A Short Historical Sketch of RP

Well over 400 years the ancestral form of RP was established as the accent of the court and the upper classes.

In 1598 George Puttenham (or his brother Richard) anonymously published The Arte of English Poesie. Puttenham was an English courtier; he was born around 1520 and died in the autumn of 1590 in London.

This book by Puttenham is a comprehensive treatise on poetry.
It consists of three 'books' or sections:
  • the first section contains a general history of the art of poetry and a discussion of the various forms of poetry,
  • the second section treats of prosody, e.g. caesura, punctuation, rhyme, accent, cadence,
  • the third one deals with style, the distinctions between written and spoken language, the figures of speech.

In his remarks on language he allows that the purer Saxon speech is spoken beyond the Trent, he advises the English writer to take as his model the usual speech of the court, of London and the home counties. Here are copies of the two relevant pages in the Third Book, Chapter IV (the relevant lines are underlined):

[...) neither shall he follow the speach of craftes man or carter, or other of the inferior sort [...] for such persons doe abuse good speaches by strange accents or ill shapen sounds [...]. But he shall follow generally the better brought up sort, [...]

[...] neither shall he take the termes of Northern-men [...], whether they be noble men or gentlemen, [...] nor in effect any speach used beyond the river of Trent, [...] it is not so Courtly nor so currant as our Southerne English is [...]: ye shall therfore take the usuall speach of the Court, and that of London and the shires lying about London within ix. myles, and not much above.

One clearly recognizes the social and geographical implications of these statements. The accent in and around London, the accent of the members of the court and of other well-educated persons living in this area is recommended as a model. As a consequence, many people who were anxious for social advancement would move to London and adopt the accent they heard there.  In the course of time, this accent came to symbolize a person's high social standing . It  became the accent of  the public schools in the c19 (e.g. Eton, Harrow). It spread rapidly through the Civil Service and the armed forces of the British empire. It became the voice of authority and power.

The English actor, philologist and lexicographer

John Walker (1732 - 1807) published his Critical Pronouncing Dictionary in 1791.


On p. 15 of the 4th edition of his book Walker makes the following statement:


 [...] for though the pronunciation of London is certainly erroneous in many words, yet, upon being compared with that of any other place, it is undoubtedly the best; that is, not only the best by courtesy, and because it happens to be the pronunciation of the capital, but best by a better title - that of being more generally received; or, in other words, though the people of London are erroneous in the ponunciation of many words, the inhabitants of every other place are erroneous in many more.

The pronunciation of London is regarded as the best pronunciation, and it is characterized by Walker as generally received (in the sense of accepted).

It was in 1869 that

Alexander John Ellis






coined the phrase received pronunciation (though not in its present-day meaning) in his book entitled


On Early English Pronunciation.

























In part I of this book, on page 23,  Ellis writes (the relevant lines are underlined):


 In the present day we may, however, recognize a received pronunciation all over the country, not widely differing in any particular locality, and admitting a certain degree of variety. It may be especially considered as the educated pronunciation of the metropolis, of the court, the pulpit, and the bar. But in as much as all these localities and professions are recruited from the provinces, there will be a varied thread of provincial utterance running through the whole.


Ellis's characterization of this received pronunciation is also based on geographical and social features:
Even then, it is not fixed once and forever: "there will be a varied thread of provincial utterance running through the whole."

Because of its regional neutrality it was adopted by the BBC in the 1920s, when radio transmission began.
The British phonetician Daniel Jones was the first to codify the properties of RP. In his book An English Pronouncing Dictionary (1917:viii) he describes the accent as

that most usually heard in everyday speech in the families of Southern English persons whose men-folk have been educated at the great public boarding-schools. This pronunciation is also used by a considerable proportion of those who do not come from the South of England, but who have been educated at these schools. The pronunciation may also be heard, to an extent which is considerable though difficult to specify, from persons of education in the South of England who have not been educated at these schools. It is probably accurate to say that a majority of those members of London society who have had a university education, use either this pronunciation or a pronunciation not differing very greatly from it.

Jones initially called the accent PSP (= Public School Pronunciation).
The accent model he described reflected the social situation of his time:
By 1926 the label PSP had become RP or Received Pronunciation.
The boundaries of this accent and the speaker-base were somewhat vague:

Arnold C. Gimson


The present-day situation
What about the diatopic and diastratic markings of RP?

The diatopic marking of RP
The overwhelming majority of phoneticians describe RP as a diatopically unmarked accent, although distinctively an accent of England.

The diastratic marking of RP
The  diastratic marking  is on the decline. Up to the 1980ies it was an accent that enjoyed considerable prestige. In an article of 1979 Peter Trudgill characterised it as the "highest status British accent". In 1982 John C. Wells associated it with "the upper and upper-middle class".
The social psychologist Howard Giles investigated peoples' attitudes towards different accents of English. From this research it was apparent that RP was associated with speakers who were competent, reliable, educated and confident. It was also perceived as being the most aesthetically pleasing of all British English accents. On the ohter hand, RP speakers scored low on traits like friendliness, companionability and sincerity.
But -
the rigid divisions between social classes have broken down.
RP is no longer the accent of a social elite.
It is still the standard accent of most members of the Royal family, Parliament, the Church of England, the High Court, and other national institutions.
But there are erosions! Younger members of the Royal Family have been heard to pronounce the word hot with a glottally reinforced final t-sound. SHOCKING! Does it  mark the beginning of the end of RP?
Shall we have to replace the acronym RP by RIP - Requiescat In Pace?
We shall hear - said the deaf man!

How many speakers use RP?
Statements are somewhat contradictory.
Trudgill (1974) popularised a figure of 3%.
Wells (1982) published the figure of "not more than about 10%".
Whatever the exact figure may be, RP is very much a minority accent.

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