If you’ve ever wanted to sit down to a spot of tea or tell someone your name is “Bond. James Bond,” you might have a yearning to speak with a British accent, which seems to carry an elegance and authority all its own. Well, bad news, guv: There’s really no such thing as a British accent. Or, more accurately, there are many different British accents. The inhabitants of the United Kingdom speak in a wide variety of accents, mainly depending on geography and social class. In fact, David Crystal of Bangor University in Wales estimates that there is a noticeable change in the local accent for every 25 miles (40 km) that one travels in the United Kingdom. And the BBC reports that as many as one-third of workers change their regional accent in the hopes of getting ahead in the workplace. In job interviews and professional settings, many people attempt to adopt a more “posh” accent, or even speak in something akin to “the Queen’s English.”
Accentuate the positive:
Although theories abound, no one can explain why many British people sound American when they sing.
Researchers say that even sign language has developed regional accents, with hand shape and position differing between locales.
Babies are believed to develop an accent before they even learn to speak, with their crying imitating local peculiarities.