, times, dress, ahead, choice, joy, are examples of a few words where the king's pronunciation is actually closer to the pronunciation of the people of a colony(India in this case), than in the modern RP. It's quite interesting to notice.

Love this (prof Higgins) never thought about it, other than the way someone speaks. Shared this with my 78 mother, who found it also fascinating (and yes 78 and using YT 😉).

reza karampour

6 ай бұрын

Search . ' What the Media Won't Tell You about King Charles . '

i always thought the post georgian monarchs have a german-y sounding way of speaking, if you watch Julie Harris (an American) in Victoria Regina 1961 she does an incredible accent where she sounds exactly how I imagine posh English forming, a slightly germanic accent with the posh sounds you mention in this video - then the relatives and friends of the royals, i.e. upper class develop this accent too

As a non native English speaker, I find the King's accent quite understandable. On the contrary, it's very difficult for me to understand princess Anne.

This could not be more interesting, especially for those of us who very much enjoy the King's english.

I love how RP sounds! And it's easier to learn being a Russian speaking person.

‘RP’ is actually Queen’s English, which, with the explosion of English language teaching, some years ago suddenly started being referred to by many in the profession as RP.

As a non-native speaker, it's so pleasant to hear King Charles speak.

reza karampour

6 ай бұрын

Search . ' What the Media Won't Tell You about King Charles . '

Excellent analysis of ‘King’s English’.

Basically Charles talks posh and Truss is dead common.

Oh my word! As an interpreter, I just love this type of videos. However, when I saw all those phonetic symbols, I was reminded of the ordeal I had to go through with my phonetics teacher, who had us transcribe texts in RP back in the day. Let alone the second year of phonetics, when it was all about intonation! Anyway, I thank her till this very day for being so demanding, since it enabled me to acquire a quite acceptable pronunciation. :)🤍

That was incredibly informative and entertaining for us all! May God bless his Royal Highness King Charles III!

Interesting how in some ways King Charles's accent is closer to my own Northern one than it is to modern Southern accents - the happY and CHOICE vowels, for example. Unrelated - it still feels weird to say King rather than Prince Charles.

words cannot describe how fascinating this is