Norwich Female

Aged 84 | Born 1929

Full Kit

About the Speaker

"I was brought up by working class parents but now I’m middle class. I worked in a factory. I am a Christian but can’t get to church much due to mobility difficulties."

Preview Clip

This kit contains all the elements of a full Accent Kit

£10.00

About Norwich

Located in Norfolk, the only county in the UK (for now!) with no motorways, Norwich is a rural city. A centre for the wool trade throughout the middle ages, the city has known historical influence from a Dutch fishing and trading community. Norfolk is coastal and, as noted by Noel Coward, ‘very flat’. This is perfect for arable land but also makes it very vulnerable to the sea.

The modern accent of Norfolk and Norwich has been catalogued by Allen Smethurst, Charles Dickens and David Copperfield. Characterised by an accent feature, known as Y-OO dropping, where the Y sound disappears before the vowel ‘OO’ (GOOSE).  Words such as ‘beautiful’, become ‘bootiful’, or ‘music’ become ‘moosic’.

As Norfolk is relatively cut off from the rest of the country, some of the local accents and dialects have retained many features of older English accents and dialects. For information on the dialect see John Trudgills excellent website www.norfolkdialect.com