The Germans made hundreds of recordings of the voices of British POWs during WWI! This archive has been recently rediscovered and shows how Edwardian people actually spoke! There were far more dialects and different accents than today – as universal education has led to the dominance of Bourgeois (Middle Class) English taught in class rooms and then linked to acquiring good jobs and securing status and income! (Working class people – and their language – is considered less civilised and worthy of award and yet it is precisely these men who are expected to fight and die when wars are caused). Things were very different between 1914-1918. Interestingly, the Imperial Germans made full use this foreign resource which included men not just from the UK – but from all over the world (reflecting the British Empire)! Apparently, around 250 dialects were recorded which survived the total destruction of Berlin in 1945. The sheer ‘localism’ is astonishing! This is a time before globalism and when people came from the places they were born into – places they were not expected to leave throughout their lifetimes. The Germans wanted to use these recordings to train German Colonial Troops – after Germany had won WWI – to invade, settle and control all parts of the UK prior to British culture being usurped, wiped out and eventually replaced with German language and culture!
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 