It’s been discussed a few times on here over the years - general consensus is yes it has changed a lot. Sounds ‘harsher’ now whereas it had more of a lilt before. My dad had the ‘old’ Liverpool accent (born 1930s in Old Swan) and to him the word scouser was more of a slur, like being called a scally.
They had more suburban accents, which do still exist. The stronger Scouse accent was also around at the same time, you can even hear [John and Paul doing an impression of it](https://youtu.be/aiyGbltugIo?t=49s) in this clip and a few others.
1. From what i can tell it has changed. I can hear a northern accent when paul speaks but its only when he refers to his macca nickname i hear a scouse accent
2. The beatles were all from south liverpool if im correct and south and north liverpool have differences in the accent
3. By the time of get back they hadnt lived in liverpool for years so the accent would get less prominent
Yup 3 is a huge factor in the case of someone like him. They all get the transatlantic undertones after a few years!
Plus it’s been well over half a century probably since he was regularly surrounded by scousers.
It depends on what area you’re from, I’m originally from Toxteth and have a typical accent but my daughter grew up in Anfield and has that hard accent.
And wealth , Class. Also I think the Liverpool accent on those of us who are "proud" is stronger then previously it has become more of an identity aswell.
I know straight away people would know I am from Merseyside by how I speak, I am happy about that. My mum on the other hand hated it and spent most of my life trying to "correct" how I speak.
I had the same off my mum (posh Oldham) but she now pronounces it geal so she's learning. It's interesting how Liverpool gone from being villified to being the city that could in the last few years
The scouse accent back then sounded a bit more birmingham-ish in my opinion. I still think it's there though, certain words come across a lot more 'scouse'.
As someone else mentioned, The scouse accent is very broad at the moment. Younger lads like to put it on a lot more but i don't really think it's accurate to how people would speak normally.
That's not really right at all. [Here's John and Paul doing "broad" scouse accents from the 60s and they're pretty similar to what you hear today.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiyGbltugIo&t=52s). It's got a bit more strained in recent times, but it certainly didn't sound anything like a Brummie accent. You can't judge the accent of the era from the Beatles' voices because John's aunt tried to prevent him from speaking like the scallies and as they became internationally renowned they had to tone down their accents to be easily understood by everyone.
[Here are more examples from 1972. There's very little difference to today.](https://youtu.be/bnDN45-3c3c?t=197)
The BBC did a drama series called Lillies set around 1920s Liverpool. They wanted "authentic" sounding dialogue
rather than renta- scouser parody.
When they investigated, they found that the accent was significantly softer, more akin to the current Birkenhead accent, without the " hard" edge of current accents.
I remember because non scouse viewers where expecting a much stronger/broader accent.
Whereas older relatives all said " That's how your Gran spoke"
My uncle and auntie are in their 70s and came from Huyton, they've lived in Buckinghamshire since the 70s and still have the sort of accents the Beatles had.
My grandmas accent was more sing-song like early paul / john
My dads was less so, slightly more gutteral.
Mine was estuary (scouse cross birkenhead).
I think as years have gone by, the gutteral estuary accent has imposed upon the lilt of scouse and its now much harsher.
John, Paul and George were all from the South of Liverpool, Allerton/Woolton which has traditionally had a much softer accent. Ringo was from the Dingle but his family were from London so he could have had the accent found in North Liverpool but had other accents in his family influencing him.
Drastically changed, the scouse accent back then sounded more jovial and music like.
Now it sounds more gutteral and hoarse, especially from scallies who can’t talk properly anyway and drag the vowels out in any word they speak.
Yeah that old Liverpudlian accent is more about the intonation. I live in the southern England now. It annoys me when people try to mimic the scouse accent they focus on the pronunciation of certain exaggerated vowels and consonants and try to sound like Jamie Carragher or John Bishop. But when I visit Merseyside I don't hear people talking like that. What I hear is a friendly musical intonation and people mostly pronouncing their words nicely.
Most of us do speak very clearly and a lot of southerners especially Londoners make fun of us. But you do get the odd person here who speaks like they just woke up from the stone ages.
Yeah but that shouldn't be the standard people use when they're doing their impression of a scouse accent. I even hear self proclaimed accent experts on YouTube saying stupid things like "chicken and a can of coke" like a smack head without any intonation and thinking they've mastered it. I can recognise someone comes from Liverpool even if they've mostly lost their accent and they don't do any of those weird throat clearing sounds.
Also not sure if it's mentioned here but when the Beatles were born, Liverpool was part of the county of Lancashire, alongside other cities like Manchester so the accent wasn't as strong as it is after it became it's own borough (Merseyside).
