Forget standard English, what you want is a bit of Northern soul

The tennis star Alexander Zverev said this week what the rest of the world has been thinking for years – the Yorkshire accent is bloody marvellous. Asked a question at a press conference by a journalist from my home county, Zverev was taken aback: “I love that … I’ll definitely make sure if I get to the final you’re asking multiple questions. Beautiful stuff!”

It’s a reaction I’ve experienced myself. Non-brits seem to adore my South Yorkshire tones (from Mexborough, near Doncaster, like Ted Hughes). When I’ve given lectures and papers in the US, I’ve been asked to repeat words. Not because they’re not understood but because the listener just “really appreciated” my “vowels”.

When I was standing in the hotel breakfast line one morning, the miserablelooking woman next to me lit up when she heard me discussing the menu with friends. “Oh wow!” she exclaimed. “Your accent is just so … sexy!” Well, that was a first. My accent has been described as many things – harsh, strong, thick, uneducated, rough, working-class – but sexy, never.

And yet my fellow Brits don’t seem to share Zverev’s sentiment. Christopher Eccleston and Maxine Peake have been open about the difficulties they’ve experienced in negotiating the acting industry with a Northern accent. Academics who speak with regional accents have received discriminatory comments from colleagues and students.

Teachers – who have to follow guidance instructing them to use and promote “standard English” – are some of the worse affected. Dr Alex Baratta, a linguistics expert at the University of Manchester, has researched accent prejudice for years and he’s found that teachers from the North or the Midlands are more likely to be told to “modify their accents”.

We’ve all heard this kind of thing before and some of us may even subscribe to the idea that accents should be carefully neutralised and “standard English” should be RP. However, “standard English” can be spoken with even the broadest of accents. What we’re really talking about when we judge how others sound is perceived social status.

The values we associate with accents are class-based, whether we like it or not, and when we hear a Northern accent and assume the speaker is thick, uneducated or simply “sounds dreadful” (as one bloke said in an email after listening to my contribution to a radio programme … the charmer) then we’re perpetuating ideas about class that really shouldn’t still get the time of day in 2018.

And yet I have hope – and not just thanks to Zverev. Some of the most iconic characters on our screens speak with a Yorkshire twang. Sean Bean recognised and harnessed the power of a bit of Northern soul decades ago and he’s rarely strayed from using his own South Yorkshire accent in his film and TV work since. And all hail the latest Dr Who, Jodie Whittaker, who’s kept her Yorkshire vowels for the role. Bean and Whittaker are helping to usher in a new age of affection for the Yorkshire accent, which embodies integrity, warmth and the unmistakable Northern charm.

So if the Yorkshire accent is coming into its own, it’s about bloody time. Be loud, be proud, be short vowelled.

Katie Edwards is a lecturer at the University of Sheffield

follow Katie Edwards on Twitter @Katiebedwards; read more at telegraph.co.uk/opinion