The Top 10 British Regional Accents

A recently released survey found the UK’s most attractive accents. Here are the results.

By   Ofer HEADSHOT Ofer Ronen   in   Accents   08/01/24

Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn Share via Email Copy Link Link copied!

The UK’s Woman and Home magazine recently announced the findings of a poll conducted to determine the UK’s most attractive accents. According to the results, some 15% of the people surveyed favored the sound of the Scottish accent. Meanwhile, 12% of the respondents preferred the Geordie (Newcastle) accent and another 12% announced their affinity for the Northern Irish accent. This made these the leading three of the top ten accents liked by Brits, as announced by Woman and Home.

Map of United Kingdom and all its regions.

Brits’ Top 10 Local Accents (by percent of votes):

  1. Scottish – 15%

  2. Geordie – 12%

  3. Welsh – 12%

  4. Northern Irish – 10%

  5. West Country – 8%

  6. Yorkshire – 8%

  7. Cockney – 6%

  8. Received Pronunciation – 6%

  9. Scouse – 5%

  10. East Midlands – 3%

Trustworthiness

It perhaps comes as no surprise that some people confer greater trustworthiness upon people whose speech patterns exhibit certain traits. The study’s respondents gave the nod to Scots in this regard, with a full 14% regarding a Scottish accent as being the most trustworthy. The Yorkshire accent followed closely at 13%.

Ofer Headshot
Ofer

Prioritizing Call Center AI Solutions

Framework call center leaders can use to prioritize which AI solutions to implement first

Read the Whitepaper

Intelligence

While it didn’t rank among the top 10 favored accents, Received Pronunciation, also known as the Queen’s English, came out on top in terms of perceived intelligence. A full 35% of the people who participated in the survey said RP is the UK accent most closely associated with intellectual prowess. Manchurian and Essex speech patterns fared least favorably in this area. 

Favorite Overall

Scottish carried the day as the favored accent in the UK.  One of the most famous accents on planet Earth, the Scottish Burr evolved from ancient Gaelic. Historians believe that somewhere around 1500 CE, the Scots dialect began to take root in the Lowlands of Scotland, while Gaelic continued to be dominant in the Highlands. 

Scots and Standard English are thought to have blended during the 18th century to become Scottish English.  An amalgamation of Gaelic roots, Scots phonology and the English lexicon, Scottish English—at three centuries old—is considered one of Great Britain’s youngest dialects. 

What About the Queen’s English?

Non-UK residents may be surprised to learn that Received Pronunciation (RP) is among the least favored of British accents. After all, it’s considered to be the one employed by those with power, influence, money and a fine education. RP was even adopted by the BBC as its standard mode of speech in 1922. 

And yet, according to The Guardian UK, the dialect is employed by less than 2% of the population of the British Isles.  A bit of digging into the collective psyches of UK residents reveals RP is resented precisely because it’s identified with a specific social group—rather than a particular region. 

According to Dr. Catherine Sangster, writing for the BBC publication Your Voice, some people think the name ‘Received Pronunciation’ is also a problem. She posits, “If only some accents or pronunciations are ‘received’, the implication is others should be rejected.” This, when combined with RP ‘s connotations of prestige, authority, privilege and arrogance are believed to have contributed to its fall from grace among mainstream Brits.

Accents and Value Judgments

And there you have it, the top 10 accents liked by Brits. Whether consciously or unconsciously, people make value judgments of others based upon their patterns of speech. As a species, human beings evolved to be distrustful of things with which they lack familiarity. That innate suspicion was a survival trait. Today, while that concern does still matter in certain instances, it also feeds prejudices and informs acts of bigotry. 

Tomato.ai is working to mitigate those factors in the call center industry with accent smoothing AI algorithms. Tomato.ai makes accented language easier to understand for those who may be unfamiliar with certain patterns of speech. This is helping more people gain employment in the call center industry. It’s also contributing to elevated levels of customer satisfaction—and bringing people together.

By Ofer Ronen in Accents 08/01/24

Share on Twitter Share on LinkedIn Share via Email Copy Link Link copied!

Popular Blog PostsSee all posts

Accent translation improves call center customer service by removing language barriers that often result in misunderstandings & less efficient conversations.

Learn about the origin of accents, how they change over time as people migrate, and the effect on economic opportunities individuals might have.

Learn about the top accents which Americans find favorable, and why they like those accents

Several factors contribute to the high turnover in Indian call centers. Let's analyze these challenges and how call centers can overcome them.

The first company developing real-time accent softening that retains a person’s voice