A question about accents on Downtown Abbey

[Fridgemagnetman]

No not according to Wikipedia he came from Ulveston which I thought was Cumbria is and lived with his grandmother in north-east England and went to the Kings School

Ulverston, Bishop Auckland then North Shields

Comedian Stan Laurel's former Bishop Auckland home up for grabs

 

[Ambi]

Mr Carson sounds like he's from Yorkshire, although I'm not sure which part of Yorkshire

Mr Bates is definitely Irish.

Mrs O'Brien I'm guessing maybe from Bradford?

Anna sounds like she's from Humberside/Hull.

Thomas sounds like he maybe from Manchester or Leeds (unsure)

Mrs Hughes is Scottish

Daisy and Mrs Patmore sound like they maybe from Manchester.

Mr Moseley maybe from Leeds

Dr Clarkson is Scottish

I'm unsure where Ethel and William are from?

The above are my best guesses after listening to them

I'd be interested in the answers from others

You know what's interesting to me and my husband - we would never have guessed that Dr. Clarkson and Mrs. Hughes were Scottish, nor that Mr. Bates was Irish! I guess they didn't sound like the accents we thought we would have associated with being Scottish or Irish - and those are accents I had thought previously would have been harder to understand, but they were very easy for us to understand. The brief time I was in Scotland, I did find it harder to understand people's accents.

I had heard in an interview that Carson actually is from Yorkshire in real life, so that does make sense. I had an acquaintance from York when I was in England, and I could only understand about 80% of what she said - and I could totally tell that she could only understand about 80% of what I said. I had to actually try to sound more English to help some people understand me better, lol

I wouldn't have guessed that Thomas, Daisy, and Mrs. Patmore might have been from the same place - they all sound so different to me, especially Thomas and Daisy - I could always understand Thomas very clearly, but he spoke slowly. Daisy - she was very hard to understand.

Going back to the Irish thing....so, they only made a big Irish deal out of the chauffeur.....but Mr. Bates was also Irish by accent - so then the others would have known he was Irish based on his accent? And I'm wondering what that meant in England at the time, if anything - also Ms. O'Brien, by her last name, would have been Irish (I would guess), but I guess since she was from Bradford perhaps....would they have thought of her as being Irish or English? Around that time in America, people really viewed Irish people as being a separate thing, is my understanding - lots of discrimination against Irish people when they came to America.

Anyway, all of this is making me realize how little I know about the history of all of these people - like I was wondering, when they showed the relatives or friends or whatever living as nobles in Scotland....were they really of Scottish blood/ethnicity, or where they ethnically English nobles who were living in Scotland?

Okay, I only set this as a reply to @Gracey because it tags onto her post, but this isn't directed just to Gracey - it's to anyone who has any thoughts or wants to chime in

 

[xudo]

BUT....I'm wondering if British people would consider the "upperclass" accent to be normal or snooty - or maybe in England it wouldn't be snooty, would it just be "posh", lol?

The upperclass accent would be considered by most here in the UK as snooty or stuck up. I know very, very few people who sound like that, and they would all be considered 'posh' for the way they speak. You find that people who speak like that will have been to private school (although some 'normal' people do manage to get into them these days, not many.)

I shall endeavour to watch the video later and see if I can work out where they're from

 

[Judge]

Not being familiar with the players, are the accents exclusively indicative of the parts played or do they reflect the actual actors' accents?

I'm reminded of the cast of "Doc Martin" where a number of the most prominent cast members seem to all agree that none of them really speak with a Cornish accent. Yet at times people like Martin Clunes and Caroline Catz seem to throw in their own accents. Confusing...lol.

I guess I need to investigate further and see if this show is broadcasted on our PBS station.

 

[Ambi]

Not being familiar with the players, are the accents exclusively indicative of the parts played or do they reflect the actual actors' accents?

I'm reminded of the cast of "Doc Martin" where a number of the most prominent cast members seem to all agree that none of them really speak with a Cornish accent. Yet at times people like Martin Clunes and Caroline Catz seem to throw in their own accents. Confusing...lol.

I guess I need to investigate further and see if this show is broadcasted on our PBS station.

I watched an interview with several of them in which they said they had to be trained for their accents, but I'm not sure if they deliberately chose people who naturally spoke similarly to begin with. For example, even though Carson is from Yorkshire, he still had to be trained in how they spoke back then in Yorkshire.

About the American character - I wonder if they made her speak so annoyingly because that was.....a stereotype of how American women of that class would speak?? It was so annoying, though. But the other Americans who showed up on that show were over-the-top annoying, I guess for comedic reasons.

