iPhone App That Teaches You How To Talk Like A Midlander: The iBrummie

Brummie Ozzy Osbourne Iphone App

Huffington Post UK   First Posted: 05/12/11 13:54 Updated: 05/12/11 22:18

A company has launched a new app to help iPhone users that struggle with the Birmingham accent: the iBrummie.

After the success of its iWiganese app, which helped puzzled Southerners understand the Wigan's local lingo, Athernet Web Solutions have brought a Brummie onboard to help design an app decodifying the Midlands’ dialect, since Siri doesn't get it.

Famous Brummies such as Ozzy Osbourne and Jasper Carrot could have voiced the app, which translates the Queen’s English into Brummie and vice versa. However Manchester company Athernet challenged locals to come forward.

Alan Dugmore, 65, a former paramedic got the job after pointing out to the Manchester based company Athernet that they had mixed up Brummie phrases with Black Country lingo: a cardinal sin for any Midlander.

“To people outside the area it all sounds the same,” explained the Birmingham City fan to the Sunday Mercury. “But there is a big difference.”

“They were going to get Brummies saying Black Country phrases and I can tell you that Black Country people would not have been happy.”

Black country is to the north and west of Birmingham so called because of where the coal meets the surface. Brummies call locals to this area “yam-yams” and they are not considered traditional Brummies, but have a separate identity of their own.

A survey in August found that people from Birmingham are considered less intelligent because of their accents. Dugmore told the Sunday Mercury of his experience:

“The accent can be a bit of an anchor in life. I had to change the way I spoke when I was a paramedic simply because people would not be able to understand me.”

“There are lots of people in Birmingham from other countries, and they really struggled with what I was saying.”

“Some people do mock the accent but others have said they love hearing me talk, particularly if I go up north.”

On the ‘Talk Like A Brummie Day’ website words that are said to be particularly melodious in the Birmingham accent are pie, pronounced ‘poi’ by Brummies and microwave, spoken as 'moicrowaive.' In order to speak like a local, Brummie-wannabes are advised to lift their voice at the end of a sentence.

Another comment on the website reads "I have a pal named Jason who met some Americans whilst on holiday. They asked what his name was and then told him 'Gee, that’s a name I never heard before, Jooooooisan' "

Do you understand these Brummie phrases?

"My donnies are cold": My hands are cold

"waggin it'": Playing truant

“Steady past yer granny’s” calm down dear.

"Yow's yampy": You are crazy

"kayliyed": drunk

"Tara a bit me bab" Goodbye

“D’yawontakippatae?” (not strictly 'local lingo' but this phonetically how to ask someone if they fancy a cup of tea in the Midlands)

iBrummie will be available for free download on iPhones and Androids phone on December 19. The iBrummie.com is in development.


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A company has launched a new app to help iPhone users that struggle with the Birmingham accent: the iBrummie. After the success of its iWiganese app, which helped puzzled Southerners understand the...
A company has launched a new app to help iPhone users that struggle with the Birmingham accent: the iBrummie. After the success of its iWiganese app, which helped puzzled Southerners understand the...
 
 
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12:45 on 13/12/2011
Not actually Ozzy, but the App is now launched for iPhone and Android. You can also hear the audio clips at ibrummie.com .Bostin....
11:53 on 06/12/2011
Its a bloody awful accent
11:14 on 06/12/2011
You would need to be an idiot if you wanted to speak brummie it is the worst accent in the whole of the uk
22:14 on 05/12/2011
Brummie ..surely thats Black Country or is that Wolverhampton?
20:53 on 05/12/2011
I am a Midlander by birth, born near to Birmingham so I am fully used to the Brummie accent and have no problem at all with it, but why would you want to spend time learning to speak it? Or for that matter to talk Liverpool, Newcastle or whatever.

If you are going to learn to talk a new language I would have thought it better to keep to a foreign one that might have a financial or social benefit. I can't see how learning a local English language can benefit you unless you are an incomer to the area.
19:14 on 05/12/2011
Freddie Starr? Would that be the same Freddie Starr born in Liverpool and who clearly speaks with a Merseyside accent? Who writes this stuff?
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Norman Mitchison
16:33 on 05/12/2011
How about one for the Brummies to speak English or Polish?
18:04 on 05/12/2011
how about nob off dickhead!
18:07 on 05/12/2011
I find your remark offensive