My "older generation" neighbor, from England, tends to put an "r" at the end of words which end in "a". Eg, she might call a woman named Sheila, Sheil-er. This isn't an accent, but what would one call this?

We have a much harder time understanding our Manchester neighbor here in the Dordogne than we do our neighbors who speak primarily Occitan. It took me months to parse what she was saying. I've got it down pretty well now, but at first I was stymied even by simple things she'd say to us, that sounded like :

"Hey, loov, me 'n Nicole'd loov tuh go foh mahkit wit yuz coz we need us soom basics, but de scootah's wif Olivier 'n we gots no ways tuh get dare less we walks, 'n dat's almos' un har's trek down de heel,'n den we's got to git back up wif de bags 'n all. So yeah, if we c'n go wif you, dass great. We c'n have 'n apéro aftah, is ok, yeah? I got some Tiregrand dat's foh good drinkin'. Is not necessaire foh bring sumtin'. I gots it 'n yuz can stop by aftah we goes foh mahkit. We's gut a rendez-vous foh do our hair together next week in Les Easy, so, yeah?"

Maybe it's her way of trying to integrate a bit of French into her native English, but we find it almost impenetrable at times. It taxes my language brain.

>>Eg, she might call a woman named Sheila, Sheil-er. This isn't an accent, but what would one call this?<<

Sometimes, when two vowel sounds follow each other, some people insert an audible "r" between them. I don't think this is typical of any particular part of the country, it just happens, as a sort of elision or linkage. It can feel easier to say "Sheila[r]interrupted" than to say "Sheila[ ]interrupted".

<i> Sometimes, when two vowel sounds follow each other, some people insert an audible "r" between them. </i>

This is common in the Boston area in the US, and is a feature of what's known as the "Harvard accent". President Kennedy had a marked Harvard accent. Another feature was that the letter "r" was pronounced "ah" elsewhere in the sentence, e.g., "Hahvahd yahd".

People from some parts of northern New Jersey also had an "intervocal r". I think it's "easier" only if that's what you learned growing up. Nobody where I come from seemed to find it easier.

These regional accents are disappearing almost everywhere.

Whether or not the original poster comes back, I am glad she provoked this interesting discussion.

My ear is not keen enough to discern the variations of accent and dialect described here for English speakers in England, although I did find the Scottish version hard to understand at times, especially when the Scots speak among themselves.

I do mourn the loss of several accents where I live in New England. Rhode Island French is almost gone, for instance, and the Boston accent has become much less distinctive since I arrived in the area forty years ago.

And now I am curious about the Belgian French accent, which I can not tell from a French French accent. One of my French teachers in junior high school was Belgian and I can still hear him speaking in my head. (Hi, M. Siegel, in case you're listening too!)

Is not necessaire foh bring sumtin'. I gots it 'n yuz can stop by aftah we goes foh mahkit. We's gut a rendez-vous foh do our hair together next week in Les Easy, so, yeah?" >>

St C - I think that you would enjoy the language "invented" by British journalist Miles Kington; called Franglais it should help you a lot to understand your Manchunian friend:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-maga...nitor-22655534

>>And now I am curious about the Belgian French accent, which I can not tell from a French French accent. <<

I find it quite hard too. I <i>think</i> it may have to do with speaking from further forward in the mouth, so to speak. "R" sounds seem to be rolled against the teeth rather than the palate, for one thing.

Downton Abbey was set in North Yorkshire, near Ripon (Northern England) so I wouldn't have expected any 'home counties' accents.
Middle class accents vary greatly throughout the country.
I did hear some very dodgy Yorkshire accents from the Downton 'below stairs' staff!

When I was at university, studying English language and literature in Groningen, RP was drilled into us as it was still the model for English pronunciation in secondary education. We did an experiment in a couple of schools that aimed to model pronunciation after Educated Scottish. And it worked, it was perceived to be easier to learn, but pupils rejected it because it "didn't sound English enough" .

That is hilarious, annhig. Thank you!

>>And now I am curious about the Belgian French accent, which I can not tell from a French French accent. <<

The French sure can - often calling it country or peasant French.

>>Downton Abbey was set in North Yorkshire, near Ripon (Northern England) so I wouldn't have expected any 'home counties' accents. <<

I seem to remember reading somewhere that even the aristocracy could have a tinge (or more) of the local accent of their country home - Lord Curzon (political grandee and diplomat) was said to have a noticeable Derbyshire accent. Doesn't surprise me, people's accents can vary depending on who they're talking to. But in those days, maybe people noticed much smaller differences than we do.

A good source for all of this is Nancy Mitford's Noblesse Oblige, that popularized "U" and "non-U" usage, the difference between the upper classes and those who aspire to be upper class.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

Linguistic class indicators:

http://www.helsinki.fi/jarj/ufy/24991_s113_150Ross.pdf

>>A good source for all of this is Nancy Mitford's Noblesse Oblige, that popularized "U" and "non-U" usage, the difference between the upper classes and those who aspire to be upper class.<<

Some of that was a typical Mitford tease, though. And it is about vocabulary and social customs that were increasingly outdated even at the time it was written.

This is an interesting thread, troll or no troll. We'll be in London in October. I'm fascinated by whether or not we'll be able to understand anyone at a first go. Time will tell. I'm sure it will be a grand adventure.

Actually, the Harvard accent saved my a** once. We had gone on a patrol outside our lines one cold Korean night in 1952, and were trying to come back through our lines at a different point just before dawn when we were challenged. To our consternation nobody could remember the password/countersign.

There was a tense exchange with the Marines on the other side of the wire as we lay on our bellies in the mud. They were not about to let us in without the password, and we would get our butts shot off by some unfriendly Chinese gentleman if we were still out there when the sun came up.

Finally one of the guys in the bunker gave us a hint, "It's very ordinary.", he said. He followed that with, "Ah theah any shaahks in the hahbah?"

"Boston Common!", we almost shouted, and they let through, to our great relief.

@PatrickLondon, of course the shibboleths change all the time. But they are there all the time, even now.

" We'll be in London in October. I'm fascinated by whether or not we'll be able to understand anyone at a first go."

Of course you'll be able to understand people, if they're speaking English, i'm sure you're not like the poster we had some years ago who asked whether there would signs at the airport in AMERICAN English as she was concerned that she wouldn't be able to understand them otherwise. I thought she was joking but apparently not!!

' "R" sounds seem to be rolled against the teeth rather than the palate, for one thing.'

'R' is a giveaway for sure. Can't really explain but easy for everybody to spot Belgians.

Now, I can spot Walloons from Liège, Namur, Tournai easily.
I can spot French from the north, Paris, Marseille easily too. Not mentioning Alsace ;-)

On top of that we have our own idioms.