Help with Your British Accents: West Country (Southwest British)

West Country (Southwest British)

West Country refers to a large swath of accents heard in the South of England, starting about fifty miles West of London and extending to the Welsh border.

Features:

• Rhoticity, meaning that the letter r is pronounced after vowels. So, for example, whereas somebody from London would pronouncemother as “muthah,” somebody from Bristol would say “mutherrr“. (i.e. the way people pronounce the word in America or Ireland).
• Otherwise, this is a huge dialect area, so there’s tons of variation.

Speech Samples:

• Comedian Stephen Merchant
• Archaeologist Phil Harding (from Wiltshire)
• Comedian Justin Lee Collins (Another Bristol Accent) (also from Bristol)