Do we speak the same language?

[ThePjl20]

This is a marvellous bit of tongue in cheek fun poked at the politically correct bureaucrats in the EU by West Country MEP Graham Booth.

Judging from the response from one or two making posts about this little speech in the EU parliament they just don't get the joke, but many of the points Graham makes are highly relevant to the people he represents. I wasn't aware that the average IQ-level of those living in Cornwall varied from other district in the UK, as also suggested by some?

[ukipwebmaster]

@ThePjl20 I attended his funeral the other day and judging by the number of people there Graham was a very popular and well liked man. One thing I didn't realise is that he was a rally driver in his youth and had a passion for cars and poetry.

[allegrononstoppo]

Love the accent. Love the speech. What a lovely man.

[feellingfloydian]

Lovely Cornish accent, great chap and a loyal UKIP MEP, a very sad loss R.I.P Graham.

[carmonaPBC562]

i dont understand half of what he said and he has some weird ass accent.

[hughieadams]

I wonder what the translators made of this, I bet it came out in French and German as a load of gibberish lol

[philo0]

he sounds like the BFG.

[stingray4real]

RIP Graham Booth !

[Halopedian]

By the gods if preserving such treasures as cultures like the one he's from (or at least his accent) will be helped by not having the uk in the eu, it should not then.

[sarahkirky]

As a Europhile I don't agree with what he's saying, but my does he say it beautifully.

[iansummerell]

@sarahkirky You're proof that the brian washing has worked. anyone in the UK that believes the EU is a good idea. is in the pay of the EU or brianwashed.

[AaronCherr]

It's fascinating to hear this accent...it sounds very close to many dialects of American English and is easily understandable, even moreso than other accents from the United Kingdom. Interesting to see the ties between different dialects of English, even with centuries of separation.

[ddemaine]

@AaronCherr It's said that the accents of SW England are closest to Old English. Devon is the seafaring county (home of the Navy), so little surprise that the accent has travelled

[radose90]

I'm from London and understand every single word he is saying. If you can't understand him, there is probably something wrong with you rather than his accent.

[WhoaKaela]

I want all my books on tape read by this guy.

[WhoaKaela]

omg i love this guys accent.

[beanlovesledzeppelin]

All the accents of the west country: Gloucester and forest of dean, Somerset and Bristolian, Cornish, Devon and Dorset. All vary too, it's not just one. also we aren't farmers or sea captain either. Nor are we " thick as S**t"

[jeremiad86]

I'm from Ohio and I understood everything he said. Many immigrants from the west country came to America, that is why we are a predominantly Rhotic nation.

[halogen123]

Most English speakers in there would probably need an English translator to understand what he meant. His country bumpkin accent alone is enough to drive anyone crazy.

[serate34]

I watched this video out of linguistic interests, but found that the speaker's views fell in line with my own. The boundaries of languages, dialects, and accents are ill defined, and are further clouded by "official" tongues which is a silly concept, given that the only reason Received Pronunciation is of such standing due to London being the capital rather than Glasgow. One of the first steps to helping preserve dialect is to encapsulate it within writing by, again, destandardizing speling.

[whitehorsetom]

snow wat yuh meen =i know what you mean

[mikeyscotland1]

ive only ever heard foreigners` in the uk been in favour of the eu, Africans romainians etc .

[kakaze]

i wonder how the foreigners reacted to hearing him talk like this....

[vaughanwilliam]

@n22perv snobby bastard obviously don't know anyone from the west country then

[n22perv]

I have always said, " the people in the West Country are thick brain dead retarded fucking simpletons!" ..... This video proves this, so I rest my case !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! enough said !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[ukipwebmaster]

@n22perv There speaks someone with the intellect of "thick brain dead retarded fucking simpletons"...................­..

[alski695]

@n22perv NOT enough said at all thicky

[loveofficer1215]

@n22perv HE IS DEMONSTRATING THE FACT THAT THERE IS NO WAY THAT THIS SO CALLED COUNCIL CAN POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER BECAUSE OF DIALECT AND VARIATIONS OVER SMALL AREAS LET ALONE OVER WHOLE COUNTRIES

[Szaam]

Accents and dialects are beautiful. They make the country a thousand times more interesting.

