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I'm 31 and live in Dorset, which is technically in the South West (oo arr, wurzels, gerr orf moy land etc.) of England: however, I don't live in the sticks but rather a large coastal conurbation where the local accent is fairly close to Standard Southern British English, with only minor influences from the rural hinterland. I've lived here for like twenty-odd years now, and broadly speaking I speak like the natives do. However, I grew up in the Midlands and retain a number of dialect features, most saliently I lack the TRAP-BATH split. This leaves people puzzled as to where I'm actually from, as does my spiteful use of dialect-specific terminology (a batch is bread roll, for example).
To further the confusion, my native languages are actually Welsh and English. My family has lived in English-speaking communities since I was about five, however, leaving my Welsh in a severe state of attrition and lacking any formal education.
At school I learnt French, German, Latin and Italian. My German is conversational now, but rusty. I studied French and Italian at university, and according to a piece of paper issed to me by the University of Southampton, I speak the former at C2 level. I feel this has more to do with my blagging abilities than any actual mastery, however. I picked up (South American) Spanish at conversational level over my years working with Venezualans and Colombians in the hospitality industry, and sat a GCSE in it last year.
I am employed to teach French, Spanish, Latin and Italian to innocent children who have done nothing to deserve this, something which has not yet ceased to surprise me.
My specialism and interests lie in diachronic linguistics: I can confidently read texts in most Romance languages, and have more than a passing acquaintance with their varying grammars. I can navigate my way through some normalised Old Irish or Old Norse with a dictionary and a stiff drink, and can still read reasonably simple texts in Breton and Cornish. I've attempted to teach myself Romani and Afrikaans, the latter I've never really got beyond the swearwords, but my Romani's not bad. As it's highly unlikely I'll ever have to opportunity to speak it to another human being in real life, I'm thinking about acquiring resources on Welsh Romani and learning that to fluency just for shits and giggles.
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