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Janet Johnson
Born: 1 February 1947
Lives: Wolverhampton, West Midlands
Time lived in area: All my life
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Janet recalls an occasion her accent was ridiculed when she was in Germany.
Language of interview: English
Duration: 0:25 (mins/secs)
The participants were asked to describe how they spoke in their own words.
How do you describe your accent: "West Midlands (originally South Staffordshire)."
Have there been other influences on the way you speak: Not Given
Do you have skills in languages other than English?: No
Other languages: None
JANET: When I was in Germany I said to somebody "What time's the next buzz?" and they said "Well, no love it's the winter, you don't get bees this time o' year", and I said "Sorry?". "No love we have BUSES here." Well I only said "What time's the next buzz?". I mean, to us, the big double-decker thing is a buzz. But apparently it's not it's a BUS. So I did get ridiculed about that for a long time.
Jonnie Robinson, Curator, English accents and dialects, British Library Sound Archive, writes
There are a number of aspects of Janet's speech that are typical of a Wolverhampton accent. In most cases this is clear from the vowel sounds she uses, such as in the words I and time or no and don't and in the way she pronounces the final vowel sound in the words Germany, somebody, sorry and apparently - such a distinctive feature of speech in many areas of the West Midlands.
In some cases, however, it's incredibly subtle features, such as the consonant sound she says many locals use in pronouncing just the one word: bus. In contrast to the <s> sound used elsewhere, the sound used here is peculiar to an ill-defined area of the north-west Midlands, including speakers from parts of Lancashire down through the Potteries and Peak District, into the Black Country and spilling over into some areas of the East Midlands, such as Leicestershire.
It's intriguing to hear how this compares with her use of an <s> sound in the word us in the very same utterance: to us the big double-decker thing is a bus. Not only is the vowel used by a speaker in this particular word indicative of their geographical background, but generally speaking, people in the north of England favour a sound for the final consonant, while speakers in the south of England tend to use an <s> sound. Parts of the Midlands are, of course, distinctive in their own right and even such a seemingly insignificant word as us illustrates this perfectly: Janet uses a stereotypically northern pronunciation of the vowel sound in the word in conjunction with a stereotypically southern pronunciation of the consonant.
Her pronunciation of the sound in the statement the big double-decker thing is a bus is a feature that's shared by speakers in many areas of the Midlands and north-west of England. Unlike other localised pronunciations this is considered highly prestigious locally and thus unites speakers from a very wide range of backgrounds in an area that includes places such as Liverpool, Greater Manchester, Sheffield, The Potteries and Birmingham.
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