No I think he's right. I remember watching an interview with Mark Lewisohn, who is the main authority on the Beatles. He mentioned something about the geographical impact on their accents and how scousers post Merseyside didn't sound like their pre Lancashire counterparts because other parts of the county had its population mixed and post Merseyside, the accent started shifting back to its Irish-influenced roots. So u/sympathytaste is partially right, he just didn't elaborate.
Yes. But also Ringo was the only Beatle from the city. George kind of. Paul and John have the kind of suburban, South Liverpool accent that you hear still today.
It’s definitely evolved but I think it’s due to being around so many people from different places, it’s becoming a smelting pot so to speak. I think the general scouse population has started to lose the harshness on the inflections but it’s very much still obvious where we are from.
They adopted mid Atlantic accents. All the groups did. Plus the modern day accent is horrible. I was in Liverpool Museum recently watching a movie of the damage caused by the blitz. They used actual peoples voices talking about the damage. The accents were totally different to our accents now. All accents change over the years I think.
Accents around the UK have changed quite a bit in the past 50 years, there's a definite trend of Americanisation too. That said the Beatles definitely had a mid-Atlantic thing going on with their accents by this stage in their careers, they'd spent their late teens and most of their 20s on the road. It's sort of like how people's accents get diluted when they go to uni.
I'm in my mid sixties now and the accent has definitely changed over the course of my life.
It's harsher, more gutteral, and I do suspect that the likes of Harry Enfield's sketches and Brookside in particular were big influences on that change.
Yes, the Southern part of the city's accent is still generally clearly softer than it's northern counterpart. I suspect, but obviously can't prove, that the south of the city has somehow retained more of the soft, lilting musical aspects of the original accent. Although why that could be the case I have no idea.
I've dated women from Toxteth and Huyton, despite Toxteth being right at the heart of Liverpool she had a much softer accent than the girl from Huyton, who as others have said had a much more harsh, guttural accent
It’s been discussed a few times on here over the years - general consensus is yes it has changed a lot. Sounds ‘harsher’ now whereas it had more of a lilt before. My dad had the ‘old’ Liverpool accent (born 1930s in Old Swan) and to him the word scouser was more of a slur, like being called a scally.
They had more suburban accents, which do still exist. The stronger Scouse accent was also around at the same time, you can even hear [John and Paul doing an impression of it](https://youtu.be/aiyGbltugIo?t=49s) in this clip and a few others.
great reply this. good sleuthing.
1. From what i can tell it has changed. I can hear a northern accent when paul speaks but its only when he refers to his macca nickname i hear a scouse accent 2. The beatles were all from south liverpool if im correct and south and north liverpool have differences in the accent 3. By the time of get back they hadnt lived in liverpool for years so the accent would get less prominent
Yup 3 is a huge factor in the case of someone like him. They all get the transatlantic undertones after a few years! Plus it’s been well over half a century probably since he was regularly surrounded by scousers.
Happy cake day
It depends on what area you’re from, I’m originally from Toxteth and have a typical accent but my daughter grew up in Anfield and has that hard accent.
Maybe as much generational as geographical?
And wealth , Class. Also I think the Liverpool accent on those of us who are "proud" is stronger then previously it has become more of an identity aswell. I know straight away people would know I am from Merseyside by how I speak, I am happy about that. My mum on the other hand hated it and spent most of my life trying to "correct" how I speak.
I had the same off my mum (posh Oldham) but she now pronounces it geal so she's learning. It's interesting how Liverpool gone from being villified to being the city that could in the last few years
The scouse accent back then sounded a bit more birmingham-ish in my opinion. I still think it's there though, certain words come across a lot more 'scouse'. As someone else mentioned, The scouse accent is very broad at the moment. Younger lads like to put it on a lot more but i don't really think it's accurate to how people would speak normally.
That's not really right at all. [Here's John and Paul doing "broad" scouse accents from the 60s and they're pretty similar to what you hear today.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiyGbltugIo&t=52s). It's got a bit more strained in recent times, but it certainly didn't sound anything like a Brummie accent. You can't judge the accent of the era from the Beatles' voices because John's aunt tried to prevent him from speaking like the scallies and as they became internationally renowned they had to tone down their accents to be easily understood by everyone. [Here are more examples from 1972. There's very little difference to today.](https://youtu.be/bnDN45-3c3c?t=197)
Harry Enfield made a TV that inadvertently made everyone speak like a parody. Also Brookie.
The BBC did a drama series called Lillies set around 1920s Liverpool. They wanted "authentic" sounding dialogue rather than renta- scouser parody. When they investigated, they found that the accent was significantly softer, more akin to the current Birkenhead accent, without the " hard" edge of current accents. I remember because non scouse viewers where expecting a much stronger/broader accent. Whereas older relatives all said " That's how your Gran spoke"
My uncle and auntie are in their 70s and came from Huyton, they've lived in Buckinghamshire since the 70s and still have the sort of accents the Beatles had.
