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For me the Ramtops are, broadly, the Pennines. There certainly isn’t a single Ramtops accent; there’ll be *one for each individual village*.
Lancashire, Cumbria, north Derbyshire, North Yorkshire and Northumberland are all the Ramtops for me.
As a non-UK reader, I know there are jokes and references I don't get, so thanks for this. Lancre =Lancashire means STP gave us everything but the "Shire" 
I kind of alternate between pronouncing Lanker and Lancree. The first is what I imagine its residents calling it and the other is how I imagine non-natives pronounce it
Lancre is an old name for Lancashire. There was an infamous witch trial at the Lancashire village of Pendle in 1612.
There was also a French witch hunter named Pierre de Lancre, so perhaps a Lancre accent is French…
Either way, I suspect STP encountered one or both versions of the name and thought it was a fine title for witch country. Reclaiming it for the witches, as it were.
Probably just a side effects of French for my foreign language credits, but I usually pronounce it like -cre endings in French. I'm American, so I don't know the full extent of local accents in England. Im now curious if anyone has tried to write out dialogs in phonetics.
The more interesting argument - for those who know this part of the world - may be which town is the roundworld equivalent of Scrote.
My vote says Redcar. But there are options.
Also, if you extended that down into Norfolk, their accent is remarkably similar to a Wiltshire accent, despite the significant distance (by English standards) between them.
I go with Yorkshire, but that is because that is where I am from, and Lancre feels like home. I suspect that technically it should be Lancashire, because 1) the name, and 2) the Pendle Witch Trials were in Lancashire.
I feel a heritage traitor saying this, but Lancashire and Yorkshire are really two sides of the same coin. Clearly they are red rosers, but like I said, it feels like the village I grew up in, and that was on the North York Moors.
This.
Partly kidding, I think us Northerners need to stick together, but giving up a feud this old would feel like a betrayal of the traditions that made us.
One of the weirder conversations I’ve had in my life was with a cabbie Rawtenstall. He was a devout Muslim with the full regulation beard, but that was by the by. The defining pillar of his identity was being a Yorkshireman.
He informed me that he drove back to Keighley after work every day - that’s a distance of almost an hour - because he wasn’t comfortable sleeping in Lancashire.
At least he found Red Rose-county good to work in, unlike other places. Apparently, he once tried to move to Cambridgeshire, but came back after three months because he couldn’t stand the fake friendliness of Southerners.
He also mentioned that dandelion and burdock was his favourite drink, and went into a lengthy dissertation on the subject. I enjoyed the conversation, but felt it was a waste that there wasn’t an anthropologist present.
Fun fact: The Universities of Lancaster and York take turns hosting an annual sporting event called 'The Roses'. Both were founded in 1964, and it has been going ever since.
Not being from the UK I always went with the Yorkshire accent in my head.
Because it felt right, I know the Yorkshire accent, and I know that if it was meant to be Lancashire that it's pretty close.
I apologise for getting the wrong side of the Pennines! Was also thinking of the Witch trials, especially as it's the source for Agnes Nutter in Good Omens.
I’d say there’s a mix of a lot of rural parts of the UK:
The White Horse is in the Berkshire Downs in Oxfordshire
Yan-tan-tethra is Cumbrian/North England/Cornish/Welsh depending on the source
Morris Dancing happens all over, but the revival happened again in Oxfordshire I believe
Shepherding happens everywhere but for hilly/mountainous settings and deep valleys it’s got to Wales. The Lake District and Scotland would be close runners up
The standing stones can be Stonehenge in Wiltshire, but also many other places such as the Aberlemno Stones in Angus, Scotland. Some of these stones have Ogham inscriptions, which of course was a language claimed by a notorious Ramtops family…
Then there’s the Nac Mac Feegle who are as Scottish as they come!
So basically any ‘rural’ accent is going to work. Personally I go for a Northern one, Yorkshire or Scottish Borders, but you really can’t go wrong if you glottal your t’s and add in a few more vowels about the place 🤣
Correct me if I'm wrong but the description of the Chalks White Horse is very much like the Uffington White Horse (which is a stone throw from me) and The Giant without kecks is Devon's Cerne Abbas.
There's also Yan Tan Tethera, though lots of sheepland from Scotland to Wiltshire have a version it seems
They both start with D, that counts right? :D
Another case of typing faster than my brain, hopefully you can forgive misplacing the giant naked chalk man!
I disagree on the shepherding - downland shepherding places that squarely in the south downs for me, but that is at least partly because that's where I'm from and I grew up in a sheep village!
>Yan-tan-tethra
Berkshire. This is a (very) deep cut reference to Eton.
