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I have a terrible confession to make. I can’t reliably distinguish between a Birmingham accent (“Brummie”) and a Black Country accent. Sorry, but that’s the truth.
In yesterday’s Sunday Times a reader complained
The West Midlands conurbation is based on Birmingham, and the area known as the Black Country is part of this conurbation. The second biggest place within the conurbation is Wolverhampton, but people don’t all agree whether Wolverhampton is part of the Black Country or not (the Wikipedia article thinks not). Everyone seems to agree that the centre of the Black Country is Dudley and that it includes Rowley Regis and Walsall. Everyone agrees that central Birmingham is NOT part of the Black Country.
I’m aware of certain lexical and grammatical matters that are characteristic of the Black Country rather than of Birmingham or of the West Midlands in general. Under ‘lexical’ I include various traditional-dialect pronunciations such as ˈbæbi for baby (but I’ve heard that in Derbyshire too). I’ve never actually heard anyone say hɒnd for hand, which is also supposed to be typically Black Country. But jaʊ for you is notorious, though of course even people from the Black Country don’t always pronounce the pronoun that way. Nor do they always say jaʊm (‘yowm’) for you are.Here’s a clip of Adrian Chiles, which will enable you to hear his ‘Black Country tones’.
Here’s another, longer, one with Adrian Chiles and Frank Skinner, both Black Country lads.
And for comparison, here’s one of Jasper Carrott, who for the letter writer is a representative Brummie.
None of these broadcasters seem to use the characteristic high-rise-level declarative intonation pattern that I hear from some Birmingham people (the “Brummie whine”).
The best phonetic description that I know of is Anna Grethe Mathisen’s article on Sandwell in Urban Voices (ed. Foulkes and Docherty, 1999, Arnold). The very first words in this article, however, are far from helpful in enabling us to distinguish between the two varieties.
Of all the West Midland boroughs, Sandwell has the greatest variety of Black Country accents, including the Birmingham-types...
For someone from Halesowen, like the writer of the letter quoted, it is no doubt true that the Brummie and Black Country accents are “linguistically miles apart”. But not for the rest of us. Help! Is there any phonetician who can pin down for us just what it is that the locals latch onto in recognizing the distinction?
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I'm not great at this either, and I live close to both areas. A good place to get a fix on the Black country accent is on the BBC Voices website, particularly the recordings of Gary O'Dea and Brian Dakin. http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/group/wm-dudley.shtml
ReplyDeleteI have read Chinn and Thorne's "Proper Brummie: a dictionary of Birmingham words and phrases" (2002) [but don't own a copy]. I recall that it said that -ong words (long, song, wrong, etc.) are pronounced traditionally with /ʊ/ in the Black Country whereas Birmingham has the more common /ɒ/. Does anyone know if this is still the case?
ReplyDeleteYou often find in Britain that people exaggerate local distinctions, or that people say that there's a clear difference between two towns and then cannot specify what it is. Some people swear that there's a difference between Leeds and Bradford, but I can't tell any (comparing like-for-like speakers).
I question whether any difference really exists, though I would never say this to locals of course :)
ReplyDeleteI've just looked at this site for the Black Country. I'm surprised to see re-spellings of -ing suffices as -en. This suggests to me [ən] whereas I would expect [ɪŋɡ] for this part of the world. Adrian Chiles and Frank Skinner don't speak as described on that website, so it probably represents old-fashioned Black Country speech.
ReplyDeleteThe website suggests similarities with the very under-researched Potteries dialect, such as the use of [ɛɪ] in many FLEECE words. I think that most people can distinguish between Black Country and Potteries fairly easily, so maybe Black Country speech has been pulled away from its Staffordshire roots and towards Birmingham over time. (This still wouldn't explain the [ən] though, as [ɪŋɡ] is used in the Potteries.)
I know what John means; locals insist that there's a difference between the two but I've never managed to pin down what the differences are. Maybe it's purely a matter of intonation rather than phonetics?
ReplyDeleteHowever, I've noticed an unrounded LOT vowel (that is, [ɑ]) in some Brummies, which seems like a local innovation. Could this be one of the differences?
"However, I've noticed an unrounded LOT vowel (that is, [ɑ]) in some Brummies, which seems like a local innovation. Could this be one of the differences?"
ReplyDeleteWell, they do mention that here for Birmingham.
But jaʊ for you is notorious, though of course even people from the Black Country don’t always pronounce the pronoun that way.
ReplyDeleteI had a colleague at (secondary|high) school named Julian, hailing from Stourbridge. He was generally referred to as /'dʒaʊli.ən/. Children are cruel.
I've had a read through the relevant chapter in Handbook of Varities of English, and it had several suggestions. This was written by Urszula Clark.
