History Main / RichLanguagePoorLanguage

** In "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS28E1NewEarth New Earth]]", [[EvilBrit Lady Cassandra]] pulls a GrandTheftMe on Rose, and one of the first OutOfCharacterAlerts that tips the Doctor off is that Cassandra, who speaks with an upper-class RP accent, is [[OohMeAccentsSlipping really bad at trying to do Rose's normal Cockney accent,]] complete with a stab at BritishEnglish/CockneyRhymingSlang, which Rose never uses anyway. Ironically, Cassandra's RP is much closer to Creator/BilliePiper's natural accent than Rose's Cockney.

* Bulgaria's former Tzar, Simeon of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, picked up Bulgarian from his nannies who were from the capital's rural surroundings. He never managed to learn the standardised version of the language and his CatchPhrase "''vervaite mi''" ("Trust me") instead of the standard "''vyarvaite mi''" became [[MemeticMutation a joke among politically active people]]. It doesn't help that he spent his childhood and much of his adult life in Spain, married a Spanish aristocrat, and all of his grandchildren are now 3/4 Spanish by ancestry so most of his private conversations are probably in upper-class Spanish instead of Bulgarian (of any form).

** The a Kansai dialect can go either way depending on the exact locale.

** The page image is showing its age. Sick/Ill and Pudding/Sweet have swapped places, and Scotch is now almost universally used to refer to the whiskey, rather than the people or the country.

* ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'': The Elves and the Numenorians use the more elevated RP accent while the Southlanders use the rougher ([[OopNorth northern English]] accents. Numenorians see themselves superior to the "low-men" from the Southlands.

** Outside of Tokyo, the TohokuRegionalAccent of northeast Honshu tends to indicate that the character is a hick from the boonies.

** The KansaiRegionalDialect can go either way depending on the exact locale.

* Romance languages like French, Spanish, Italian and Romanian were descended from the vulgar form of Latin spoken by soldiers, farmers, and other working-class Romans (who were being stationed in the far out places in the Empire), compared to the Latin spoken and written by the rulers in Rome.

** In English, the names for large farm animals - sheep, oxen, cattle, kine, etc. - are derived from Anglo-Saxon. Meanwhile the words for the ''meats'' carved from these animals derive from (Norman) French - beef, mutton, lamb, etc. This tells you all you need to know about which social class tended the animals and which social class got to eat them.
** The page image is showing its' age. Sick/Ill and Pudding/Sweet have swapped places, and Scotch is now almost universally used to refer to the whiskey, rather than the people or the country.

* In 19th century Russia, aristocrats were taught to read, write, and speak French as part of their upper-class etiquette, as speaking nothing but Russian was considered a trait of the poor muhziks and less well-to-do people. (Amusingly, this resulted in the Russian aristocracy speaking neither proper French nor proper Russian, but instead an insular Russo-French jargon only they truly understood among them -- see ''Literature/WarAndPeace'' for a classic example of this in literature.)
* Bulgaria's former Tzar, Simeon of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, picked up Bulgarian from his nannies who were from the capital's rural surroundings. He never managed to learn the standardised version of the language and his CatchPhrase "vervaite mi" ("Trust me") instead of the standard "vyarvaite mi" became [[MemeticMutation a joke among politically active people]]. It doesn't help that he spent his childhood and much of his adult life in Spain, married a Spanish aristocrat, and all of his grandchildren are now 3/4 Spanish by ancestry so most of his private conversations are probably in upper-class Spanish instead of Bulgarian (of any form).

[[folder: Radio]]

--->'''Martin''': He's not Welsh, how can he be Welsh? He's English. He sounds more English than the Queen!\\
'''Arthur''': ''Posh'' Welsh. They sound like us.

* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'': In ''[[Recap/FamilyGuyS3E4OneIfByClamTwoIfBySea One if by Clam, Two if by Sea]]'', Stewie takes new neighbor Eliza Pinchley - a clear {{Expy}} of [[Theatre/MyFairLady Eliza Doolittle]] - under his wing and teaches her to speak properly (which ultimately backfires horribly, and the plot ends up getting her father executed).

A socioeconomic sub-trope of SeparatedByACommonLanguage. Often reinforced by AccentAdaptation, when the creator replaces the original work's Rich Language/Poor Language pattern with a corresponding pattern that viewers in their own country would understand. When separate languages or dialects are involved, it's NobleTongue. In RealLife, linguists call this phenomenon [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diglossia "diglossia"]].