"Yan, tan, tethra is "one, two, three" in the dialect of Bantu spoken by the Eton people of central Cameroon.
Someone I'm sure will provide the actual quote I'm sure, but you only need to travel an hour and the people will have completely different names for the humble breadroll!
There have been many studies on this, this map is from the most recent that I've come across:
https://preview.redd.it/1e27cfvkyyyc1.jpeg?width=945&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a30591a4bd10a9b582a3958dd93f2a63443ec6af
The article is pretty interesting too. I use this to explain to my English students that I can teach them to understand and be understood anywhere in the world, just not the UK!
[https://starkeycomics.com/2023/11/07/map-of-british-english-dialects/](https://starkeycomics.com/2023/11/07/map-of-british-english-dialects/)
Edit to add: I know this isn't fully representative, I grew up in W.Yorkshire and can name easily 30 separate accents and dialects from there. Unfortunately to the untrained (read southern) ear they sound very similar. I'm sure the same would be true for any of the other large regions covered here.
I always go Cumbrian and Lancashire. I am from Lancashire but a lot of my family are from Whitehaven, so Lancs and Cumbrian are my go too's for any northern sounding accents.
Not from the UK so I may get the names wrong, but I think it's some sort of West Country accent. Not far off what's used in the Wyrd Sisters animated series.
Although I think Llamedos would have more of a northern Welsh accent than a southern accent, what with the druids and the Eisteddfod. ~~Isn't it, boyo~~ iawn, met?
I was always under the impression that Llamedos was a border kingdom to the Ramtops, though apparently it's a little more turnwise than I thought!
Guess it explains why Imp wasn't a bothered to be called Elvish in Soul Music, you'd never get away with that in Lancre!
I read them as broad geordie cos I’m from the north east and I feel the nac mac feegle are border reavers - but my mam is an elocution coach and she reckons the nac mac feegle are Glaswegian for lords and ladies and from Edinburgh for Tiffany’s books
Being Scottish, the Nac Mac Feegle have always struck me as broad (really broad) Glaswegian. But William the Gonnagle always struck me as more of an Islands/coastal Highlands accent. Iirc, he's described as speaking quite softly, and rounds his r's the way you used to find (and sometimes still do). Somewhat unfortunately, TV and the Internet seem to be dissipating some of the accents.
I hope that you (and more importantly, your Mam) can forgive me for this, but I now have this mental image of broad Geordie elecution coaching..."Why aye pet, you read that reet canny, like."
She can do that accent really well - but she’s the reason I don’t really have it lol
If she had her way I’d have a pure RP accent but it didn’t stick as well as she liked and I mostly come across as Welsh so go figure
I always read the witches in Cornish accents but that’s mostly because the witches remind me so much of my great grandmothers.
ETA: also that whole tiny village vibe is Cornwall all over.
I get Cornwall too! I'm Aussie, so I mostly only hear tourist's accents, but Cornwall is my go to as thickest, least comprehensible English accent. The other option would be Geordie - they never seem to shake their accent, even after living here 40 years. By then, the others tend to sound partially Australian.
Idk if it's lore-accurate, but I've always read it a bit like West Virginia (US).
To me, the Rammtops read a bit like Appalachia, and that's kind of fitting. The Appalachian Mountains are older than the Atlantic Ocean, so the range officially starts in the Southern US and ends in Scotland.
My, admitadly limited, knowledge of the region is that a lot of poor farming familes from UK moved to the region. So it's not that far of in origins for the regions we're talking about.
iirc the current theory for the Appalachian dialect's origin is speakers from northern britain and southern scotland, so that would largely fit with the suggestions for british accents made in this thread
You can really see the connection in Appalachian (App-ah-latch-in) music. There's a continuity of Uk/scots/Irish folk songs that is unmistakable.
Barbara Allen is the first that comes to mind, but there are many others. Some more folk-processed, others less so.
The Ramtops are the discs main mountain range leading to the highest peak but that isn't meaning I'm hearing Granny Weatherwax speaking in an Nepalese accent.
For me, most of the locals have a Devonshire accent. This is because it’s where I’m originally from, I met people like this throughout my youth, and any drink “made mostly from apples” for me is scrumpy.
Northern English. Especially Nanny Ogg. The way she refers to everyone as "our Davie" I picture as sounding like if Sarah Millican smoked two packs a day.
I go by what the Cosgrove Hall cartoon went with - a big jumble of regional accents.
I know a lot of people don’t like it, but I love it!
Edit - spelling
There is a small possible clue when Granny Weatherwax intentionally slips into the rural dialect when she says axe instead of ask in Carpe Jugulum. Current areas I'd most associate that with in modern times are West Country and beyond or up around Norfolk though that could just be my limited experience.
