Britain's Queen 'don't speak proper'

The Queen's standard of English has deterioated since her coronation in 1953, a new study claims

LONDON, England -- She is hardly "gor blimey" these days, but a scientific study of Queen Elizabeth II's accent shows she no longer speaks the Queen's English, and is instead starting to sound like a cockney.

A study of the Queen's speech patterns since 1953 has found her vowels have moved steadily downmarket.

The research, published in the latest edition of Nature magazine, concludes that the trend is towards a standard southern British accent (SSB), which is exemplified by female BBC broadcasters of the 1980s and subtly influenced by the London cockney accent.

Using tapes of four decades of the Queen's Christmas broadcasts, three scientists in Australia have found her speech moving subtly along with the times.

"There has been a drift in the Queen's accent towards one that is characteristic of speakers who are younger and/or lower in the social hierarchy," they claim.

The researchers -- Jonathan Harrington, Sallyanne Palethorpe and Catherine I. Watson, from the Speech, Hearing and Language Research Centre, at Macquarie University, in Sydney -- say the standard accent of British English, known as "received pronunciation," has also moved with the times.

This has partly been the result of young people rejecting it because of its association with the British Establishment.

Professor Harrington said in the 1950s English accents were as clearly marked as the rigid social groups, but as class distinctions had become more blurred, so too had the boundaries between accents.

"Although modern received pronunciation has resisted many of the stigmatised features of the London cockney accent, such as aitch dropping, it has nevertheless been influenced by cockney - for example in the tendency to pronounce the `l' in milk as a vowel.

"Some of these changes in pronunciation in England have been led by younger members of the population, who reject received pronunciation because of its association with the Establishment."

"Our results show that there were significant changes in at least one formant for 10 of 11 vowel sounds and in both formants for five of 11 vowel sounds from the 1950s to the 1980s Christmas broadcasts."

He added: "These results indicate that the vowels in the Christmas message have moved towards, but not attained, their SSB equivalents from the 1980s.

"Thus, there has been a drift in the Queen's accent towards one that is characteristic of speakers who are younger and lower in the social hierarchy.

"We conclude that the Queen no longer speaks in the Queen's English of the 1950s, although the vowels of the 1980s Christmas message are still clearly set apart from those of an SSB accent."

Harrington added that the chances of a community preserving a particular form of pronunciation against social changes was as unlikely to succeed as King Canute's attempts to defeat the tides.

Dr. J. S. Coleman said the study, "shows that not even the Queen is immune to the social forces that cause everyone's pronunciation to change over time."

Coleman, Reader in Phonetics at Oxford University, said the Australian research proved "that talk of 'sloppy speech' is inappropriate too."

He added: "Languages have been slowly changing since the dawn of time, and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it."

A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman declined to comment "on so personal a matter."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Prince Charles in Coronation Street drama
December 8, 2000
Animal lovers outraged as Queen wrings bird's neck
November 20, 2000
Cockney actor Caine arises as a knight
November 16, 2000
Queen thanks flood workers
November 14, 2000
Queen 'given cannabis bouquet'
October 14, 2000
Clinton heads for Royal date
December 13, 2000

The British Monarchy
Estuary English
Nature magazine
Macquarie University, Sydney

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.