Received Pronunciation research...

RP is the instantly recognisable ‘typically British" accent which does not give any clues about where the speaker comes from regionally however can give away a lot about a person’s education or social class. The dialect spoken by people is Standard English. RP was chosen in 1922 to represent the BBC and become the ‘BBC accent’ because it was deemed more easily understood by Britons as well as foreign people, it would also reduce any alienation that may occur if a regional accent was used. I believe this is fair because I think RP is the most recognisable of British accents and is very clear and pronounced and it certainly stands out amongst the American accent in American films! It’s surprising that although RP is the most obviously British that only 2% of the population actually speak it, which is weird considering most people relate British accents to RP. For example in American programmes when people put on an English accent they do sway it more towards that of RP. However, evidence showed that RP has died out over time and local accents have become more prominent which I suppose is inevitable. Also nowadays RP is related to social class and education which I think is similar to the Birmingham accent issue as it’s not really fair to make judgements on people by the way that they speak. Personally, I have a positive attitude towards RP as I think it sounds ‘proper’ and intelligent, I believe it would be nice if it was an accent spoken more widely in Britain.:):)

How the Anglo-Saxons influenced our language today...

In what we know as the Sothern part of England, over 1000 years ago, Anglo-Saxon was the dominant language spoken. The Anglo Saxons preferred to use their own tongue rather than Celtic language. When Christian missionaries arrived in 597 they brought a wide Latin vocabulary with them. This meant they produced manuscripts such as the bible. The missionaries modified the Latin alphabet to suit old English and added extra symbols. There was no standard spelling system so they spelt words the way they sounded in different parts of the country, this is how old English dialects formed.

The Anglo-Saxon alphabet includes letters that are the same as ours, however there are a few missed out and 3 extra letters added on. This is a copy of their alphabet- a b c d e f g h i l m n o p r s t u w x y þ ð æ. When Anglo-Saxon was written down, there was no difference between upper and lower case letters and although it was not indicated in the spelling, they had two types of vowels- long and short. Also, although the Monks that wrote Anglo-Saxon manuscripts used the Irish alphabet, many of the letters featured would be recognisable today. Similar to today, there was no set way in which Anglo-Saxon words should be pronounced therefore the pronunciation varied across the country. Anglo-Saxon language had 7 vowels compared to our 5, the vowels were pronounced similar to that of most European countries however it varies from our English. Diphthongs were used which are vowels that have another sound that’s been modified to sound like another vowel, it sounds complicated however it was done smoothly so that the words only had 1 syllable. Consonants were mainly pronounced the same way in which they are today. There are many religious words we use that were made during this period such as angel, bishop, chalice, deacon, font, martyr, Mass and candle, along with some everyday words like cucumber, cheese, cup, elephant, fever, giant, history, kettle, kitchen, laurel, lentil, noon, oyster, paper, plant, purple, street and wine. Similarly, there are some Anglo-Saxon words that may be recognisable and similar to our language such as hwær- where, cese- cheese, wifman- woman, gast- day, and grene- green.

It is there easy to conclude that the Anglo-Saxon period set a clear base for our language to develop, with many of the patterns and words seeming familiar to us now. :):)

When I discovered research on the Birmingham accent...

To be honest, I’ve never really thought about the accents people have when they speak. I can never really distinguish one from another anyway, so really they all blend into one to me! When I did my research on people’s perceptions of the Birmingham or ‘Brummie’ accent, I was shocked to find so many different prejudices and judgments on just the way a persons voice sounds. Negative is a popular phrase that pops in to mind when considering my research; each new idea or survey I found seemed to have a different bad approach to the accent.

The Birmingham accent makes people sound less clever apparently, according to Bath Spa Uni. Tell me this, how exactly can a persons accent give any indication about their intelligence? It can’t, that’s how. The Birmingham accent is the least ‘cool’. Well what exactly is ‘cool’? Fair enough ‘Coolbrands’ have surveyed 2,000 people, but is using the term ‘cool’ really an effective word? However at least the Brummies have one lot of research to be proud of, they're the funniest when telling a joke, says the 

University of Aberdeen, I suppose that's a consolation prize.

If people are narrow minded enough to join in with this labelling frenzy and judge people by their accent then yes, I’m sure people with a Birmingham accent will be disadvantaged when it comes to job interviews, meetings ect. Which I suppose is only their loss as they could be dismissing extremely able people with huge potentials on the grounds that their accent says something negative about their person, when it doesn’t.

In my opinion, accents don’t matter. Accents represent where you come from, your surroundings and the people around you, not your intelligence or capability! It’s what’s in the inside that counts. :):)