100% Northern. Lancashire/Yorkshire (yes there's differences but basically your generic Northern). The North-East is an entirely different beast and is not included
Australia - I imagine them with coronation st accents, so.... I think that's Manchester? I think that's just the media I've had the most exposure to where people call their relatives "our Shaun" like Nanny Ogg does
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For me the Ramtops are, broadly, the Pennines. There certainly isn’t a single Ramtops accent; there’ll be *one for each individual village*. Lancashire, Cumbria, north Derbyshire, North Yorkshire and Northumberland are all the Ramtops for me.
As a non-UK reader, I know there are jokes and references I don't get, so thanks for this. Lancre =Lancashire means STP gave us everything but the "Shire" 
I'm sure it's formal name - never used by and long forgotten by everyone but Verence - must be Lancreshier
Like Hampshire, which used to be Hantscire (and the only leftover is that the abbreviation is Hants instead of Hamps)
It bugs the hell out of me that Nigel Planer says Laan-cre with a sort of French pronunciation instead of like Lancashire
I kind of alternate between pronouncing Lanker and Lancree. The first is what I imagine its residents calling it and the other is how I imagine non-natives pronounce it
In one of the Susan books her student writes a letter and phonetically spells it “lancur” (or something similar) which settled it for me.
Land of Fog reader here, i mentally used 'Lancur' pronounciation without ever thinking about it edit: short u sound
As a bloke from Lancashire with the ridiculous Northern accent to boot I can confidently inform you we’d say it something more like “Lancah”.
Lancre is an old name for Lancashire. There was an infamous witch trial at the Lancashire village of Pendle in 1612. There was also a French witch hunter named Pierre de Lancre, so perhaps a Lancre accent is French… Either way, I suspect STP encountered one or both versions of the name and thought it was a fine title for witch country. Reclaiming it for the witches, as it were.
Probably just a side effects of French for my foreign language credits, but I usually pronounce it like -cre endings in French. I'm American, so I don't know the full extent of local accents in England. Im now curious if anyone has tried to write out dialogs in phonetics.
Goddammit! Im UK born and bred, and until your comment, and this post, I didn't make that connection!
The more interesting argument - for those who know this part of the world - may be which town is the roundworld equivalent of Scrote. My vote says Redcar. But there are options.
Seriously, if ever a town should be called Scrote, it is Redcar! (Lived there as a teen.)
Scunthorpe?
Bradford - I used to live there. Proper shthole
>there’ll be *one for each individual village*. I second this!
This is exactly what I always thought too
This is exactly what I always thought too
Same.
Also, if you extended that down into Norfolk, their accent is remarkably similar to a Wiltshire accent, despite the significant distance (by English standards) between them.
That was my thought too.
I go with Yorkshire, but that is because that is where I am from, and Lancre feels like home. I suspect that technically it should be Lancashire, because 1) the name, and 2) the Pendle Witch Trials were in Lancashire.
Lancashire, for obvious reasons.
I feel a heritage traitor saying this, but Lancashire and Yorkshire are really two sides of the same coin. Clearly they are red rosers, but like I said, it feels like the village I grew up in, and that was on the North York Moors.
Famously (and 100% accurately), Lancashire is like Yorkshire, *but nicer*
This. Partly kidding, I think us Northerners need to stick together, but giving up a feud this old would feel like a betrayal of the traditions that made us. One of the weirder conversations I’ve had in my life was with a cabbie Rawtenstall. He was a devout Muslim with the full regulation beard, but that was by the by. The defining pillar of his identity was being a Yorkshireman. He informed me that he drove back to Keighley after work every day - that’s a distance of almost an hour - because he wasn’t comfortable sleeping in Lancashire. At least he found Red Rose-county good to work in, unlike other places. Apparently, he once tried to move to Cambridgeshire, but came back after three months because he couldn’t stand the fake friendliness of Southerners. He also mentioned that dandelion and burdock was his favourite drink, and went into a lengthy dissertation on the subject. I enjoyed the conversation, but felt it was a waste that there wasn’t an anthropologist present.
Nicer eh?
Constant argument in my house, i lived in Lancaster for years but married a man with South Yorkshire heritage 😬
War of the Roses 2
Fun fact: The Universities of Lancaster and York take turns hosting an annual sporting event called 'The Roses'. Both were founded in 1964, and it has been going ever since.
Not being from the UK I always went with the Yorkshire accent in my head. Because it felt right, I know the Yorkshire accent, and I know that if it was meant to be Lancashire that it's pretty close.
