Voices of the UK: Accents and Dialects of English (British Library - British Library Sound Archive)

Do you call bread a roll? a bap, barm cake, batch, bread cake, cob, scuffler or stottie? Do you pronounce the word plant to rhyme with ant? One of the most intriguing differences between speech and writing is that even the briefest of spoken utterances can reveal something about our identity.

From Scots to Scouse and Geordie to Cockney, the extraordinary variety of accents and dialects in the UK reflects that society's continuity and change, its local history and individual identities. Drawn from the extensive collection of language and dialect recordings held by the British Library Sound Archive, these 143 recordings from internationally acclaimed linguistic surveys of the last 100 years capture and celebrate the rich diversity of British English in locations across the whole of the UK.