Dialect in the South-East (part 1)

Alongside new varieties, traditional dialect still survives and thrives in the South-East. This is especially true in rural, inland areas because, like the people who use them, linguistic innovations from London tend to ‘skip over’ these places and head straight for coastal towns and cities. For example, this means that a speaker from Brighton might sound similar to a Londoner, while someone from rural East Sussex or Hampshire is likely to have a more distinctive dialect.

This is clearly the case in Hatherden, Hampshire, where Charlie Dudman was recorded speaking about his work with sheep and as a gardener in 1959. In this recording, you can hear an excellent example of a traditional south-eastern accent. Charlie has some classic pronunciation features typical of rural Hampshire, including rhoticity (pronouncing the r sound after a vowel), h-dropping, (not producing the h at the beginning of a word) and t-glottalling (notice how he pronounces the consonant in the middle of the word butter). Listen out for dialect vocabulary too; Charlie talks about pea hucks (pods) and cake – not the confection we all know and love, but a Hampshire word for seeds compressed into a flat form and used for feeding sheep.