NFR How far do London accents differ?

[Neil D]

I have met people who say they can tell the difference between a North and South London accent - my wife is one (and she's Welsh).  I was born and brought up in Wandsworth and wouldn't have a clue.  Is there a difference?  Are East End accents different from the other two?  There will be differences in slang / argot but actual accents?  Over to the philologists - and, given how cultured this forum is, there will be some...

[HillingdonFFC]

Its funny I was talking to someone about this yesterday. I know people in Hayes & Hillingdon who sound as London as born & bred East Enders. I worked with a couple of lads from Islington & they pronounced down as daairrn where West London is not quite as pronounced
The London/Estuary English accent covered a huge area. Slough was very London compared to Maidenhead only a few miles west due to people moving out. Brighton has an almost London accent and I've got a mate from just outside Cambridge who talks like Danny Dyer.
The London accent is dying out, you hear young kids nowadays & its an alien accent compared to one I knew as a kid.Anthropologists say that never has immigration affected and evolved an accent so quickly in an area the size of the South East of England before.
Essex apparently is the last bastion of the old London accent, mostly still sound like old East Londoners

[Holders]

I'm no Londoner but I can hear the differences without being able to define them except that east London is particularly unpleasant. The original local accents of the South-east were virtually extinct when I moved away 15 years ago as the London accent has spread out. I can remember real local accents in Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire when I was a kid. TV and programmes like Deadenders hasn't helped

Elsewhere, a Bristolian can tell who's from the south and north of the Avon and I can tell the difference between Portsmouth and Southampton and Exeter/Plymouth.

[cmg]

Interesting point of discussion, but one, as Hillingdon FFC points out, being overtaken by events.
I worked in Bethnal Green for a while and always thought the local accent to be noticeably different from my own from south of the river (Walworth originally). But in recent years it has become obvious that the 'old' London accent(s) is dying out. Most young people now employ what might be called a 'Street' London accent with very obvious African and Caribbean influences.

Here are some 'old time' London accents. Can you detect the difference?
First two well-known East London businessmen discuss their then recent brush with the legal system (innocent, of course):

In the second clip Alan Hudson (born just off Kings Road) talks to Camberwell-born railway enthusiast, the late Tommy Wisbey:

 

[Holders]

You can hear the clear difference between the three but all clearly "London" and, as an outsider, it still sounds like that in general to me now.

[dannyboi-ffc]

Without a shadow of a doubt! I can tell the difference from East and West too. There's probably 5 types of local accents in London

[Jonnoj]

Great clips thank you.
The Krays
clip just shows how much milder a true London accent is. The exaggerated estuary thing drives me mad!

[Neil D]

Re the Krays clip - I get the impression that they were trying to talk a little 'posher' for the interview so perhaps not the best indicator of the North London accent?  Fortunately, I never the met these diamond geezers but I'm not sure their speech here is authentic Kray speak...

[cmg]

Great clips thank you.
The Krays
clip just shows how much milder a true London accent is. The exaggerated estuary thing drives me mad!

Yeah. Did anyone, apart from himself, ever really speak like Ray Winstone in those annoying betting adverts? Winstone, who many Americans think as epitomising an East London accent, was born in Hoxton but was brought up in Edmonton, Johnny Haynes territory. And what the hell was he trying to sound like in 'The Departed'?

Re the Krays clip - I get the impression that they were trying to talk a little 'posher' for the interview so perhaps not the best indicator of the North London accent?  Fortunately, I never the met these diamond geezers but I'm not sure their speech here is authentic Kray speak...

East not North! Like Winstone, the Krays were born in Hoxton, but were brought up in Bethnal Green.
I think Ron was putting it on a bit, after all they were moving in quite exalted circles by then, but I'd say Reg was quite authentic.

[NogoodBoyo]

That Kray clip was truly amazing.  A playwright couldn't have written that dialogue any better.
Nogood "Reggie just wants to get married and Ronnie wants to go abroad and be left alone, isit" Boyo

[bobbo]

Nobody has an accent naturally like ray winston, only him and he's over exaggerated for so long to him and him only it seems natural but most certainly isn't .

[Woolly Mammoth]

 I have met Danny Dyer, and the girl he was with at the time, said she couldn't tell the difference in our accents. She closed her eyes and got it wrong 3 out of 4 times. I was born on the Isles of Dogs, proper Cockney Territory. Danny was born in Canning Town. Just down the Frog and Toad.

[RaySmith]

I was born in Brixton and went to the same school as Ken Livingstone, and I would say he has a type of south-London accent - a bit nasal. My mum, also from Brixton was a real cockney, but my dad didn't have a strong accent, but you knew he was from south London.

I can tell the difference  between north and  south and east, but it's hard to describe. But maybe youngsters today all speak the same - a variation on a 'black' south London accent? as said.

[nose]

some areas have a distinct accent sometimes it is just a bit of idiom... but you can tell there are differences

[davew]

I was born in Peckham, moved to Kent when I was 4 (well not on my own...lol) and am now known as French Dave, but everybody says I have a cockney accent!! How does that work??

[Forever Fulham]

 :005:Don't forget Dick Van Dyke!  Strangest accent I've ever heard. 

[Holders]

My mum was from Croydon and I thought that she had a London accent as she spoke so differently to the people around us in Surrey who, at that time (1960s), mostly had local country accents (think of John Arlott). I went to primary school in Dorking and those of us who had local accents were forced to have elocution lessons. That was shameful but now most people in the area speak with a variety of what I think of as "London", although probably not to a purist.

[mrmicawbers]

Thought the taxi driver in Portsmouth collecting me from the ferry terminal hailed [excuse the pun]from The London area.Born and bread on Portsmouth.What do i Know.The most exaggerated London accent is from Essex IMO Slags.

[mrmicawbers]

Thought the taxi driver in Portsmouth collecting me from the ferry terminal hailed [excuse the pun]from The London area.Born and bread on Portsmouth.What do i Know.The most exaggerated London accent is from Essex IMO Slags.

Sorry that should have read Slaaaaaags

[Aaron]

What is this accent?

This seems to be what I hear from kids in London these days.  I've no idea what it's trying to be?  I assume there's some West Indian influence to it based on this guy using the word "bredrin" but I've never heard anyone from Jamaica or Barbados who sounds like this.

This has got to be the worst accent ever.. and I'm from Belfast :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnu01HHRxtc