English, as many new students of the language will remind you, is a complex and diverse tongue.
Approximately 1.75 billion people in 70 countries around the world speak English, of which nearly 385 million are native speakers based in countries like the US, Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Ireland etc. This also makes it the third most popular language worldwide in terms of native speakers behind Mandarin (1.3 billion) and Spanish (460 million).
Naturally, this vast number of English speakers have given rise to a number of different dialects. As such, we recognise the existence of different types of English such as American, British, Australian and so on.
English originated from England in the UK. The last survey conducted in the UK found that more than 37 dialects of English exist in the country. Similarly, in neighboring Ireland, there are three primary dialects.
Back in February 2019, The New York Times created a British-Irish dialect quiz. Using carefully designed questions, the quiz would identify which part of Ireland or Britain a person hailed from based on how they pronounced certain words.
If you were raised in Ireland or the UK, The Circular recommends that you take the quiz and see if the results truly correspond to where you were raised! And even if you aren’t native to these countries, take it anyway, because it’s fun.
Several people from these countries and outside took the quiz and some of the results were quite interesting. The Circular compiled some of the best Twitter reactions of people:
New York Times dialect quiz confirms I'm still a Liverpudlian despite 15 years down south! 🙂 https://t.co/EHeHr5jI47 pic.twitter.com/1GbQPGI8ba
— JamesLee85 (@jameslee_1985) April 18, 2019
Interesting…this has me down as Stoke on Trent – pretty much in the middle of where I was brought up & where I've lived for over 2 decadeshttps://t.co/2PLdnB2Tvm
— BelleVueRuth (@CurlyRuthRuns) February 21, 2019
Proud that as a near life-long expat, I broke the NY Times quiz when I tried it, so that it just says "we have no idea where you are from". Which is fine, as I don't usually know either. https://t.co/vqeWvkpYnq via @UpshotNYT
— ClaraFerreiraMarques (@ClaraDFMarques) February 22, 2019
This @nytimes accent quiz is amazingly accurate! https://t.co/ELBrp2RHoJ pic.twitter.com/AWZWBxGELP
— Paul Sweeney (@PaulJSweeney) February 18, 2019
Wow, after 30 years in Drogheda, I still have a Galway accent, according to…. https://t.co/gtz8CGITlS#LouthChat – see if it can tell you where you are from!
— Maureen (Mo) Ward (@maureen_ward) March 2, 2019
Still reeling from the it said we were from Blackpool. Have you tried it yet??
— Solita Restaurants (@SolitaUK) February 16, 2019
https://t.co/2cmjvTLoJs
I hereby renounce my People’s Republic of South Yorkshire membership. https://t.co/xG5n3lU0zS pic.twitter.com/emncLfB15m
— Tyrone James (@tyronej1984) February 28, 2019