Are Northern accents set to disappear?

DON’T sound the death knell for Northern accents (Mail). Born in rural Leicestershire, I consider my accent to be distinctly Northern. It’s high time Northern English took its rightful place as the dominant accent of England. Soppy Southerners use the short ‘A’ as we do in small words such as man, can and van, but put ‘ce’ on the end of other words to pronounce them as da(r)nce and gla(r)nce. There is a Southern obsession with planting an ‘r’ before words ending in double ‘s’ or ‘st’, such as va(r)st and ca(r)st. It’s irritating to hear conversations on the BBC’s Pointless between Alexa(r)nder Armstrong and a contestant called Sa(r)ndra. There are anomalies. Most Northerners and Southerners pronounce ‘water’ in the same way, though dyed-in-the-wool Yorkshiremen insist on ‘watter’. Do Northerners owe our pronunciation to the Vikings while Southerners favour the French? Long live the short ‘A’!

RICHARD SMITH, Brighouse, W. Yorks. EXPERTS say the short ‘A’ of the North as opposed to the long ‘A’ of the South will remain. However, the Northern pronunciation of words such as ‘singer’, to rhyme with ‘finger’, will fade away. Would someone explain how the Southern pronunciation of ‘singer’ is in any way different?

MARTIN DAVIS, Tipton, W. Mids. I’VE been fighting for years to save what’s left of the broad Nottingham accent. It’s not pretty, but it’s unique to the Midlands and impossible to imitate. ‘Ayya gorra wiyya or oyya beeya sen?’ Is your wife with you or are you alone? ‘Ayya bin dahn?’ Have you been to the football match? ‘Ayyup midduck!’ Normal greeting man to man, woman to woman. I overheard this conversation between a waitress and customer: ‘Bacon sarnie, duck.’ ‘Wiyya wiyyaht sauce?’ ‘Wi.’ ‘Redda brahn?’ ‘Brahn, duck.’

JOY JAMES, Colwick, Notts. BEFORE the change in Northern and Southern accents takes over, I hope TV and radio presenters will stop pronouncing words that end with the letter ‘g’ with the letter ‘k’ instead. It’s really annoyink — see what I mean!