Our fellow Brits love to give the Brummie accent a bad name, but we think they’re just jealous of how sexy it sounds. Now we have some statistical evidence to prove it! New research has called the Birmingham accent one of the most attractive accents in the world. At least if you’re American anyway.
Highland Titles recently surveyed 1,000 Americans about their perceptions of different national and foreign accents—all to find out who has the sexiest accent in the world. The Brummie accent came in eighth, which is quite amazing when you consider it lost out to the sexy likes of Irish, Italian and French accents. Particularly female Brummie accents were adored, coming in fourth!
Surprisingly, however, the top three spots went to Australia, Scotland and London. But the study does aim to make sense of our Aussie winners, with “famous Aussie actors Chris Hemsworth and Hugh Jackman have both been named Sexiest Man Alive by People Magazine. Margot Robbie is another popular Aussie who has stolen hearts on the big screen.”
The study also showed that 71% of survey participants said they were interested in dating someone with an accent. Over three-quarters (76%) of people attracted to women wanted to date someone with an accent, while 67% of those attracted to men did. Stating that attractiveness is linked to our voice. So start booking those flights to America now!
To get to the bottom of how accents can impact how we view someone’s personality, the study also looked at stereotypes Americans hold for different accents. Asking participants to choose specific characteristics of various accents. Areas where Birmingham performed strongly were ‘most sophisticated accents’ and ‘most intelligent accents’ – coming in third both times!
So why has Birmingham performed so well? Maybe it’s the global success of Peaky Blinders bringing greater recognition to the Brummie accent, or maybe these Americans just confused it with the Alabama city of the same name (although seeing how poorly other US accents performed we doubt this). All we know is that we’re glad the Brummie accent is finally getting the recognition it deserves.