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Brummie (sometimes Brummy) is the accent and dialect of Birmingham, England. The term derives from ''Brummagem'' or ''Bromwichham'', historical variants of the name Birmingham. It is not the only accent of the West Midlands, although the term Brummie is often erroneously used in referring to all accents of the region. It is markedly distinct from the traditional accent of the adjacent Black Country, although modern-day population mobility has tended to blur the distinction. For instance, Dudley-born comedian Lenny Henry, Walsall-born rock musician Noddy Holder, Smethwick-born actress Julie Walters, Wollaston-born soap actress Jan Pearson, West Bromwich-born comedian Frank Skinner, are sometimes mistaken for Brummie-speakers by people outside the West Midlands county. Additionally, population mobility has meant that to a degree, the Brummie accent extends into some parts of the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull, although much of the accent within the borough might be considered to be closer to contemporary RP. For example, Solihull-born presenter Richard Hammond (despite often being referred to as a Brummie) does not speak with a strong Brummie accent, but you can still easily tell he's from the West Midlands. The Brummie accent and the Coventry accent are also quite distinct in their differences, despite only 17 miles ( 27 km) separating the cities. To the untrained ear, however, all of these accents may sound very similar, just as British English speakers can find it hard to distinguish between different North American accents, or Australian and New Zealand accents. As with all English regional accents, the Brummie accent also grades into RP English. The accent of presenter Cat Deeley is listed by her voiceover agency, Curtis Brown, as "RP/Birmingham". Examples of celebrity speakers include TV presenter Adrian Chiles, comedian Jasper Carrott, Goodies actor and TV presenter Bill Oddie, hip-hop and garage musician Mike Skinner, rock musicians Ozzy Osbourne (and all other members of the original Black Sabbath), Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne (ELO founders), Rob Halford (Judas Priest), Barney Greenway (Napalm Death), Dave Pegg (of Fairport Convention and Jethro Tull), broadcaster Les Ross, politician Clare Short, SAS soldier and author John "Brummie" Stokes, and many actresses and actors including Martha Howe-Douglas, Donnaleigh Bailey, Nicolas Woodman, Sarah Smart, John Oliver and Ryan Cartwright. ==Pronunciation== The strength of a person's accent varies greatly all across Birmingham. Like most cities, the accent changes relative to the area of the city. A common misconception is that everyone in Birmingham speaks the same accent. It could be argued Brummie is an accent rather than a dialect as in Black Country which is a dialect with unique words and phrases, as in owamya? For How are you? Which many comment is not used in Brummie speech. Similarly Brummies pronounce 'I' as 'oy' whereas Black Country uses the dialect 'Ah' as in 'Ah bin' meaning I have been. There are also differences between Brummie and Black Country accents not readily apparent to people from outside the West Midlands. A Black Country accent and a Birmingham accent can be hard to distinguish if neither accent is that broad. The phonetician John Wells has admitted that he cannot tell any difference between the accents. Urszula Clark has proposed the FACE vowel as a difference, with Birmingham speakers' using /ʌɪ/ and Black Country speakers' using /æɪ/.〔Handbook of Varieties of English, Mouton de Gruyter, 2004, page 148〕 She also mentions that Black Country speakers are more likely to use /ɪʊ/ where most other accents use /juː/ (in words such as new, Hugh, stew, etc.).〔Handbook of Varieties of English, Mouton de Gruyter, 2004, page 151〕 This /ɪʊ/ is also present in some North American dialects for words like "eww", "grew", "new" "due", etc., contrasting with /u/ (words like "boo", "zoo", "to", "too", "moon", "dune" etc.). Other North American dialects may use /ju/ for this purpose, or even make no distinction at all. Below are some common features of a recognisable Brummie accent (a given speaker may not necessarily use all, or use a feature consistently). The letters enclosed in square bracketsuse the International Phonetic Alphabet. The corresponding example texts enclosed in double quotes (") are spelt so that a reader using received pronunciation (RP) can approximate the sounds. * The vowel of ''mouth'' (RP ) can be or * The vowel of ''goat'' (RP ) can be close to (so to an RP speaker, ''goat'' may sound like "gout") * Final unstressed , as in ''happy'', may be realized as , though this varies considerably between speakers * The letters ''ng'' often represent where RP has just (e.g. ''singer'' as ). See ''Ng''-coalescence * Both the vowels of ''strut'' and ''foot'' are pronounced , as in northern England. See foot–strut split * The majority of Brummies use the Northern in words like ''bath'', ''cast'' and ''chance'', although the Southern is more common amongst older speakers.〔Handbook of Varieties of English, Mouton de Gruyter, 2004, pages 145-6〕 * The vowels in "price" and "choice" may be almost merged as so that the two words would almost rhyme. However, the two are still distinct, unlike the Black Country dialect. * In more old-fashioned Brummie accents, the FORCE set of words takes and the PURE set takes , so both sets were in two syllables. In such an old-fashioned accent, the words ''paw, pour'' and ''poor'' would all be said differently: , , . In more modern accents, all three are said as 〔John Wells, ''Accents of English'', page 364, Cambridge University Press, 1981.〕 * Final unstressed may be realised as * In a few cases, voicing of final (e.g. ''bus'' as ) * Some tapping of prevocalic (some speakers; e.g. in "crime" or ''there is'') Recordings of Brummie speakers with phonetic features described in SAMPA format can be found at the ''Collect Britain'' dialects site.〔(Collect Britain ), Samples of Birmingham speech. (WMA format, with annotations on phonology, lexis and grammar.)〕 Rhymes and vocabulary in the works of William Shakespeare suggest that he used a local dialect (Birmingham and his birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon, are both in the English West Midland dialect area and only about 35 miles apart). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「brummie」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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