Bard spoke loik a Brummie

The derided Brummie accent is, in fact, a lilting and melodious tone which impresses foreigners, new research suggests.

Linguists said that, although the West Midlands dialect was stigmatised in modern Britain, many of its features were common in Shakespeare's works and could be traced back to Anglo-Saxons in the sixth century.

Steve Thorne, of Birmingham University, said: 'Contrary to popular belief, Birmingham speech is not an inferior variety of English, nor ugly. Non-native English speakers do not discriminate against the accent.'