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Received Pronunciation (RP) is a form of pronunciation of the English language which has been long perceived as uniquely prestigious among British accents and is the usual accent taught to non-native speakers learning British English.
The earlier mentions of the term can found in H. C. Wyld's A Short History of English (1914) and in Daniel Jones's An Outline of English Phonetics, although the latter stated that he only used the term "for want of a better". According to Fowler's Modern English Usage (1965), the term is "the Received Pronunciation". The word received conveys its original meaning of accepted or approved — as in "received wisdom".
Received Pronunciation must be distinguished from the Queen's (or King's) English, so named because it is spoken by the monarch. It is also sometimes referred to as BBC English, because it was traditionally used by the BBC. Yet, nowadays, this is slightly misleading. The queen, Elizabeth II, speaks an almost unique form of English, and the BBC is no longer restricted to one type of accent, nor is "Oxbridge" (the universities of Oxford and Cambridge).
RP is an accent (a form of pronunciation), not a dialect (a form of vocabulary and grammar). It shows a great deal about the social and educational background of a person who uses British English. A person using an RP accent will typically speak Standard English although the reverse is not necessarily true.
In recent decades, many people have asserted the value of other regional and class accents, and many members (particularly young ones) of the groups that traditionally used Received Pronunciation have used it less to varying degrees. Many regional accents are now heard on the BBC.
RP is often believed to be based on Southern accents, but in fact it has most in common with the dialects of the south-east Midlands: Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire. Migration to London in the 14th and 15th centuries was mostly from the counties directly north of London rather than those directly south. There are differences both within and among the three counties mentioned, but a conglomeration emerged in London, and also mixed with some elements of Essex and Middlesex speech. By the end of the 15th century, Standard English was established in the City of London.