Dying out?Bollocks!
The South English accent has a long and proud history dating back centuries, perhaps even millenia, and has many more before it.
I have never heard a Londoner pronounce wrath 'RATH'.
Admittedly, the BBC, Standard and 'Upper Class' English accents so admired by our Cousins across the pond has only been in use since Victorian times (according to this historian who gave a lecture at my school that is), and came about because of the Victorian gentry imitating Prince Albert's German accent. Admittedly the 'posh' (remember the pronunciation from earlier) accent probably has a lot to do with French, as well, as this was for much of particularly British, but more or less, European history, the language of the nobility.
(,
Tue 5 Oct 2004, 23:51,
archived)
The South English accent has a long and proud history dating back centuries, perhaps even millenia, and has many more before it.
I have never heard a Londoner pronounce wrath 'RATH'.
Admittedly, the BBC, Standard and 'Upper Class' English accents so admired by our Cousins across the pond has only been in use since Victorian times (according to this historian who gave a lecture at my school that is), and came about because of the Victorian gentry imitating Prince Albert's German accent. Admittedly the 'posh' (remember the pronunciation from earlier) accent probably has a lot to do with French, as well, as this was for much of particularly British, but more or less, European history, the language of the nobility.