IS THE SHEFFIELD ACCENT SET IN STONE?

Client - Sheffield University Festival of the Mind

This was a really interesting collaboration with Johanna Blakey, a linguistics PhD researcher at Sheffield University who is looking into how the Sheffield accent has changed over the last 100years. Our project for the Festival of the Mind was called - Is the Sheffield accent set in stone?

We took phrases from the audio archive Johanna is using for her research, and carved them in pieces of Yorkstone. Along with a Sheffield Vowel Key, our Rosetta Stone! Johannas research focuses on the a in face and the o in goat.

The International Phonetic Alphabet symbols are included in the carvings to chart the changes. They are on separate pieces of stone so they can be added to in another 100years.