The Top 10 British Regional Accents

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.

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%.

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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.