>>>>
>>>>Our monarchy is always an import.
>>>>Before the Germans it was the French with William the conqueror.
>>>
>>>Oh well at least half of your vocabulary is French import.
>>
>>They seem to take some satisfaction from mispronouncing a lot of the words. For instance, saying filet as "FILL-it."
>
>I have a theory that the vowel shifts came from the British nobles trying to imitate French pronunciation, and then common folks imitating them.

Common or poor? There seems to be a difference in the pronunciation of some words (and accent) among the "common" folk as well...

Here, education does have an effect on language to some degree, but more often than not, it's simply a different accent which is caused by geographic location and not education.

I just find the whole common versus royalty difference interesting (especially since we don't have it) :o)