We should stop stigmatising accents, and stop allowing dialects to be killed, and London should stop being looked at as the only place of any worth in the country.

As for the EU, I can't see any other purpose than it than to provide power for the greedy few.

[thisismymoniker]

@Szaam

Do we still stigmatize accents, i mean, really? There is always a bit of a merge from each region towards RP as people get "upwardly mobile" and go off and work in more cosmopolitan environments. However it is way better than it was. Remember there used to be just one accent on offer from the BBC. Now you have commentators, presenters & contestants/interviewees on both radio & TV from every region. I think there is more of a fondness than a stigma towards accents these days.

[Konata2010]

lmao, wtf is he saying? xD

[zoe23ellen]

has this man been to cornwall, cornwall owes an awful lot to europe and has benefited a lot from objective 1 funding

[ukipwebmaster]

@zoe23ellen Where do you think the money for 'objective 1 funding' comes from in the first place? Shouldn't the EU be grateful to British Taxpayers?

Why are you so thick?

[zoe23ellen]

@ukipwebmaster why did it take eu funding as opposed to uk funding to help cornwall?

[ukipwebmaster]

@zoe23ellen British taxpayers funds being filtered by the EU could go direct to where we want it to with no strings attached if we had our sovereignty back.

[ROLLO2able]

@zoe23ellen

Money laundering!

[Ricky8052]

@zoe23ellen ....

Zoe23ellen - you seem the kind of girl who can spot a bargain ...if you send me a cheque for £20, I will give you a £5 grant for anything you want.....

[hughieadams]

@zoe23ellen no such things as EU funding in the UK, it is just getting back a slice of the money we paid the EU. We are still net contributors by quite some way after taking all this "funding" into account!

[s13hgp]

@zoe23ellen : Cornwall is part of the UK, the UK is NET contributor to the EU. I contest you are either plain dumb, a LibDem supporter (much the same as my first assumption) or you simply write comments without any subject knowledge!

[jagdpanther1944]

as someone from Devon...I loved it

me lovers:)

[EdorixLonewolf]

He should have learnt his speech by heart instead of reading it... but I agree entirely. The EU has become much too domineering in its policies in recent years.

[rave1704]

this man is making a fool of himself...

[BadAzVLo]

What the fuck is this guy saying?

[charterboywaw]

What is that?? hehe Its like a joke....

[Notkooldude]

"whats a Luxembourger?" nobody is THAT stupid surely?

[TheUns79]

devon born devon beard thick in the arm thick in the head. southwest gods country

[malismad]

The word you seek is "bred" not "beard."

[Tracymmo]

I'm American and I understood all but a few words, and some things sounded rather American to me. Guess that's the connection between that region and early settlers in the US. But I gather that this accent is to some English ears what a heavy Tennessee accent is to my Midwestern US ears. It's nice to hear other countries' regional accents because you don't usually have any stereotypes or biases about them.

[Kentuckyhorse1]

I'd say a bit stonger than that but basically it's like NYC - AL, GA etc.

[eeClaytonification]

that's because some settlers carried with them the accent s from these parts of england

thomas jefferson would have spoken exactly the same as this guy

[Unterscharfuhrer]

@eeClaytonification The Mayflower sailed from Plymouth, which is in Devon, England.

[gabobkn]

@eeClaytonification so would have George Washington and John Adams.

[MaBu888]

And similar to Australian, too.

[Unterscharfuhrer]

@Tracymmo Not all English people speak 'Dick Van Dyke' Cockney or with an upper class 'Oxbridge' accent. I like to listen to different regional accents in the US and Germany as well.

[lizajeans]

For folks interested in accents, google "Tangier Island." It's an island off the coast of Virginia settled by British fishermen (mostly West Country) in the early 1700s. It, other Virginia islands and some islands off the coast of North Carolina (where I'm from!) have old timers who sound a lot like this guy because the islands have stayed so isolated.

