It's the end of the frog and toad for

regional slang, says report

Sounds of 2066 report says talking to machines and listening to Americans will
kill off British accents and slang in the future
Maev Kennedy
Thursday 29 September 2016 07.01BST

Its not just Cockney thats brown bread: a new report on the
homogenisation of spoken English predicts that by the year 2066 the
distinctive Brummie G as in Birmin-gam will have followed it down
the apples and pears, along with dialect words and regional
pronunciations such as Glasgows bampot, slarty and stooshie, and
Newcastles neet out on the toon.
The report, The Sounds of 2066, suggests that talking to machines and
listening to Americans will soon kill o cherished regional accents and
phrases and lead to a more universally informal spoken English. It cites
the probability that keyboards will soon be as dead as a dog and bone
landline, replaced by voice recognition technology, as among the key
drivers behind a less diverse English.
Shortened words and simplied pronunciation will bring more changes:
the authors suggest that within 50 years any proud owner of a new
vehicle in London may be greeted with: Hey bruv, I totes nk that car
is a booty.
Dominic Watt, a lecturer in forensic speech science at the University of
York, said: In future, our voices will become ever more crucial and
well use them to interact with the majority of machines and devices in
our daily lives. Keyboards will have become obsolete and we will
become completely comfortable speaking to our cars, washing
machines, fridges, taxi apps and online banking services.
The report sees a preference for informal, chatty and jokey language in
the technological and scientic domains as a recent phenomenon, but
one likely to become more important in changing both vocabulary and
pronunciation.
The fact that so many innovations in computing come from California
is undoubtedly linked to this relaxed and unpretentious approach, it
says.

Watt and his co-author, dialogue and dialect coach Brendan Gunn, have
a bouquet of regional accents between them. Watts university degrees
came from Edinburgh and Newcastle and he has lectured in Aberdeen.
Gunn, who has coached stars including Robert de Niro, Penelope Cruz
and Brad Pitt, has worked as a lecturer in linguistics at the University of
Ulster.
Age is more important than class in driving the change, they say: The
Queens English spoken by Prince George as he grows up is not going to
be the same as the Queens English spoken by the Queen.
Standard English and received pronunciation - the Queens English have largely lost their power. Where once it was more or less
obligatory to speak these for anyone wishing to enter the professions,
the clergy, the upper ranks of the military, acting or broadcasting, these
days non-standard accents and dialects are much more widely
accepted. Weve come to realise that speaking in such and such a way
isnt necessarily a sure sign of someones intelligence, or competence.
This improves opportunities for people from a wider variety of social
and educational backgrounds.
The authors suggest that pronunciations perceived as attempts to
sound less grand, or yoof-speak, which saw Tony Blair mocked for his
appeal to voers instead of voters, Jonathan Ross and Roy Hodgsons
much parodied problems with the letters R and W, or consonants
dropped by television personalities including Jamie Oliver, may become
universal. We will all give thanks to our muvvers, while red and wed,
Paul and paw, n and thin, will become indistinguishable.
People in 2066 will be mystied as to why Tony Blair, Ed Miliband and
George Osborne were slammed so mercilessly by the press for having
been caught saying voters without using a proper t in the middle.
In London, the estuary English - recognisably south-east but hard to
place the speaker within the region - which has almost replaced
Cockney, is itself under threat from multicultural London English,
which incorporates pronunciations from the Caribbean, west African
and the Asian communities.
Given this mix, and the status of London as the linguistically most
inuential city in the English-speaking world, we can expect to see
signicant changes between now and the middle of the century, the
report nds.
Among the evolving pronunciations, dook for duke and nooze for news
are already rmly established, while coot for cute and booty for beauty
will follow. We may also see consonant +/r/ clusters mushing together
into sounds more like ch or j, so treese and cheese, or dress and Jess,
sound more alike.

One surprising change they have spotted is the gradual restoration of

the letter H, after generations of Londoners heading for a walk on
ampstead eath. It seems latter-day Eliza Dolittles will again have to
struggle with hurricanes hardly ever happening in Hereford.
The authors interviewed three generations of an east-end family, the
Ellises from Stratford, grandfather Frank, his daughter Stacey, and
grandson Tommie. Frank thinks Cockney is almost dead, Stacey says
nobody round there understands it any longer, and Tommie says
disapprovingly: Grandad comes out with some weird stu, like dog
and bone and that.
The report, The Sound of Britain in 2066, was commissioned by HSBC
bank, to mark the launch of their voice biometrics security technology.

Words now, and how theyre likely to sound in 2066

London:
Think - Fink
Mother - Muvver
Beauty - Booty
Red - Wed
Newcastle:
Mee-uhk (make) - Mehk
Boottah (butter) - buhtuh
Toast - terst
Birmingham:
Yow (you) - yoo
Sin-guh (singer) - singuh
Proice (price) - praayce
Glasgow:
Stane - stone
Gless - glass
Fit - foot
More news

Topics
Linguistics Research Glasgow London Newcastle Birmingham
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