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Eleri Llwyd Jones
Born: 4 July 1961
Lives: Llangollen, Denbighshire
Time lived in area: Less than 1 year
Occupation: Hotel general manager
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Eleri talks about the various places she has lived in - and the effect it has had on her accent.
Language of interview:
Duration: 1:04 (mins/secs)
The participants were asked to describe how they spoke in their own words.
How do you describe your accent: "Mixed with Welsh and Irish."
Have there been other influences on the way you speak: Not Given
Do you have skills in languages other than English?: Yes
Other languages: French, Welsh
ELERI: I was brought up in Parc y Bala which is a very Welsh in near Llangollen. Its about 22 miles but I have travelled and am now living in Henllan which is 25 miles over the horse shoe pass in Denbighshire. I've worked in London and in Gatwick, Switzerland, France, Ireland and I've just come back from Ireland so I have do have a slight Irish accent sometimes. My first language is Welsh so I always speak Welsh as my first language and English depending I suppose what area I work in. Um, you do tend to I think pick up the accent if it is definately your second language. What's amazing in Llangollen, if you go, go 10 miles down the road to Bala that everbody speaks Welsh fluently and its first language and I do think Kathryn has a slight Welsh accent but its its sounds to me that its slightly south Walian rather than north Walian accent and um I find that sometimes especially in the Chirk area in the people I've met. I'm only here six months now so its obviously for me it's a very new accent.
Jonnie Robinson, Curator, English accents and dialects, British Library Sound Archive, writes
There a number of aspects of Eleri's speech that help identify her as a speaker of Welsh as a mother tongue. Firstly, of course, she uses an authentically Welsh voiceless lateral - the sort of 'whispered' sound in the place-names Llangollen and Henllan. As this is not a part of the phonemic inventory of the English language, most speakers in England are unable to replicate this sound and either simply pronounce a 'normal' sound or a more natural English consonant cluster, such as or compromise by producing something that sounds exotically un-English, such as . This phenomenon is characteristic of speakers attempting to imitate a sound that's not natural to them as demonstrated, for instance, by the attempts of many Continental Europeans to produce the <th> sounds of English..
A far more subtle feature of Eleri's pronunciation, however, is the way she pronounces certain other consonants. The Welsh spoken in the north of Wales has neither the sound nor the sound that we encounter in English words like job and jobs respectively and thus the English spoken by many Welsh speakers in the north is often caricatured as having stereotypical pronunciations such as 'iss' for is. Although it's seldom that clear-cut, you can hear Eleri use a sound similar to or in the final consonant of the word language and an <s> on several words, including was, is, miles, sometimes, suppose, amazing and sounds.
She also uses a non-standard grammatical construction in the statement I'm only here since about six months now, which would probably be expressed as I've only been here for about six months now in Standard English. The choice of the preposition, since, is immediately striking, but more importantly the tense used possibly stems from the type of construction common in Welsh here. This use of a simple present tense - I am, I play, I run - to describe an event or action that started in the past, but still applies to present time is a feature of many European languages. Standard English requires the present perfect aspect - I've been, I've played, I've run - to denote time-spans from a specific point in the past up to and including the present.
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