Chapter 2
Hi! You made it! Here are my sources and personal speculative dialectal notes!
This website gave an interesting overview and linked to an interactive map which led to recordings of each featured dialect: https://www.bl.uk/british-accents-and-dialects/articles/regional-voices-an-introduction-to-language-variation-across-the-uk
This website gave an overview of dialectal variation in Britain:
https://accentbiasbritain.org/accents-in-britain/
This website gave a brief overview of recognizable American Accents (researched these far less since I am American lol):
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents
This reddit page helped me find UK slang of the 90's:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/21l30p/what_uk_slang_words_can_you_remember_from_the/
This website helped me identify key features of the Tidewater accent:
https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/3802111
This page gave me American 90's slang:
https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/grammar/slang/most-popular-90s-slang-phrases.html
Now on to my personal notes!
Dialectal Notes:
Lily:
Cokeworth noted to be somewhere in the midlands, and Lily grew up working class, so likely a very present regional accent. Went to AIM, so probably would have adopted aspects of the American accent, but might still have remnants of old accent. Presumedly she might have worked to lose her old accent for intelligibility reasons. We’ll place AIM in VA, allowing for the southernisms such as y’all to creep in, whilst acknowledging that the dialect of the boarding school is likely to be dominant. Speculation of the Tidewater accent due to the similarities to her pre-existing British dialect. Later, she may have worked to adopt the accent of her co-workers, so as to limit dialectal discrimination in a workplace where she is already disadvantaged due to blood status. Therefore, Lily’s speech when in a professional setting might be more similar to contemporary RP, with her accent at home relaxing and allowing a few of her dialectal peculiarities, though proximity to other RP speakers will ensure that even at home her accent is similar enough.
James:
James grew up wealthy and, based on the location of Potter Place in the West Country, we’ll assume he grew up more or less in the same area. As such, his wealth would indicate an inclination towards the RP, and given his parents were older, the less contemporary version of RP at that. While at Hogwarts he would have shifted into the accent of the boarding school, but I speculate that accent would have still be within the parameters of RP, even if it might have relaxed slightly. Regardless, he still has that upper-class accent which makes undercover work more difficult.
Sirius:
Sirius is posh as all hell. He’s wealthy, his parents were older, his family was fully committed to the preservation of tradition. Sirius might use slang, but that pretentious RP would have never faded, even at Hogwarts (No doubt his parents had elocution tutors prior to Hogwarts, and corrected Sirius accent as they saw fit during breaks). Specifically, he grew up in London, and as such the RP of the private schools of the area is probably closest to his.
Remus:
Wiki lists Remus’s nationality as British or Irish, so let us tentatively place the place he grew up as near Belfast. There are a couple of different reasons this appeals to me, but one is some of the dialectal similarities to the dialects of the west-country and North American English speakers (in particular, t-voicing and the shared slow change between US and Irish English leading to a surprising number of similar holdovers from earlier modern English.) While at Hogwarts I do believe the accent would have softened, but Seamus Finnegan never loses his Irish accent, so let’s speculate that it’s still somewhat present just, again, softened. There’s this one tiktoker who’s accent I’m thinking of (fromscratchbakery) who is likely a good baseline when mixed with the Belfast accent. This likely hasn’t rubbed off on Harry or Archie, but likely did soften the strength of their RP development.
Archie+Harry Baseline: Based on all of the factors listed above, and the very insular nature of Archie+Harry’s childhood, we can assume a few things. 1) they both grew up with the same accent, 2) their accent was primarily informed by that of their parents, and 3) at most some slang from living in London/the West Country might have slipped in, but these contributions are likely negligible. As such, Archie+Harry likely grew up with an accent primarily shaped by contemporary RP, though they may have certain words which they say in another accent, Harry in particular likely picking up certain pronunciations from Lily and Archie then picking them up from Harry. (My mother is from New England and despite not having a NE accent myself, and her having largely lost hers, there are certain words which I pronounce in the NE fashion.) Contemporary RP is speculated to be the accent of only approximately 3% of modern-day Britain, though in the ‘90’s this percentage was higher due to the attitudes of public and private schools in the era that this was still the “ideal” way to speak. I cannot find any exact stats on this though, merely speculative statements discussing the decrease in RP over the past few decades. These stats are, of course, reflective of Muggle Britain, but I do speculate that the insular community of the Wizarding World might have its own wizarding subdialects of each of the dialects we see within it. As such, the upper class of the wizarding world likely do hold to a particular noble RP which, given the now wealthy-pureblood-dominated culture of RBC, is likely far more dominant than RP is in the muggle world. Archie+Harry, unlike other noble scions, did not have elocution lessons growing up, and so most likely have a less crisp/well-trained RP than expected of pureblood heirs.
Hogwarts Dialect:
Since all the students are purebloods, there are likely no muggle-world dialectal influences, such as we are likely to see in canon Hogwarts. Thus, I’d argue they’re relatively slang-free, missing words like “Aight”, “Mint”, “Minge”, “Sterling” or even “Tosser”. These phrases might be introduced by more liberally-minded purebloods at Hogwarts, but canon demonstrates the relative isolation of even the Weasleys, whose father actively admires the muggle world, indicating that in a largely Muggle-born free society, we would see not only cultural stagnation, but also some linguistic stagnation, mirroring other linguistically isolated societies in the real world. It’s very possible that the language of the wizarding world has not meaningfully shifted since Muggle-borns were banned from Hogwarts, though for ease of writing I’ll hold that instead it’s not significantly shifted since Half-bloods were banned.
AIM Dialect:
AIM is based in Virginica within my headcanon, specifically in Gloucester County so as to allow for the presence of a Tidewater accentual influence (which I really want because I adore the tidewater accent). AIM is, ultimately, an international school, but I will speculate that it is primarily frequented by those from English-Speaking parts of the world. I also assume that former British colonies are also more liberal than the British Magical World, so fewer students from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, etc. are inclined towards AIM. We’ll say that the primary linguistic influences are UK, Ireland (Only canon Irish school is for purebloods), and US. Ilvermorny does exist in this universe, so I’m confused about the AIM/Ilvermorny population distinction, but I’m going to assume that any American can go to Ilvermorny whilst AIM has a specialized test which you must take to get in for placement purposes (where do muggle-borns who don’t pass go? Idk man, I’m genuinely struggling here to determine the intricacies of American wizarding school politics, I can’t answer all your questions). Anyway, the Tidewater accent has *a lot* of similarities to British accents, and so I believe it would be prevalent in AIM, though I’m sure accents blend a bit more so that it is not dominant. AIM also would have plenty of exposure to muggle slang from both the US and other countries.
Archie Post-AIM:
Archie’s accent is still recognizably British for ease of canonical continuity. We can excuse this by the large number of British students at this institute, keeping the sound in Archie’s ears so that he doesn’t lose it. Archie will often over-enunciate certain words, and his vowels have likely shifted a tad. I also think that due to southern influence, there is likely a certain twang to some of his words. Why hasn’t his family or literally anyone else noticed? I don’t know. They’re unobservant. And we all know Archie is known for his silence.
Harry Post-Hogwarts:
Harry has probably shifted into a much more conservative accent, matching the trained elocution of her Slytherin housemates. She likely is not as crisp as them, given she has no real training, and she also likely not as strongly Aristocratic due to her own idiolect and her close friendships with less “refined” Hogwarts students, but there’s been a distinct shift towards aristocracy and wealth in her accent.