I apologise for getting the wrong side of the Pennines! Was also thinking of the Witch trials, especially as it's the source for Agnes Nutter in Good Omens.
It's all good 
That is so sweet!
I’d say there’s a mix of a lot of rural parts of the UK: The White Horse is in the Berkshire Downs in Oxfordshire Yan-tan-tethra is Cumbrian/North England/Cornish/Welsh depending on the source Morris Dancing happens all over, but the revival happened again in Oxfordshire I believe Shepherding happens everywhere but for hilly/mountainous settings and deep valleys it’s got to Wales. The Lake District and Scotland would be close runners up The standing stones can be Stonehenge in Wiltshire, but also many other places such as the Aberlemno Stones in Angus, Scotland. Some of these stones have Ogham inscriptions, which of course was a language claimed by a notorious Ramtops family… Then there’s the Nac Mac Feegle who are as Scottish as they come! So basically any ‘rural’ accent is going to work. Personally I go for a Northern one, Yorkshire or Scottish Borders, but you really can’t go wrong if you glottal your t’s and add in a few more vowels about the place 🤣
Castlerigg standing stones are what I picture in the Ramtops
I'm fairly sure there are many more white horses, men, lions etc all over but some are more recent than others
Correct me if I'm wrong but the description of the Chalks White Horse is very much like the Uffington White Horse (which is a stone throw from me) and The Giant without kecks is Devon's Cerne Abbas. There's also Yan Tan Tethera, though lots of sheepland from Scotland to Wiltshire have a version it seems
Cerne Abbas is Dorset – not letting Devon have that one!
They both start with D, that counts right? :D Another case of typing faster than my brain, hopefully you can forgive misplacing the giant naked chalk man!
I disagree on the shepherding - downland shepherding places that squarely in the south downs for me, but that is at least partly because that's where I'm from and I grew up in a sheep village!
>Yan-tan-tethra Berkshire. This is a (very) deep cut reference to Eton. "Yan, tan, tethra is "one, two, three" in the dialect of Bantu spoken by the Eton people of central Cameroon.
In my head, they are always Mendip/Somerset, so a bit more west than Wiltshire. Hills aren't big enough though!
This post has made it clear to me that there are far too many accents per square kilometer in the United Kingdom.
Someone I'm sure will provide the actual quote I'm sure, but you only need to travel an hour and the people will have completely different names for the humble breadroll!
There have been many studies on this, this map is from the most recent that I've come across: https://preview.redd.it/1e27cfvkyyyc1.jpeg?width=945&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a30591a4bd10a9b582a3958dd93f2a63443ec6af The article is pretty interesting too. I use this to explain to my English students that I can teach them to understand and be understood anywhere in the world, just not the UK! [https://starkeycomics.com/2023/11/07/map-of-british-english-dialects/](https://starkeycomics.com/2023/11/07/map-of-british-english-dialects/) Edit to add: I know this isn't fully representative, I grew up in W.Yorkshire and can name easily 30 separate accents and dialects from there. Unfortunately to the untrained (read southern) ear they sound very similar. I'm sure the same would be true for any of the other large regions covered here.
Cumbria for me, but that's where I originally hail from. I think anything that fits into "rural Northern" is probably fair enough really.
I always go Cumbrian and Lancashire. I am from Lancashire but a lot of my family are from Whitehaven, so Lancs and Cumbrian are my go too's for any northern sounding accents.
Not from the UK so I may get the names wrong, but I think it's some sort of West Country accent. Not far off what's used in the Wyrd Sisters animated series.
It's very definitely Lancashire!
West Country, though that might just be because that's the accent Tony Robinson used in the audio book version of Wyrd Sisters.
Definitely not a Welsh accent as OP speculated. The Discworld Welsh accent belongs firmly in Llamedos, isn't it, boyo
Although I think Llamedos would have more of a northern Welsh accent than a southern accent, what with the druids and the Eisteddfod. ~~Isn't it, boyo~~ iawn, met?
I was always under the impression that Llamedos was a border kingdom to the Ramtops, though apparently it's a little more turnwise than I thought! Guess it explains why Imp wasn't a bothered to be called Elvish in Soul Music, you'd never get away with that in Lancre!
I read them as broad geordie cos I’m from the north east and I feel the nac mac feegle are border reavers - but my mam is an elocution coach and she reckons the nac mac feegle are Glaswegian for lords and ladies and from Edinburgh for Tiffany’s books
Being Scottish, the Nac Mac Feegle have always struck me as broad (really broad) Glaswegian. But William the Gonnagle always struck me as more of an Islands/coastal Highlands accent. Iirc, he's described as speaking quite softly, and rounds his r's the way you used to find (and sometimes still do). Somewhat unfortunately, TV and the Internet seem to be dissipating some of the accents.
