Brummie sings to foreign ears

The Brummie accent is "highly favoured by foreign visitors due to its lilting and melodious tone", according to research from, er, the University of Birmingham.

PhD candidate Steve Thorne analysed attitudes towards Birmingham pronunciation for his thesis and found that foreigners did not label the accent inherently ugly nor did they stigmatise the speaker.

He said: "This strongly suggests that (British English speakers') attitudes towards the dialect are influenced by factors such as social snobbery, negative media stereotyping, the poor public image of the city of Birmingham, and the north-south geographical and linguistic divide."