Generally, the written form of most languages changes slowly, from century to century. I can say, that the written form of English has changed, say since William Shakespeare, but it has been gradual and is still today, not too difficult for the average Brit to read.
Here, I’m mostly concerned with dialect and pronunciation. There is a basic difference between these two. But most dialects also carry their own distinct pronunciations. However, although many dialects in the UK have disappeared, they have often left behind, sometimes a lot, sometimes less, of their distinctive pronunciations. For example, in my childhood I was surrounded by some dialect, but a very strong, local pronunciation. Today, there is almost no dialect and very little local pronunciation left.
If you travel from the south of England to the north, you may find more local pronunciations and some dialects, starting from the Midlands. I will not include Scotland, Wales, or Northern Ireland here, since their differences are often more distinct. My theme, concerns more the south of England.
Until around the 1960s BBC English contained no dialect, and had every sharp pronunciation. Then it began to change into a more relaxed, less separate form of ‘everyday English’. The local differences quickly began to merge into a non-distinctive form. Obviously, society was changing; wage-earners were rising to become salary-earners, the masses were becoming more mobile, partly in the search for ever better jobs, etc. They soon started to lose their local speech identities, so as not to be classified as being inferior to others. The result being that most Southerners now speak a similar form of English.
O.K. so far? Ah! but it doesn’t end there. The middle and north of England were where most of the country’s coal mines and heavy industries were situated. No longer! Coal mines have closed. Much historical heavy industry either closed down, or moved to other countries, leaving large areas of unemployment, behind them. In the meantime, many people have been re-employed, but have largely retained their original pronunciations. This is where radio and especially TV steps into the picture. They have to market their programmes.
Commercial TV is very competitive, and the BBC can’t afford not to compete with them. Think of all the ’soap opera’ programmes, among many others, that have to appeal to ‘the man in the street’. What better than to use his style of language.
Today, so as not to appear snobbish or posh, most popular programmes do this. So, even if you live in London, your favourite programme could make you think you live, e.g. in Yorkshire or Liverpool. What next? But then as the old saying goes: Variety is the Spice of Life.’
Glossary:
gradual - not suddenly
concerned with - concentrated on
disappeared - gone, stopped
surrounded by - to be in the middle of
merge - come together
wage-earner - paid weekly for untrained physical work
salary-earners – paid monthly for trained work
retained - not lost
BBC - State owned radio and TV organisation (British Broadcasting Corporation)
Englisch