ReplyDeleteThe point that I mentioned in my first post (about -ong words) is on page 144, although I forgot that the /ʊ/ can also occur in west Birmingham.
It says on page 148 that there is a difference in the FACE vowel, with Birmingham speakers' using [ʌɪ] and Black Country speakers' using [æɪ] (alongside [ɛɪ] in both cases). This is described as "one of the few variables for which there appears to be a consistent difference between the Black Country and Birmingham conurbations."
Pages 145-6: older Birmingham speakers are more likely to separate BATH from TRAP. It seems likely that the isogloss passed through the conurbation in the past but has moved south of it as the short form in BATH has eliminated its rival. No vowel causes conflict quite like the BATH vowel!
Page 151: Black Country speakers have [ɪʊ] rather than [juː] in GOOSE words with a yod.
That should be enough to satisfy Black Country people of their sovereignty.
Ed said...
ReplyDelete"It says on page 148 that there is a difference in the FACE vowel, with Birmingham speakers' using [ʌɪ] and Black Country speakers' using [æɪ]..."
Did they really write [ʌɪ]? Is [ʌɪ] being used here to mean [ɐɪ], as in Accents of English? That would make more sense to me. Because [ʌɪ] sounds way too broad, even for a Brummie accent. It sounds like nothing I've ever heard for FACE, in fact.
I did a study of BC dialect a number of years ago. Events may have moved on, but (also having a number of BC relatives), I'd have to challenge the 'you' pronunciation. I suspect jaʊm is a cartoon version by outsiders; most of my sample and informal contacts at that time (early mid 80's) were saying jəʊm. Of course Brummies call BCers Yam-yams which is allegedly a skit on the 'yo-am' thing, which may further indicate its a 'way you hear it' thing and would indicate that this is a distinctive of BC speech.
ReplyDeleteSo has the pronunciation changed in 20 or 30 years. It could have done, but I still don't hear the few BC speakers I hear nowadays saying jaʊm. I think that the central vowel may be a little lower than the schwa but not into /a/ territory.
@yuriive: Yes, it does say that and is in square brackets. I think that she must mean that, as she uses the symbol ɐ when discussing the CURE and lettER vowels, but there is no need to use ʌ in any other set for the West Midlands.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for Urszula Clark though. Perhaps she would reply to an e-mail from you. She's still doing research on the Black Country's dialect.
@ Ed: Thanks for your reply. I'm just amazed by how wide the diphthong used for FACE is in this accent, that's all.
ReplyDeleteWas up there at the weekend, and lived there for fifteen years. Stayed with a pair of friends, one a brummie, the other from walsall - the first used a slightly wide lip placement on [ɜː] words, the other rounded.
ReplyDeleteBrummies do tend to use an unrounded [ɒ] as well, so that 'no it's not' sounds like 'no it's nat' (Chicago, second city anyone?)
The main thing I notice is a very different tonal quality - Brummies tend to be twangier and more trebley in tone, possibly why a lot of people mistake strong brummie for london - my old mate from Halesowen, and most of the yam-yams I know have a heavier, darker tone.
Is there also something in the 'trap/bath' split that might indicate one or the other? My memory of giving pronunciation notes to West Midlanders is that BC'ers were more likely to have [pæθ] and [ɡɹæs] than Brummies.
I am of course only referring to the caucasian accent here - MBE is a totally different fish!
As a Blackcountryman of Sedgley, I think David Cooper of Halesowen is unsuccessful in the valid pursuit of attempting to illustrate the difference between Black Country and Birmingham phonetics, because both Frank Skinner (born Oldbury, Sandwell) and Adrian Chiles (born Quinton, Birmingham) originate from the Black Country's easternmost fringe (and arguably beyond it), where the pull of Birmingham is strongest. To me, both sound like "Brummies". However, no other Black Country "celebrities" can demonstrate the point any better.
ReplyDeleteInstead, for anyone with 28 mins and an ignited interest, youtube hosts 'House of Friends', a Philip Donnellan documentary filmed in the Turk's Head public house in Brierley Hill for his controversial BBC2 series Landmarks in 1964. While the relative dearth of research interest in the Black Country (apart from Urszula Clark recent work and forthcoming project, and Esther Asprey's 2007 PhD thesis from Leeds) means that very little modern-day data exists to show how far and where this distinctive speech has been retained, it is nonetheless a fascinating piece. Thoughts?
My experience (which would be mostly with younger speakers) is that Brummies do not have the trap/bath split, except that they do tend to have the long vowel in "laugh" and "aunt".
ReplyDeleteI also don't believe that that [ʌɪ] transcription for FACE represents a real back vowel: if it did wouldn't it sound rather like West Country PRICE and so be likely to be caricatured as CHOICE?