SHE SAID THEY TALK IN A MINOR KEY
For all you members of the Language Accuracy Police:
Over the years I've heard voice and speech teachers claim certain accents are in minor keys, while others are in major keys. I've even heard some state that effective speakers speak in major keys, and ineffective speakers speak in minor Keys. Then they provide examples, and I have to politely bite my tongue. What they're usually trying to say is that certain accents include more melismas (one syllable that slides over more than one note), or that the ending of a sentence slides up or down a semi-tone (a half note.) Neither of these indicate a minor key. Speech teachers also love to claim a Valley Girl Accent is in minor key. Or that whining is in a minor key. They're not. Musicians know it's the ORDER of the semi-tones and whole-steps that indicate if something is in a major or minor key, not merely the inclusion of semi-tones.
What I HAVE noticed is that most accents tend to start on the fifth note of a scale (the Solfege SO), and then vacillate on the MI, FA, SO for a bit before descending down to the DO. That hovering around MI, FA, SO when isolated may give the impression of a minor key, but most sentences descend downwards until they end with an accent on a DO - and THAT prescribes the key. It's almost always a MAJOR key. In fact, I'm hard-pressed to find any accent that truly is in a minor key - meaning it ends with an accent on LA rather than DO.
Let's break down the attached video, referring to minute 4:01. Joan Washington says one of the most interesting factors in accents is whether or not an accent's tune is in a "major" or "minor" key. To illustrate a minor key, she imitates a Birmingham accent. To musicians, Joan absolutely does this accent in a Major Key (her notes are more or less completely Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So), and she ends the key on TI leading to the DO, which is just another indication she is definitely in a Major Key.
I think what Joan is really trying to say is that certain accents include more melismas (sliding of one syllable over several notes) over others. We know speech teachers discourage half-tone melismas in general, let alone at the end of sentences. Joan Washington would be more accurate to suggest the Birminham accent is more chromatic than other accents, or includes more melismas, or possibly is colored by the Octatonic Scale. But to label it a minor key is simply inaccurate to musicians.
I've broken down her sentence by Solfege, and you'll see this sentence was "sung" in a major key, and that she mistook the inclusions of semi-tones in her tune for a Minor key:
Bir (fa)
min ham which is abso (so)
lu (fa)
tly in minor key (so)
so I can go (fa)
on (so)
and (fa)
on and end (mi)
where I (so)
like (fa)
but (so)
never ever (la)
end (so)
on a (fa)
definte (mi)
no- (ti)
ote (do).