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I wonder what Tolkien, as a tutor, would make of the accents of today's students. Regional accents are sadly disappearing in the UK. Most English youth, whatever their background of class and geography, talk in what is known as 'estuary English', a sort of 'cockney-lite' favoured by radio DJs and media personalities. Furthermore, their sentences tend to go up at the end, as if they were asking questions - this is a result of watching too many Australian soaps on telly.
Tolkien himself had a beautiful, rich, 'country' tone to his voice, as he grew up partly in Warwickshire, I wonder if he had a similar accent to Shakespeare.
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