Black Country vs Brummie: THE DIFFERENCE

It's been pissing me off for years when people try to impersonate a Brummie (Birmingham) accent and instead do the most diabolical Black Country accent. I hope I'm clearing up some ignorance here.
PS. I tried to tone down my own accent. I hope it worked. Also, I'm aware that my hair looks like a helmet.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• black country
• yam yam
• brummie
• birmingham
• accent
• accents
• english accents

[Declanchilds17]

Good video, but I live 2 minutes from stechford and nobody has the accent you put on :)

[Szaam]

@Declanchilds17 Haha, I say in the video to not take it as a definitive example. I like to think it was closer to an actual Brummie accent than the ridiculous versions they do on television though.

[SuttonBluenose2]

There's loads of different accents in the mids. There's Black Country, Walsall is slightly different-only just, brummy, cov, lichfield, stafford/rugely, indian brummie, pakistani brummie, pakistani black country.

I've got a mix or burton/staffs and brum, just a bit of a twang on certain words. As you say though, proper black country is difficult to understand to an outsider, thankfully I spend lots of time in Wolverhampton to get to terms with it lol.

[Szaam]

@SuttonBluenose2 Of course, but I just making a generalisation for the Black Country. Even within the Black Country it differs, like you say. People from Wolverhampton talk different to people from Walsall and Dudley, yet obviously people from Walsall and Dudley talk slightly different too. Even people from, say, Wednesbury sound different to Walsall people. And when you get to Stafford, they're basically just really watered-down Stokies, aha.

[pittst67]

Im from New York City (love your T shirt...) and I can hardly understand a word. But then you aught to hear a hard core Brooklyn accent. I saw an interview with Robert Plant and he has almost completely lost his yamyam. (not to mention his musical Mojo).

[Szaam]

@pittst67 Haha, thanks man, I actually bought that shirt from NYC a few years ago. I'd have loved to have gone more into the buroughs of the city and heard some people speak; it's an awesome accent! And it's also awesome that you know the term yam-yam, aha.

[SlappaDeBassMon]

Haha cool video, I love the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish accents. I'm from New Zealand and we only have one variation in our accent, which is the Southland accent, and even then the only real difference is the way Southlanders roll their R's. You guys have some really cool accents and variations, and I love trying to imitate them even if I'm not usually that successful at it lol.

[guyalexanderr]

Haha. Yeah! Uz Midlanders should stick together. I'm a mixture of Brummie an Yam-yam and it tickles me that people trying to do a Brummie accent always do (a sort of) Black Country accent! One bloke that I did forgive was when I was doing a car show in Italy, this Italian that I was talking to asked, "Yo'm a Brummie entcha?" - with an Italian accent thrown in! Hilarious! I'm forwarding your little video onto Jeremy Clarkson - one of my favourite people who always gets it wrong!

[91JHA]

In Birmingham I'm posh. At Uni, I'm the salt of the earth :S

[AlexBarzdo]

Nice one, but... I moved to the Black Country 20 years ago and I can't hope to do the accents or dialects of this region properly. If you've got a good ear you can distinguish between Dudley and Tipton and Gornal (Lower or Upper) or Wednesbury (Where Clarkson's mom-in-law comes from I believe) or Walsall or - dare I say it - Wolverhampton. One problem is that most media emanates from London where they know sod-all. The other problem is - too much prejudice and not enough discrimination! IMHO

[obie1obie2]

About time someone has made a video like this.

[booshpower]

thank you for making this video! pisses me off when people try to do a 'brummie accent' like that guy off the aviva advert who gets 'a bostin deal on his car insurance'.

i think people from the black country area with less broad accents/ don't use the slang, sound more similar to brummies, but you can definitely hear the difference if they're a proper yam yam.

people from cannock also sound black country, and when you get to rugeley, people sound more northern. interesting how it changes

[hereticmagpie]

Timothy Spall is probably to blame for those bad Brummy accents you speak of.

[radderz555]

I LOVE YOUR ACCENT!!!!