To anyone who knows and speaks the English language, we know that different people speak English differently. There are variations in accent and in the style by which people converse or write. Most of these differences are a result of geographic differences. For example, North Americans have English as their native tongue. However, the way by which these people talk differ from region to region. People in the East Coast speak faster and have a certain “twang” or rhythm to their speech. This is very different when compared with those folks who come from The Southern States, where people have a slow rate of speech and they tend to roll or drawl their words together with a sing-song accent.

The same principle applies when comparing how the spoken English language sounds like in other parts of the world. English may be a universal language, but in the way it sounds when spoken by people from different parts of the world greatly vary. A very common example would be North American English and British English. If you will get a chance to listen to a conversation between a British man and a North American, they do not sound alike at all. North Americans have their way of pronouncing words and so do British people. The accent of the British person is what is called Received Pronunciation. Not to be mistaken as a dialect, Received Pronunciation is the proper term to be used when referring to the accent. It is considered as a living accent; it is widely studied in linguistics, however, a recent survey has estimated that Received Pronunciation is only being used by less than 2% of the population in the United Kingdom. It is also reported to have nearly insignificant presence in Scotland and even losing its prestige in Wales! Now, that's odd isn't it?