[BakedDrLuny]

We'll be off like a long dog!

[omfg4000]

Well the problem is not with Europe treating nations as autonomous regions. As states...as US states 100 years ago. With a decentralised but massive union in which power comes from the below.

The problem is thtat the EU constitution further centralizes power from the regional parts of the nations and the nation itself into the European Union. The UK will not become a "autonomous region". Autonimity as is planned to disappear completely. That is the real problem.

[22poopoo]

That be well said innim!

[MANCKIE]

bible prophecy is coming true.

[thepigofhappiness]

Bravo, Very well said.

[Scoused5000]

Giorgio Napolitano is the Italian President by the way!

[qminusis]

Even Nigel Farage needs the earphones

LOL

[wexy914]

Silly Old Cunt.

[ukipwebmaster]

What's it like being able to speak out of your arse?

[Frank1978xyz]

Jesus, I thought i speak some English, but i just understand 20% of what he says. Not even the pronounciation is different, the whole melody of the sentences is.

[jhbecci]

have just transcribed this for an english essay, hope my teacher has a gd larf

[liaaam1234]

ooo arrrrr carrot crunchers lol love em

[karacatus2000]

I'm from Manchester originally and I thought I sounded horrible! Complete shite!lol!

[tiamattiamatre]

why farage has headsets?

[ukipwebmaster]

He's probably listening to the Romaninan translation?

[idespiseall]

Whatever language he's listening to, I think he wants to be sure the translators get everything with that accent (thay gwinna do this and thay gwinna do that)

[addy1995]

aww west country accentt (Y)

love yeovil mostt

[reiserkeiser]

I can see how this is related to the southern accent

[ModularNick]

Yeah I live in New Hampshire, and this sounds very similar to the regional accent of New Hampshire.

[ikvsabre]

that's where a lot of early settlers came from, the West Country.

It's why we Americans sound the way we do. We get our accent from Devon and Cornwall :-)

[ecannabisunum]

lol so that's a British regional dialect?

wow, it sounds like some kind of American accent

[RedShirtArmy]

Most Southerners (myself included are largely Scots-Irish OR from the West Country. That's why this sounds so familiar to us, I think. So much of our literary and linguistic tradition in Dixie is tied directly to the West Country.

Great video, by the way. I loved it!

[Stiofan1979]

Poor Nigel trying not to laugh lol

[hourie56]

what is this shit all about???

[ukipwebmaster]

Don't you understand Devon dialect?

[alanthomas123]

Im a local Exeter lad born and bred. This all made perfect sense to me! Anything north of Tiverton is Foreign!....lol Keep up the good work UKIP, the britsh people have to realise, are soverignity is being slowly removed by the mostly unelected EU!

[Unterscharfuhrer]

@hourie56 He is making fun of the EU in a rather subtle way.

[AriNotcrazy]

Haha he sounds like he came strait out of the Lord of the Rings!

[ukipwebmaster]

Only 6 people in Devon? I think I'll move there!

[renajsh]

Can I move to Devon, too? Or will that make Devon too crowded?

[ukipwebmaster]

As long as you learn to speak the language.......

[renajsh]

I used to live just outside of Bath for about five years, now I'm back in my native America. I think I remember the lingo -- and I won't make anyone change theirs! I loved the West County accent and way of speaking and the food. I tried to pick up the accent, but everyone said they liked mine, so I stuck to that. So I don;t think anyone in Devon would actually want to make anyone change their "way o spaykin, like."

[Sebbio149]

What an Idiot,wonder if he takes cheap flights and knows people with a place in France or Spain,All of course possible because of E.U!

[ukipwebmaster]

It's because of companies like Ryanair that we have cheap flights and we certainly don't need the apparatchiks of Brussels to achieve trade agreements like this. As Mr Leary of Ryaniar would say, you're talking gobshite!

