Evolving English WordBank

Long description:

Recordings in this collection can be played by anyone.

This selection of recordings captures English dialect and slang worldwide. The collection, created between November 2010 and April 2011 by visitors to the British Library exhibition, Evolving English: One Language, Many Voices includes local, regional and vernacular forms and idiolectal expressions used within families or friendship groups.

The Evolving English exhibition explored the evolution of the English Language over 1,500 years through the Library's collections and celebrated historic and contemporary diversity by presenting examples of English usage across time and space. Visitors to the Library’s Paccar Gallery in St Pancras and to complementary mini exhibitions held at six partner libraries across England (Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Norwich and Plymouth) were encouraged to contribute a voice recording to create a snapshot of spoken English at the start of the 21st century. They could either recite a reading passage designed to capture their accent (the ‘VoiceBank’) or submit a word or phrase they felt was somehow ‘special’ in their variety of English (the ‘WordBank’). They were also asked to consider how their voices reflect their linguistic identity (‘One Language, Many Voices’).

The exhibition attracted over 147,000 visitors, approximately 15,000 of whom submitted recordings that resulted in a substantial audio archive. The selection presented here includes contributors of all ages and embraces varieties of English in the UK and overseas including non-native speakers. The level of public engagement and impressive range of responses demonstrate our fascination with, and affection for, features of English with which we connect on a personal level – the dialect, slang and nonce-words that express our sense of individual and shared identities.