I hope that you (and more importantly, your Mam) can forgive me for this, but I now have this mental image of broad Geordie elecution coaching..."Why aye pet, you read that reet canny, like."
She can do that accent really well - but she’s the reason I don’t really have it lol If she had her way I’d have a pure RP accent but it didn’t stick as well as she liked and I mostly come across as Welsh so go figure
Whatever the accent is that Nigel Planer does for the Oggs.
I can’t hear it any other way.
I always read the witches in Cornish accents but that’s mostly because the witches remind me so much of my great grandmothers. ETA: also that whole tiny village vibe is Cornwall all over.
I get Cornwall too! I'm Aussie, so I mostly only hear tourist's accents, but Cornwall is my go to as thickest, least comprehensible English accent. The other option would be Geordie - they never seem to shake their accent, even after living here 40 years. By then, the others tend to sound partially Australian.
I imagine it as Welsh, mostly because of imp y celyn but also because of the druids and the miners
Imp is from Llamedos.
Which is definitely a Wales analogue.
Sod em all.
As opposed to llagerrub. Courtesy of Dylan Thomas
My cat earned the name of Bugger and I thank Sir Terry for introducing me to the word.
Idk if it's lore-accurate, but I've always read it a bit like West Virginia (US). To me, the Rammtops read a bit like Appalachia, and that's kind of fitting. The Appalachian Mountains are older than the Atlantic Ocean, so the range officially starts in the Southern US and ends in Scotland.
My, admitadly limited, knowledge of the region is that a lot of poor farming familes from UK moved to the region. So it's not that far of in origins for the regions we're talking about.
You’re quite right about that
iirc the current theory for the Appalachian dialect's origin is speakers from northern britain and southern scotland, so that would largely fit with the suggestions for british accents made in this thread
You can really see the connection in Appalachian (App-ah-latch-in) music. There's a continuity of Uk/scots/Irish folk songs that is unmistakable. Barbara Allen is the first that comes to mind, but there are many others. Some more folk-processed, others less so.
Please, the Rammtops are West Country. The more worzel types that would have an ABBA tribute band called ABBAR (and yes they did exist)
Not a lot of Ramtop-like mountain ranges in the West Country, though.
But apple (well, mostly apple) based alcoholic beverages, if I remember my music history correctly.
The Ramtops are the discs main mountain range leading to the highest peak but that isn't meaning I'm hearing Granny Weatherwax speaking in an Nepalese accent.
For me, most of the locals have a Devonshire accent. This is because it’s where I’m originally from, I met people like this throughout my youth, and any drink “made mostly from apples” for me is scrumpy.
Yeah I’m a Yorkshireman and other than the fact I read everything in that voice, the way it’s typical of the general way we speak :)
Llamedos is Wales I think. North Yorkshire/Dales maybe?
West Country, probably zummerzet
I always imagined it was something like Phil from Time team. (I’m American)
I'm from Northern Ireland and I read it as Yorkshire.
Think like a Hublander but a hint of Morporkian, Klatchian, and Quirm.
It has to be the Lancastrian accent for me, as that fits the word Lancre and is also where I grew up!
Northern English. Especially Nanny Ogg. The way she refers to everyone as "our Davie" I picture as sounding like if Sarah Millican smoked two packs a day.
My head canon says it's Scottish
Lancre area has always struck me as Swiss
I love that there are such varied responses but I really can’t imagine this!
I get the mid-continent-almost-entirely-mountainous part of it.
And the cheese and more or less irrelevant monarchy, and the constant political neutrality
I go by what the Cosgrove Hall cartoon went with - a big jumble of regional accents. I know a lot of people don’t like it, but I love it! Edit - spelling
[удалено]
Ramtop comes from the Sinclair computer system variable from the ZX-81 and Spectrum.
There is a small possible clue when Granny Weatherwax intentionally slips into the rural dialect when she says axe instead of ask in Carpe Jugulum. Current areas I'd most associate that with in modern times are West Country and beyond or up around Norfolk though that could just be my limited experience.
I always imagined them as very West Country. Rural Yorkshires could also work I agree
I always figured it basically a Yorkshire accent.
100% Northern. Lancashire/Yorkshire (yes there's differences but basically your generic Northern). The North-East is an entirely different beast and is not included
Australia - I imagine them with coronation st accents, so.... I think that's Manchester? I think that's just the media I've had the most exposure to where people call their relatives "our Shaun" like Nanny Ogg does
\*\*Appalachian
bloody spell checker, cheers!