[Sebbio149]

Go and do your homework!the E.U worked hard for a single Sky,that is how Mr.Leary got the conditions.People like you take the benefits then rubbish the E.U,it,s disgraceful.

[ukipwebmaster]

Poor EU - we have hurt it's tender caring side.......

[s13hgp]

@Sebbio149 ; You write an imbecilic statement like that and call him an idiot! Ha ha The Joke my friend is on you.

[jamerturnip]

UKIP - sod that - still far too centralist - far too london centric and promoting blandness. The Westcountry Independence Party - now yer talking - pro dialect - i means he can hardly speaks it - ee needs an education

[TheJackal1987]

We will remain tiny countries with no voice in the global scenario. US is getting more powerful, China is inevitably growing, Russia is coming back... We've got the chance to unite and to form a real superpower but we will never harness it because of the British and French people who are too proud of being british and french. So, let's keep our fu****g national identities and remain little countries so one day someone'll conquer us and we'll realize that is too late.

[ukipwebmaster]

There speaks the beating heart of a little european.........

[krayzeeryan]

So, let's keep our fu****g national identities and remain little countries so one day someone'll conquer us and we'll realize that is too late.

whats the difference with an EU superstate?

[ukipwebmaster]

Alternatively, let's have one world government were everything is homogenised and there is no escape from the prats who want to rule the world.......

[EU1945]

its not the size of the country that counts its what the people wants

[TooDarnSoulful]

Uk and France have seat on the permenant UN council and you say we do not have a voice globally?interestingly the EU wants us and the French to give up our seats, and call it the EU seat ...How spooky.

[hamsterwaffle]

would that give the eu two seats? im sure there is a un law against that. which would only give it one seat. halving the voice europe has

[MaNarchicDRAKE]

This isnt about national identity. Its about democracy, liberty and government accountabillity. Don't you feel that our government in Westminister is out of touch with people? What do you think having a higher level of government is going to do? You can wait till they take your DNA, IRIS, Fingerprint scans and put it on your ID Card, but i wont.

[albertosm]

Horrible... we are limited as humans... there is no hope, we need to wait traumatised people go by before we can achieve maturity..

[nighttraintotula]

god this is awful

[noeuro]

Er, I think you missed the point.

[futureboycolin]

haha look at the guy to his right.

[noeuro]

The guy to his right is Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party. They're on the same team.

[EUBanana]

Heh, my aunt speaks like that...

[pocavoz]

A mi me resulta más entendible que el Nigel Farange, a ese no le pillo una.

[shadaik]

Omygod, you will become regions and then the Uk will be composed of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland - oh, waitaminit

[tito2502]

No, you evidently haven't studies the Euro regions map.

[MaNarchicDRAKE]

If you want the regionalization of ENGLAND, where unelected Regional assemblys (recieving their budget form the EU) bypass the need to pass laws through westminster then go ahead and vote Labour, Lib dem, conservatives.

[Shinygummi]

If he'd delivered his speech in Estuary English, he'd have better represented West Country folk.

[tito2502]

I don't think that was the idea, it was to prove that European super state is not a good idea.

[krayzeeryan]

lol that was funny to listen to

[zaraza1986]

What was that? I cant believe hes British? 'I says'?

[spm9822]

Yeah let's just all keep fighting, it makes so much more sense. In fact, maybe we should split our countries into cities as well? Come to think of it, I'm not a big fan of the southern part of the city I live in. Maybe we in the northern part of the city should declare independence?

[renajsh]

I used to love in Somerset, and the voice brings back memories! Each county in the SW seemed very proud of it's originality, and no one I met wanted to call themselves English, let alone European. Thanks for posting this.

[Petesawido]

There is a difference between a dialect, and a complete lack of ability to conjugate a verb.

Why so euro-skeptic?

[MaNarchicDRAKE]

democracy and liberty. French and dDutch voters rejected the constitution, now they have brought it back. Thats is not democracy, imposing YOUR will on people is DICTATORSHIP. Read about the EU from ALL DIFFRENT SOURCES and make up your own MIND. DONT BE IGNORANT - DO YOUR READING!