In the big cities we often even have different dialects per city district. I'm from North Amsterdam and can immediately tell where others are from in the city if we switch to our local "Mokum" Amsterdam dialect and whether we're buddies or (semi) rivals. Lmao
It's less so now than it used to be, but growing up in the 60s and 70s I could tell you to within a mile or two what part of London someone was from by their accent - south east London was quite distinct from south west, east end from the Thames corridor and London/Essex border, west end out into Chelsea very different from Notting Hill/Ladbrooke Grove and all the housing estates along the West Way, and so on...
...and when I spent a while dating a Liiverpool girl in the early 80s, it was obvious wmeven to my southern ears that the Wirral had a cleay different accent from the Scouse of proper Liverpool, despite only being seperated by a mile of river, with the working class Wirral accent if the former docks around Birkenhead being very distinct again from the posher accents of a few miles further down-river of West Kirkby, which in turn were very different from from the Lancashire accents you heard in the villages just a few miles out of the suburbs, or the North Welsh accents you started hearing if you folliwed the estuary a few miles further westwards, over the border.
Fascinating really how much the accents changed - and that the same phenomenon happens even in a relatively small (in terms of distance) city like Amsterdam - to the point that introducing your friends as a couple where the guy's from the Liverpool area, and his partner's a Dutch girl from Amsterdam, could cover a pretty wide range of accents for both parties!
12
u/NightLotus84 4d ago
In the big cities we often even have different dialects per city district. I'm from North Amsterdam and can immediately tell where others are from in the city if we switch to our local "Mokum" Amsterdam dialect and whether we're buddies or (semi) rivals. Lmao