How to pronounce Bewicks (Swan) in English (1 Viewer)

[Barred Wobbler]

The other thing we forget is how accents change with time - I remember my grandfather (who was Irish, and maybe more likely to pick up on local differences in accents) telling me how people in Crawcrook used to pronounce the village Chraa-chruk, with the 'chr' like the back-of-throat classic Jackie Charlton Ashington 'r'. Don't think they still pronounced it like that now, but to me it shows how what is now a SE Northumberland coalfield accent must've been more widespread in Northumberland, and Mr. Bewick probably sounded a lot more like someone from Ashington area does now.
So I'm sure you're right about swAn, and it's also true that there's a lot of similarity between Northumbrian and Scots in terms of the words used colloquially ('bairns' etc.) as well as some pronunciations (heed for head...), but we do tone it down for foreigners from places south of Sunderland. And anyone who wants to hear what Scots-Geordie fusion sounds like should visit Berwick-on-Tweed...

It just happens that I spent the first 23 years of my life in Ashington. Since then I think my accent has become more rural Northumberland and therefore softer, but every now and again I find people saying that they can tell my origin from my accent. I find that since my departure the accent in that town has changed radically from the days of the 50s/60s when by listening carefully you could tell which members of a group came from Ashington, Morpeth, Newbiggin, Blyth or Widdrington, even though you could drop a hat over the communities involved. Not only there, but accents within the county as a whole in more recent years have become more 'smudged' and influenced by broadcast media.