There is a documentary about American regional accents that I would really like to see - I should try finding it on youtube.

 

[Judge]

I watched an interview with several of them in which they said they had to be trained for their accents, but I'm not sure if they deliberately chose people who naturally spoke similarly to begin with. For example, even though Carson is from Yorkshire, he still had to be trained in how they spoke back then in Yorkshire.

About the American character - I wonder if they made her speak so annoyingly because that was.....a stereotype of how American women of that class would speak?? It was so annoying, though. But the other Americans who showed up on that show were over-the-top annoying, I guess for comedic reasons.

There is a documentary about American regional accents that I would really like to see - I should try finding it on youtube.

I didn't catch the American. Could this by chance be a "Trans-Atlantic accent" you speak of?

That pretentious, rich-folk twang like Thurston Howell III ?

 

[Ambi]

I didn't catch the American. Could this by chance be a "Trans-Atlantic accent" you speak of?

That pretentious, rich-folk twang like Thurston Howell III ?

Yeah - I didn't realize she was American until one of the daughters mentioned it. Actually, yeah, when I had learned to put a bit of English tendency into my American accent, there were people I met in England who were surprised to find out I was American, though I thought I still sounded totally American. I just did little things like end my questions by keeping my intonation down instead of lilting it up. I found they asked questions the way that Americans would make statements. Which makes me think of a funny scene in Downton where am American puts out his hand and offers his name by way of introduction, and the English person is offended and confused because he thought he was being mistaken for someone else of that name, lol I remember my confusion moment - people in England kept asking me if I was alright. Well, at least where I'm from in America, we only ask that if the person looks sick or sad - if they look like they're NOT alright. So I kept saying, confusedly, "yes, I'm FINE"....until it finally dawned on me that that's how they say, "how are you?"

Going back to the American woman's annoying accent - it was just saccharine/pouty - almost reminiscent of a Marilyn Monroe accent, though not that extreme. But Marilyn Monroe was a character - it was all fake on purpose....this woman just seemed fake by accident because of her accent. Anyway, I'm sure she just did what she was told to do. In real life her accent is a bit unusual, too.

 

[Judge]

I just remember that some time ago hearing about how some in Hollywood claimed Carrie Fisher had "adopted" her own Transatlantic accent. Hmmmm. She does sort of have that inflection, though it's not that pronounced here.

 

[Streetwise]

You know what's interesting to me and my husband - we would never have guessed that Dr. Clarkson and Mrs. Hughes were Scottish, nor that Mr. Bates was Irish! I guess they didn't sound like the accents we thought we would have associated with being Scottish or Irish - and those are accents I had thought previously would have been harder to understand, but they were very easy for us to understand. The brief time I was in Scotland, I did find it harder to understand people's accents.

I had heard in an interview that Carson actually is from Yorkshire in real life, so that does make sense. I had an acquaintance from York when I was in England, and I could only understand about 80% of what she said - and I could totally tell that she could only understand about 80% of what I said. I had to actually try to sound more English to help some people understand me better, lol

I wouldn't have guessed that Thomas, Daisy, and Mrs. Patmore might have been from the same place - they all sound so different to me, especially Thomas and Daisy - I could always understand Thomas very clearly, but he spoke slowly. Daisy - she was very hard to understand.

Going back to the Irish thing....so, they only made a big Irish deal out of the chauffeur.....but Mr. Bates was also Irish by accent - so then the others would have known he was Irish based on his accent? And I'm wondering what that meant in England at the time, if anything - also Ms. O'Brien, by her last name, would have been Irish (I would guess), but I guess since she was from Bradford perhaps....would they have thought of her as being Irish or English? Around that time in America, people really viewed Irish people as being a separate thing, is my understanding - lots of discrimination against Irish people when they came to America.

Anyway, all of this is making me realize how little I know about the history of all of these people - like I was wondering, when they showed the relatives or friends or whatever living as nobles in Scotland....were they really of Scottish blood/ethnicity, or where they ethnically English nobles who were living in Scotland?

Okay, I only set this as a reply to @Gracey because it tags onto her post, but this isn't directed just to Gracey - it's to anyone who has any thoughts or wants to chime in

Depends on who they spent time with ,if they were sent to a public school what you call a private school ,were given elocution lessons .
For instance I went to a day school and could've had elocution lessons didn't take them ,boys and girls usually go to a boarding school from seven years until 16 to 18.