Visit this British Library site and click around to read information on accents and dialects. Let's talk about the variations we hear.
I grew up in a community that encouraged me to think of local accents as socially inferior, and that the best thing to do with a Nott'mshire way of talking was to drop it, as quick as possible. If you wanted to impress anyone out of your clan you should never greet them with ey up me duck.
RP, on the other hand, was presented as the most desirable or aspirational sound that automatically was associated with higher social class, prestige, power, and the right to rule.
I think the social hold RP might have had in our culture has declined over the last decades. Now I hear people readily refer to local accents as if they are precious and lovely sounds to hear.
What do you think?
(I laughed, but he misses out East Anglia.)
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