This has absolutely nothing to do with Switzerland, but maybe someone could help us anyway:
My wife, as you know, comes from the North American colonies, and is just beginning to learn about proper English accents. She is now familiar with all the important ones, such as Yam Yam, Brummie and Mancunian, but still has trouble with some of the more obscure ones (such as Yorkshire).
She just asked me how people talk in Northampton, as she's reading a book which mentions the town. Now, I'm aware of the fact that Northampton is somewhere in the Midlands, but, to be honest, it's a bit like Solothurn... easy to miss when you're drawing a map... it's not really the East Midlands, not really Home Counties, it's just sort of there somewhere, quietly getting nostalgic about shoes and foxhunting, ignored by the places that really matter, like Cannock and Chelmsley Wood.
We do actually know some people from Northampton, but they're all educated people who speak RP. So how do the common people of Northampton speak? Are they a bit like Leicester folk, a bit nasal, or do they have more of the Estuary about them? Is Northampton, being industrial (or post-industrial, these days) a Brummie colony (as portrayed in some dreadful film I saw a couple of years ago)? Or does everyone in Northampton speak as clearly and mellifluously as our friends?
All answers gratefully and genuinely received (this is not a troll thread, I can assure you).
Ah, good idea posting it, why didn't I think of that?
I have been wondering the same thing lately, believe it or not. In particular I'm interested in how working-class Northampton folk(s) might have sounded in the 50s. Just reading this afternoon about an Irish lad who went over to England in 1951 to do a spot of navvying, washed up in Northampton and could only understand about one word in three - "until finally I met someone from Cambridge, and that man was all right, I understood everything he said."
Struck me as odd because I know a couple of people from Northamptonshire and I wouldn't say either of them had a strong accent at all. Has it changed much in the last 50 years, or was 'yer man' just really really green and perhaps not too strong on the ol' Béarla himself?
Brilliant - my favourite is Geordie- and is one I'm totally unable to copy (I can do fun Brom and Scouse, sort of! My Leicester and Stoke not too bad!)
To indicate the fun you may have ahead of you, even after almost 6 months here, Missus Jeem is still unable to discern that a) Cheryl Cole is not Scottish, whereas b) Billy Connolly is.
And she still gets those "bunny in the headlamps" looks in shops, restaurants etc, when she finally finally realises she's been asked a question, but has absolutely no idea what she was asked. "Aye, Sco'ish steel a foreen leid tya, dear!" as a coworker so correctly observed after asking the same question of her six times without any sign of comprehension on the part of the questionee...
Serves her right for not taking me seriously when I warned her that we didn't all speak English up here - ra dunderheid thoat a wis joashin, ken!?!?
To indicate the fun you may have ahead of you, even after almost 6 months here, Missus Jeem is still unable to discern that a) Cheryl Cole is not Scottish, whereas b) Billy Connolly is.
And she still gets those "bunny in the headlamps" looks in shops, restaurants etc, when she finally finally realises she's been asked a question, but has absolutely no idea what she was asked. "Aye, Sco'ish steel a foreen leid tya, dear!" as a coworker so correctly observed after asking the same question of her six times without any sign of comprehension on the part of the questionee...
Serves her right for not taking me seriously when I warned her that we didn't all speak English up here - ra dunderheid thoat a wis joashin, ken!?!?
Indeed.
The Learned Companion got a taste of the possibilities of English when I introduced her to my pouty teenage cousin who lives in the heart of leafy Castle Bromwich. Afterwards she confessed to having wished there'd been subtitles at the table.
Aa odd as this may sound, even after having lived and worked in Northampton for several years, I can't remember the accent at all. Not one iota . . . Now if the question was about the Mancunian accent, that would be a totally different story altogether . . .
In particular I'm interested in how working-class Northampton folk(s) might have sounded in the 50s. Just reading this afternoon about an Irish lad who went over to England in 1951 to do a spot of navvying, washed up in Northampton and could only understand about one word in three - "until finally I met someone from Cambridge, and that man was all right, I understood everything he said." 
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