Why are there a much greater variety of accents in northern England compared to Southern England?

Question

Why are there a much greater variety of accents in northern England compared to Southern England?

Answer 1

I come from the north. It's because the local communities are much more cohesive and people don't move around as much. The whole of the south east is given over to London with people travelling to work there from a fifty or more mile radius and all mixing together. The result is that the regional variations die out and you get a much more samey accent.

Answer 2

They probably don't listen to the BBC!

Answer 3

Surely it depends on how many regions there are in each "sector" .. or more topically, how many immigrants are also in that region.

Thanks Government :)

Answer 4

cos we rule! DIE southern fairies!

Answer 5

im not sure thats true at all,maybe you just cant hear the difference in southern england

Answer 6

It depends what you mean by a greater variety of accents. It also depends how good your discernment of the vowel sounds is. What exactly do you mean by Southern England?

Old Surrey people have a broader burr, while Cockneys pronounce their diphthongs such as "mate" almost like "mite", they have glottal stops, pronouncing "fight" like "figh' ", drop their aitches as in " 'ouse".  On the whole the confusion probably arises because Southerners are thought of as people who mainly use RP (Received Pronunciation), as a means of common language, while Northerners have certain speech characteristics which they maintain at all times.

The real problem is that Northern England is a much vaster area than that of actual Southern England and therefore a greater number of accents are recognized

Answer 7

amazing question..you've got me wondering now..i suggest some googling or reading of books dedicated to the subject..i'm sure there are some

perhaps it's cos of people moving out of their hometowns-i dunno

Answer 8

There is a denser population in the north.

And the north was important in trade and industry so attracted many workers.

Answer 9

I think maybe 200 years ago when accents and dialect were much stronger it was more difficult to travel in the north of England than the south due to natural obstructions like the pennines and generally hilly terrain. Whereas in the south there are less areas of that nature, so you didn't get the smaller localised communities that were more common in the north.

Answer 10

Maybe it just sounds that way to Southerners LOL ,there aren`t that many Northern accents just different dialects within them e.g. West Yorkshire where I am has several different

Answer 11

If you want a serious answer, its probably due to geographic obsticles.

Down south in the olden days, there was not much to stop movement between towns, so they melded into one accent.

However, up north, There were the pennines spliting them left and right, more rivers, more obsticles so they never really had the chance to meld, to they stayed different.

Sorry its not well explained, a bit of a headache.

Answer 12

i am also from N England and never thought so!!