He is best known for Richard III, Jamie Vardy and Walkers Crisps.
But now the city of Leicester has another claim to fame.
Experts have discovered that the East Midlands city is home to the UK’s fastest talking people.
On average, Leicester residents speak at 255 words per minute (wpm), far exceeding the UK average of 189.8 words per minute.
Other fast-talking cities are Glasgow and Liverpool, while the slowest-talking cities are Edinburgh, Birmingham and Leeds.
Leicester takes the crown for being the UK’s fastest talking city, with residents’ rapid chatter allowing them to speak an impressive 254.8 words per minute.
It is best known for Richard III, Jamie Vardy and Walkers Crisps, but now the city of Leicester has another claim to fame.
The research was carried out by online language learning marketplace Preply, which analyzed videos and radio broadcasts from across the UK.
Kalendra Withanaarachchi, digital executive at Preply, believes Leicester’s strong multiculturalism could be linked to the result.
According to the Higher Education Policy Institute, 59.1 per cent of people living in Leicester are from minority ethnic groups.
In comparison, 81 per cent of people in England and Wales are of white ethnicity.
“The Leicester accent has many factors that contribute to its fast-paced feel, one of the most notable being its diverse and multicultural population,” Withanaarachchi said.
“As the local accent is influenced by many different languages and dialects, this can make the accent sound very fast to those who are not familiar with it and live outside of Leicester.”
To determine how fast and slow different parts of the UK speak, the Preply team took an initial list of the 10 most populated cities in the UK.
They calculated the average number of words spoken per minute from a selection of YouTube videos from each of the cities and analyzed transcripts from local news stations and podcasts.
Leicester topped the list, while London was only the third fastest talking southern city (and fifth overall).
The slowest talking cities are Edinburgh (pictured), Birmingham and Leeds, according to the results.
By a wide margin, Leicester was found to be the fastest speaking city, averaging 254.8 words per minute, followed by Glasgow at 218.13 words per minute.
Citizens of both cities are prone to omitting certain syllables and using shorter vowel sounds, possibly due to “external factors” such as “the fast-paced nature of their environment.”
Although scousers are famous for speaking furiously fast, Liverpool came only in third place with 210.3 words per minute, followed by Bristol (195.1 words per minute) and London (192.9 words per minute).
This was an interesting result considering that London is the most multicultural city in the UK and that one of Britain’s famous record-breaking charlatans, Steve Woodmore, was from London.
Meanwhile, the slowest speaking cities were found to be Edinburgh at 132.2 words per minute, followed by Birmingham (164.2 words per minute), Leeds (173.9 words per minute) and Sheffield (174.7 words per minute). per minute).
Although the 10 most populous cities in the United Kingdom are hardly representative of the entire United Kingdom, the influence of each city’s speech may extend further to regional areas due to the wide availability of local broadcasting.
While Scousers are famous for speaking furiously fast, Liverpool came only in third place with 210.3 words per minute, followed by Bristol (195.1 words per minute) and London (192.9 words per minute).
When analyzing the video and audio, the experts observed that football was one of the topics that most provoked rapid speech.
One example was a video posted on Leicester City’s YouTube channel, where they spoke a whopping 716 words per minute in their video about midfielder Abdul Fatawu who joined Leicester City in August.
On BBC Radio Leicester, Andy Pierce’s interview with the band Courthouse had a speech of 180.4 words per minute.
Londoner Steve Woodmore, who died last year, entered the Guinness Book of World Records in 1990 by speaking at 637 words per minute.
Woodmore lost his record in 1995, when Canadian Sean Shannon could articulate 655 words per minute.
To achieve the record, Shannon recited the soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Hamlet ‘To be or not to be’ in 23.8 seconds, on August 30, 1995, in Edinburgh.