The map above was created by a Londoner and is a humorous look at how easy various regional English accents are to understand to them.
And as a Canadian living in London, I think it’s pretty accurate.
I can easily understand Canadians, Americans, South Africans, Australians, and Kiwis.
But travel up to Scotland (where a lot of my family live) or over to rural Ireland, and it can be hard to tell if they’re even speaking the same language.
Thankfully, people seem to understand me relatively easily due to the prevalence of American accents in TV/Movies and me often getting mistaken for speaking with one.
I should also add that when I first moved to London it took me awhile to get used to the Cockney accent (not really that common in London these days, more of an Essex thing) and even more so Multicultural London English, which if I’m honest I still struggle to understand sometimes.
What about you? What’s your favourite English accent?
Bernie Gilbert says
“But travel up to Scotland (where a lot of my family live) or over to rural IRELAND, and it can be hard to tell if they’re even speaking the same language.”
Gaelic, how does it work? 😆
Brilliant Maps says
Most people in rural Ireland don’t speak Gaelic: https://brilliantmaps.com/celtic-languages/
Accent Identifier says
Funny map, and the Multicultural London English point is a good one. People from outside the UK tend to expect Cockney and get MLE instead, which must be confusing at first. I’d have thought Glasgow deserved to be even further into the red, at least for fast speech in a busy pub. Being mistaken for American because of TV makes sense too. That must happen to Canadians in London all the time.
Brilliant Maps says
As a Canadian in London it does indeed happen all the time.