New website: Sounds Familiar?

Hapsyou'd like to record yourself having a blether with a friend, mebbe get your mam, grandfer or nana reminiscing, or you'd like to talk about somewhat else entirely? Even if you think you have naught to say, the British Library insists that there's no need to keep the noise down.

Celebrating the UK's many different accents, dialects and vocabularies, Sounds Familiar is a unique and groundbreaking new interactive website from the British Library, supported by The Innovation Unit. 72 unedited recordings illustrate regional accents and dialects from every corner of the UK, some recorded in the 1950s and some almost half a century later, in 1998-1999. What makes this site unique, however, is the comprehensive set of audio resources, the depth of interpretation and the varied learning packages that explore the dual themes of language variation and language change within spoken English – both contemporary and historical. You can investigate 'new' trends in pronunciation, such as 'upspeak' or 'T-glottaling', find out where in the country speakers use the past tense I were or we was or discover how the English of British Asians is influenced by their bilingual status.

The British Library's vision is to use the website and the new recordings submitted by young speakers to create a comprehensive ‘sound map of the UK, which will showcase the varied accents and dialects that can be heard nationwide. The voice recordings gathered through the website will be added to the British Library's Sound Archive for the benefit of future generations. Taking part in the research and primary collection of data has already been very beneficial to our students says Marjory Caine, a teacher at Oakwood Park Grammar School in Kent. It has given them some ideas for the language investigations they have to carry out. Even our Year 7s are looking forward to accessing THEIR  words!

16/02/07