* ''Film/NannyMcPhee'': When Lady Adelaide Stitch takes custody of Evangeline, whom she believes to be one of her nephew's children but is in fact his scullery maid, proper elocution is among the major lessons she imparts. Arguably a subversion, as Evangeline was always fairly well-spoken, and those lessons go out the window when the farce is revealed.

* Creator/TomScott, whose background is in linguistics, discusses this difference, at least in English, in his linguistics video [[https://youtu.be/wA2xRVMOThc "Why You Swear in Anglo-Saxon and Order Fancy Food in French: Registers".]]

* [[UsefulNotes/FrenchLanguage France]]: Slang and accents that developed in the ''banlieues'' are typically associated with lower class. Furthermore regional accents, words or dialects are associated with people from outside Paris; while this does not necessarily mean that they are poor, it can signify that they lack the cultural background and political connections of the Paris elite.

* [[UsefulNotes/FrenchLanguage France]]: Slang and accents that developed in the ''banlieues'' are typically associated with lower class.

* In ''Film/AkeelahAndTheBee'', the first order Dr. Larabee gives Akeelah when mentoring her for the district spelling bee is to "leave the ghetto talk outside." She immediately gets mad at him for criticizing the way she naturally speaks.
* In ''Film/CrazyRichAsians'', the accent of a character--and therefore their social status--depends on where they were educated (the UK is better than the US) and where their family's fortunes were first made (pre-revolutionary mainland China is better than any other part of Asia). OldMoney characters like the Youngs speak with a mixture of Mandarin and British accents, while NouveauRiche characters like the Gohs speak with American and Singlish accents.
* In ''Film/{{Heidi|2015}}'', Heidi's use of Swiss German makes her stand out in the wealthy Sesemann household, where everyone else speaks standard German.
* In ''Film/{{It Takes Two|1995}}'', Amanda, who grew up in an orphanage, has a thick Brooklyn accent, while Alyssa, who grew up attending boarding schools and living in a variety of upstate mansions, enunciates every word with the utmost care. At the end of the film, by which time the girls have been impersonating each other for several weeks, they sound much more similar - Alyssa's enunciation has softened somewhat, whilst Amanda's accent has definitely become far less noticeable; though they are still not yet quite the same.
* In ''Film/RichieRich'', Richie's sandlot friends -- whose parents work for a local factory that Richie helps save -- speak with streetwise accents, while Richie's business school friends speak with Prep accents.
* In ''Film/SilenceOfTheLambs'' Hannibal Lecter notices FBI agent Clarice tries to conceal her West Virginia redneck accent.

* Romance languages like French, Spanish, and Italian were descended from the vulgar form of Latin spoken by soldiers, farmers, and other working-class Romans (who were being stationed in the far out places in the Empire), compared to the Latin spoken and written by the rulers in Rome.

* In the ''Series/{{Friends}}'' episode "The One With Ross's Inappopriate Song", where Pheobe learns that Mike's parents are rich, they have New England accents. Phoebe attempts one to fit in, until Mike asks her to stop.

** Moreover, in the CommediaDellArte, servants as Zanni, Arlecchino are northern and with very strong accents.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In ''[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS12E2ATaleOfTwoSpringfields A Tale of Two Springfields]]'', Springfield is divided into two separate area codes by the phone company, with the upper class side of town keeping their existing area code and the city's more blue collar region being changed to the new one. Homer leads the half of Springfield with the new area code in seceding to form the town of New Springfield and the class divide between the two towns is soon established:

* In the United States, African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is considered vulgar and discouraged in schools. Black celebrities (except for rappers), politicians, and other higher-status folks tend to avoid using it. DeepSouth, Appalachian, and rural accents are the counterpart for lower class whites. Unless someone plans to make a living doing country music, they are encouraged to lose their accent.

* Romance languages like French, Spanish, and Italian were descended from the vulgar form of Latin spoken by soldiers, farmers, and other working class Romans (who were being stationed in the far out places in the Empire), compared to the Latin spoken and written by the rulers in Rome.

** Given the prominence of racial issues in the U.S., the "lower class" accents are particularly associated with people of color, especially African-Americans, Hispanic people, and recent immigrants. In works with mostly white casts, the accents of [[DeepSouth poor white Southerners]] and [[DownOnTheFarm rural whites]] in general hold very similar connotations.