The King’s English and cockney have been silenced by a rise of new accents popularised by celebrities.
Standard southern British English (SSBE), as voiced by Ellie Goulding, estuary English, as articulated by Adele, and multicultural London English, as spoken by Stormzy, are increasingly popular among young people according to a new study, the Telegraph reports.
Research using voice analysis has shown that adults aged 18 to 33 have moved away from class-based accents like the King’s English or working-class cockney used by celebs like Barbara Windsor.
The Essex University study used an algorithm to analyse the voices of nearly 200 people from across the south east of England and London, focusing on how they speak and pronounce vowels in different words.
Accents that are now in, thanks to celebrities, and those that are now much less popular
Celebrity speakers of SSBE include Ellie Goulding (pictured), Josh Widdicombe and potentially even Prince Harry, whose accents has similarities to SSBE
It found that 26 per cent of the participants spoke estuary English, which resembles the King’s English but also shares similarities with cockney.
The accent is common in the South East, especially in parts of Essex, and is spoken by Adele, Stacey Dooley, Olly Murs or Jay Blades.
Another accent, SSBE, is considered to be an updated, modern version of the King’s English and was spoken by nearly half the participants.
In SSBE, people pronounce words like ‘goose’ with their tongue further forward in their mouth than common for King’s English, causing it to sound a bit like ‘geese’ instead.
Celebrity speakers include Ellie Goulding, Josh Widdicombe and potentially even Prince Harry, whose accents has similarities to SSBE.
Estuary English is common in the South East, especially in parts of Essex, and is spoken by Adele (pictured), Stacey Dooley, Olly Murs or Jay Blades
The third most common accent among those analysed was multicultural London English, which is spoken by Stormzy (pictured), rapper Little Simz and footballer Bukayo Saka
Both estuary English and SSBE have a glottal stop, but while the former replaces the ‘t’ in words like wa’er (water), be’er (better) and ci’y (city), in SSBE the ‘t’ only gets replaced at the end of a word like in wha’ (what) or bu’ (but).
The third most common accent among those analysed was multicultural London English, which is spoken by Stormzy, rapper Little Simz and footballer Bukayo Saka.
Multicultural London English speakers pronounce words like bate and boat more like ‘beht’ and ‘boht’ by having their tongue start at a point higher up in the mouth than SSBE speakers would.
The accent is often used by Asian British or black British Londoners or those across the south east of England who use features of multicultural London English.