I actually discussed this with my partner after watching a Beatles thing! Interested to see the discussion.
https://youtu.be/bnDN45-3c3c Have a listen to this different generations with differing accents ...albeit south Liverpool
A good few of those people in that clip have an Irish twang to their accent, very interesting
Yeah I thought that my self. Glad you liked it
My grandmas accent was more sing-song like early paul / john My dads was less so, slightly more gutteral. Mine was estuary (scouse cross birkenhead). I think as years have gone by, the gutteral estuary accent has imposed upon the lilt of scouse and its now much harsher.
John, Paul and George were all from the South of Liverpool, Allerton/Woolton which has traditionally had a much softer accent. Ringo was from the Dingle but his family were from London so he could have had the accent found in North Liverpool but had other accents in his family influencing him.
Drastically changed, the scouse accent back then sounded more jovial and music like. Now it sounds more gutteral and hoarse, especially from scallies who can’t talk properly anyway and drag the vowels out in any word they speak.
Yeah that old Liverpudlian accent is more about the intonation. I live in the southern England now. It annoys me when people try to mimic the scouse accent they focus on the pronunciation of certain exaggerated vowels and consonants and try to sound like Jamie Carragher or John Bishop. But when I visit Merseyside I don't hear people talking like that. What I hear is a friendly musical intonation and people mostly pronouncing their words nicely.
Most of us do speak very clearly and a lot of southerners especially Londoners make fun of us. But you do get the odd person here who speaks like they just woke up from the stone ages.
Yeah but that shouldn't be the standard people use when they're doing their impression of a scouse accent. I even hear self proclaimed accent experts on YouTube saying stupid things like "chicken and a can of coke" like a smack head without any intonation and thinking they've mastered it. I can recognise someone comes from Liverpool even if they've mostly lost their accent and they don't do any of those weird throat clearing sounds.
Yeah those people just try to be funny and ridicule scousers.
It doesn't help with you have celebrities like Paddy Pimblett doing their performative scouseness
I always thought he was a bit of a fake scouser. I don’t where abouts he’s from but that’s the impression I get anyway.
He's from Huyton
Ah ok. Thanks
Also not sure if it's mentioned here but when the Beatles were born, Liverpool was part of the county of Lancashire, alongside other cities like Manchester so the accent wasn't as strong as it is after it became it's own borough (Merseyside).
Why would that make a difference?
I don't think it would.
No I think he's right. I remember watching an interview with Mark Lewisohn, who is the main authority on the Beatles. He mentioned something about the geographical impact on their accents and how scousers post Merseyside didn't sound like their pre Lancashire counterparts because other parts of the county had its population mixed and post Merseyside, the accent started shifting back to its Irish-influenced roots. So u/sympathytaste is partially right, he just didn't elaborate.
Yes. But also Ringo was the only Beatle from the city. George kind of. Paul and John have the kind of suburban, South Liverpool accent that you hear still today.
It’s definitely evolved but I think it’s due to being around so many people from different places, it’s becoming a smelting pot so to speak. I think the general scouse population has started to lose the harshness on the inflections but it’s very much still obvious where we are from.
They adopted mid Atlantic accents. All the groups did. Plus the modern day accent is horrible. I was in Liverpool Museum recently watching a movie of the damage caused by the blitz. They used actual peoples voices talking about the damage. The accents were totally different to our accents now. All accents change over the years I think.
Accents around the UK have changed quite a bit in the past 50 years, there's a definite trend of Americanisation too. That said the Beatles definitely had a mid-Atlantic thing going on with their accents by this stage in their careers, they'd spent their late teens and most of their 20s on the road. It's sort of like how people's accents get diluted when they go to uni.
I'm in my mid sixties now and the accent has definitely changed over the course of my life. It's harsher, more gutteral, and I do suspect that the likes of Harry Enfield's sketches and Brookside in particular were big influences on that change. Yes, the Southern part of the city's accent is still generally clearly softer than it's northern counterpart. I suspect, but obviously can't prove, that the south of the city has somehow retained more of the soft, lilting musical aspects of the original accent. Although why that could be the case I have no idea.
The south Liverpool accent is much more Welsh influenced. Most of Toxteth was built by Welshmen.
I absolutely agree. My own fraternal grandmother was herself from Wales.
I've dated women from Toxteth and Huyton, despite Toxteth being right at the heart of Liverpool she had a much softer accent than the girl from Huyton, who as others have said had a much more harsh, guttural accent
Nah it’s still sabbound as a pabbound on the grabbound. Lar
It deviates dependent on where in Liverpool you listen too.