Language thread

That was the theory, korano:

Yes, but people here don’t have any odd pronunciation. R is not pronounced ah and creek is not pronounced crick same with roof and ruf. As far as I can tell, we pronounce it how it’s spelled. Though I’ve heard some people pronounce Washington as Warshington.

But I’m not going to engage in a battle of knowledge with the likes of you. :wink:

I bet you pronounce an O as if it were ah though. Most Americans do wherever their from. (to our ears anyway) So maybe the most normal english you know is not so normal. :wink: And of course the Bostonites are not pronouncing the R like an ah, they are just not pronouncing it at all. A practice I heartily aprove of and am willing to forgive their little tea party as a result :slight_smile:

Seriously though, I love the diversity of accents. Part of the world’s rich fabric.

I know I kinda sound a little stupid in this discussion but i’m am aware that every dialect is accented to every other dialect or at least something different. But being more aware of US accents, I observe that the Pacific NW compared to other uS regions is seemingly accentless IMO. My Dad was born in Chicago and takes pride in his admitadley akwared pronunciation. He often makes fun of his friends who live there as they pronounce three as tree. Chicago is pronounced Chicahgo over there. Trolly is Tralley. ;D

Why don’t you all just simply speak accentfree German instead of an accented English?

Would make things much easier for me here.

Interesting thread (even though it has turned into the ‘Accent’ thread). Actually, I kinda agree with Korano (kinda). To me, midwesterners do not have accents that I can pick up. While Texas, NY, Boston & New Orleans (nworlins as it sounds to me). Crik & ruf are good examples. But to Phil’s point, accents are not always noticeable to the ones who have it. Nor do I think that anyone has an accent when they are in their home area. It’s only an accent when you travel. England is another good example…

‘fuckin’ northern monkeys’
‘I hate these fuckin’southern fairies’

I love that movie.

To Americans, all British accents are the same but not so true. Northern accents resemble Scottish accents (the kings of accents for me) the same way an upstate NY (which is night & day from a NY City accents ‘cawfee’ anyone) accent resembles a Canadian accents.

I work with some Jamaicans & a dude from Trinidad & they don’t have an ‘h’ in there body." How many dollars do you have?"…“Tree”…'What? I did not ear you" They basically speak English with their own dialect & accents.

For me, it’s simply to much work for my mouth to formulate all those syllables, literally. My girlfriend Devil Bunny is from Ohio & she does not have a noticeable accent to me (although she reminds me that I have one). I am proud of my accent. I gives me character. :wink: I absolutely hate it when people come here & make fun of the way we talk. I would never be that ignorant to go to say, Texas & say ‘Howdy, how y’all doin’?"

In my opinion, one of the best or most elloquent sepakers of the American dialect of English is Orson Welles. Great clear voice with no big accent.

except for his later endeavors where he sounds like he’s got marbles in his mouth :cry:

Still, no accent. ;D

I remember doing a linguistics class at university which discussed this topic of accents and dialects and it dawned on me today that something we discussed then is what Korano is talking about here. As I understand it there is a thing in the U.S known as ‘General American’ or ‘Standard American’ or somesuch which is considered 'correct or accentless and that this was based primarily on the midwestern accent which spread with migration to large parts of the west. I think this is what Korano is refering to when he says ‘no accent’. Does that sound about right?

In the UK we don’t really have an equivalent as such. Our closest would be what used to be called a ‘BBC accent’. But this was a manner of speech which actually reflected your class or social staus rather than the part of the country you were from. Consequently it is also known as a ‘public school accent’. (We call private schools public schools here. No logic involved. We just do.) Consequently if you meet a Scottish laird who has lived in a highland castle all his life, chances are he will talk as if he is from the English Home Counties as his speech is more likely to be shaped by his school and higher social class than his home district and he would most likley have attended an expensive public school. We still would say that he has an accent, just not a regional one. What still remains though is the idea that such people speak ‘nicely’.

In Holland the situation is not as complex, I think.

What used to be called ‘ABN’ (Overall Civilized Dutch) was the native tongue of a town called Haarlem, close to Amsterdam (But without it’s clear accent). This was the language spoken on TV, Radio and people who in general wanted to appear well educated.

This type of dutch is however not very popular under the richer folks. An upper-class accent is remarkably similar to upper-class English in the way words are bent and twisted. In general there are small villages or parts of towns that have this accent, despite their (large) geographical differences.

I still am amazed how a tiny country like Holland can have a language diversity as big as surrounding countries like France, or even America. Although we only span 300 km high, its impossible to understand someone from the upper north (Friesland, Groningen), the lower south (Limburg). Even worse, in the 200km width its hard to follow a native ‘eastener’ too (close to german border).

A similar situation to holland can be found in Spain - I reside there a lot and hence can see a lot of similarities. They have their ‘ABN’ or ‘BBC English’ in the form of Castillano (Castillian) spanish.

