A Map of British Dialects (2023)

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Overall reactions to the map

  • Many find the map fun and broadly recognisable, especially for seeing their own “small” areas (e.g. Pompey, Coventry, Corby) explicitly labeled.
  • Others argue it’s “badly out of date” and too coarse: dialects can change every ~20 miles, and many fine-grained distinctions are missing.
  • Several people note that drawing hard borders is inherently misleading for what is really a continuum of speech varieties.

Perceived inaccuracies and omissions

  • Southern England:
    • Cockney is seen as over-represented; commenters say traditional Cockney is rare now, with Multicultural London English/“roadman” speech much more common.
    • Kent, Sussex and Essex are described as a patchwork of estuary, older rural accents, and London spillover, not well captured by a single label.
  • Midlands & North:
    • Coventry, Wigan/Oldham/Bolton, and parts of the West Midlands and North West are said to have distinct accents/dialects that the map flattens.
  • Scotland & NI:
    • Complaints about “Grampian” instead of Doric, and about Scots/Doric being treated as outside scope; some insist Scots is a separate language.
    • Debate over whether Northern Irish English counts as “British English” vs. Hiberno-English.

Dialect, accent, class, and identity

  • Repeated confusion and debate over “accent” vs “dialect” (just pronunciation vs vocabulary/grammar differences).
  • Class is described as a key axis in England: people were actively taught “posher” speech; RP is said to be largely dead, replaced by Standard Southern British.
  • Several stories of bullying or exclusion based on sounding “too posh” or “not from round here”; accents function as social and regional markers.
  • Race and migration also shape patterns (e.g. MLE, Scottish inflows to Corby, Irish and Scottish influence in Northern England).

Change over time and media influence

  • Many note dialect levelling: older local forms (rural Sussex, West Yorkshire, Shropshire, Norfolk, Ozark/Appalachian in the US) are fading.
  • American media influence is blamed for shifts like “better→bedder”, “fall” for “autumn”, “zee” for “zed”, and flattened cosmopolitan accents.
  • Others point out that local speech remains surprisingly resilient despite mass media; social media may be accelerating newer, non-local styles.

Comparisons and wished-for features

  • Comparisons drawn to dense dialect continua in Italy and Germany, and to France where regional languages/accents were heavily suppressed.
  • Multiple people wish for an interactive version with audio samples per region, and cross-links to related resources (e.g. rhyming slang, accent videos, academic work).