Every autonomous region (similar to a State in the USA - Spain should be called ‘Estados Unidos de Espana’) has his own dialect or even language. Cultures differ greatly, to the point you can find the diversity of half of Europe in one country.

This is reflected in the languages spoken. For example, traditionally (changing rapidly) someone from Galicia (north-west Spain) is culturally and linguistically much closer to someone from upper-England than other parts of Spain. This is to the extent that a Galician can understand Gaelic to a certian level (Who else can?) and they play local bag-pipe music 24/7 on their car radios.

The Basque are a different story altogether - their language not resembling anything at all, highly unique in the world. It has been said to have stemmed from Neanderthal language, since the latest surviving neanderthal disappeared in this region.

Then there is the language-class dialect of Cateluna (around Barcelona). It resembles a classical Latin dialect, combined with Spanish and French. Confusing and annoying for a ‘normal’ spanish speaker like me.

And we still have the Andalucian, a typical ‘southern’ accent with more passion and less strictness to grammar, many words ‘softened’ and R’s removed. It resembles South-Dutch, in pronunciation.

Regional or even social dialects exist in most countries I belive

Seems to be a human thing

It’s a fun phenomenon

[quote=“Lindberg, post:32, topic:1924”]Regional or even social dialects exist in most countries I belive

Seems to be a human thing

It’s a fun phenomenon[/quote]
Yes it’s fun. It’s quite interesting from time to time to learn “other” words for the same thing. There are regions in my little country in which I have troubles to understand a single word. :wink:

[quote=“Lindberg, post:32, topic:1924”]Regional or even social dialects exist in most countries I belive

Seems to be a human thing

It’s a fun phenomenon[/quote]

Talking about dialects and talking about linguistic classes as Phil did, I have to add my extensive words of wisdom.

In a linguistic class I was told that according to modern linguistics there are indeed several dialects. In fact lunguists say, that there are only dialects. Every lanuage, every standard language, every accent every linguistic variety - all of them are dialects.

Which varieties of them are regarded as the standard of a certain lanuage is more or less accidental.

This is a fascinating thread. I’ve never studied linguistics, so I don’t have much of substance to add, but I would say that what never ceases to impress me is the attitude of non-English natives when it comes to using the language - and the skill with which they do so.

I don’t wish to sound condescending, but the command and use of English on this forum, for example, by people from Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden etc is deeply impressive. Here in the UK, there just isn’t that respect for learning other languages that is evident on the continent. I think that because English has become established as the default tongue for international trade, politics, etc, we’ve become generally lazy, even resistant.

No doubt, as others have mentioned, it starts in the education system (if it’s compulsory to learn another tongue all the way through your schooling, well, obviously you have no choice - when I was at school, we had the option to drop foreign language studies), but it strikes me as a cultural thing as well, a general openness.

Oh, and hailing from the outskirts of London/borders of Kent, I don’t think I have an accent either. But I’d probably be contradicted by a speaker from elsewhere in the land.

[quote=“I…I…Idiot, post:28, topic:1924”]except for his later endeavors where he sounds like he’s got marbles in his mouth :’([/quote]Those weren’t marbles, honey

My Dad is thorwing a party for his friend’s daughter. Getting married and many people from Chicago are here. There having discussions with Seattle friends about accents. Or ahccents.

I prefer hearing some one with an English accent when they speak English than an American accent (most are awful) especially the gomba ones from NJ. Ey How you doin’? shut the F up already.

hey I got a valid question - how well do Spaniards understand English - I am hoping they’re better at English than I am at Spanish.

[quote=“Frank Talby, post:38, topic:1924”]I prefer hearing some one with an English accent when they speak English than an American accent (most are awful) especially the gomba ones from NJ. Ey How you doin’? shut the F up already.

hey I got a valid question - how well do Spaniards understand English - I am hoping they’re better at English than I am at Spanish.[/quote]
Jersey ones are tough to listen to.

And to put in the Canuck perspective, there is no single Canadian accent either. I’m from the prairies and in some areas it would be similar to the American midwest, i.e. “Fargo” although that’s pretty far fetched. That is the Scandinavian settlers influence and you hear that speech pattern in communities where those folks settled. Like Korano, my first instinct is to say that I have no accent but of course I do. :slight_smile:

The west coast has its own speech and the east is an entirely different animal.

Newfoundland, on the extreme east, has speech patterns and phrases that boggle the mind! Probably closest to Irish but not like it it at the sime time either. I know several “Newfies” and depending on where they were born and raised, their accents differ from fairly “mainstream” to extremely hard to decipher. Even some Newfies have trouble understanding other Newfies, from one end of the island to the other. Hell of a good people though! :wink:

There are numerous pockets of French communities in the prairies and they speak a French that is not even close to Quebecois French, let alone “Parisien” French.

Very interesting thread, keep it up!