Accents

[dong20]

Good point. I can't count the number of films where the actor/actress hasn't actually bothered to immerse themselves in an accent and just use a generic British one. It's strange how much a bad accent can ruin a film.
Notable exception being Renée Zellweger(sp?) in Bridget Jones. That was a brilliant accent. :biggrin1:

A bit off topic but one thing that really makes me laugh is say in old War movies, where the Germans speak almost perfect (grammatically and idiomatically) English to each other...but with a stilted German accent. The use of English is 'obvious' but the German accent....maybe it's just me..

 

[DC_DEEP]

For a little fun with "accent immersion therapy," get a copy of "The Full Monty." I had to use the subtitles the first couple of times I watched it, I couldn't understand a WORD... until my ears got used to the accents. Now I understand them perfectly. Oh, and it's a great flick, too.

 

[Gisella]

Question:



Does New Zealand sounds like Australian???

 

[BigPoppaFury]

Johnny Depp's accent in Pirates of the Carribean is a fantastic old Kentish accent, with which he won much respect from me. He must have put a lot of effort into making it so convincing. Maybe someone from Kent will tell me different....

It makes me cringe to hear some actors trying to put on an English accent, the majority of the time it sounds awful and nothing at all like anywhere in England.

 

[dong20]

Question:



Does New Zealand sounds like Australian???

To me they sound alike...usually I can tell them apart if I have been in the region for a while or with both Aussies and Kiwis...sorry I know that like Americans and Canadians they don't like being confused but to an unfamiliar or casual ear they do sound similar.

 

[D_Coyne Toss]

Every language has accents.

Italian: I love North Venetian and Umbrian

English: I love Aussie and Irish (Dublin)

German: I love Bavarian

French: I love Joual

Spanish: I love Argentinan

 

[Shelby]

My idea of a great accent? Levon Helm.
​

 

[B_Stronzo]

In the same vein as "ProudItalian"-

Favorite accents:

English: True Yankee Bostonian, coastal rural Maine, Highland Scottish and the way the English Royals say "very large house": "veddy lahge hice"

Italian: Siena and Firenze

French: Loire Valley and Provence

Spanish: Madrid society

German: Silesian German (Upper Schlesisch)

 

[missbec]

I didnt expect there to be so many replies!
i have formulated somewhat of a theory whilst thinking; hmm, why do they sound different, here's what ive come up with;
If you place one of two twins in an American cultural group (American accents) and place the second of the twins in London for instance (English accents) and i dare say they will turn out to have different accents when brought up under those influential elements.

In conclusion i think we can influence what accent is spoken (only from birth) and if we wanted, erase a particular accent in a society by taking out that entire population. Which would not be right at all, only a theory
-bec

Thank you all for replying

 

[B_NineInchCock_160IQ]

I didnt expect there to be so many replies!
i have formulated somewhat of a theory whilst thinking; hmm, why do they sound different, here's what ive come up with;
If you place one of two twins in an American cultural group (American accents) and place the second of the twins in London for instance (English accents) and i dare say they will turn out to have different accents when brought up under those influential elements.

In conclusion i think we can influence what accent is spoken (only from birth) and if we wanted, erase a particular accent in a society by taking out that entire population. Which would not be right at all, only a theory
-bec

Thank you all for replying

well of course they would have differnet accents.

What would be the alternative theory? That accent is somehow genetically passed down?

 

[B_NineInchCock_160IQ]

Question:



Does New Zealand sounds like Australian???

Not really... but a New Zealander sounds more like an Austrailian than they would a Brit or a Yank...

 

[missbec]

well of course they would have differnet accents.

What would be the alternative theory? That accent is somehow genetically passed down?

merely an example for my ending theory,
then again, genetics can have many factors on the "way" you speak, as in the shape of your mouth, length of your larynx/pharynx that may effect the way you pronounce words but then again we are all evolving and adapt to many things. eh, we're flexible. im sure you did know that though
-bec

 

[headbang8]

Question: Do New Zealand sounds like Australian???

Yes, but with magngled vowels. Australians make jokes about Nizulland icksints.

 

[D_Melburn Pudmuncher]

I've lived in Washington State since early chidhood but my parents came here from Ireland. I was born in Canada so my accent is sort confusing to people. While visiting Ireland, England and Wales I am complimented often times regarding my accent. When speaking of my accent, my 97 year old grandmother in Ireland said in her best OIRISH brogue. " Well isn't it a nice thing, to have people not know where it is you're from, the minute you open yer mouth?"
I was in Westminster Abbey and one of the docents asked me where I was from. I told her The U.S to which she replied "Well you certainly don't sound American...you have a nice accent"

Can't stand accents from the southern states, (to me) they smack of poverty and ignorance which is unfair and totaly untrue.
I like hearing a genuine New Yorker speak unless they use too many DEE'S DEM DOE's
Austrailians sound more American than British to me.
African's who speak English sound very pleasant.
French is annoying
British is usually quite nice but some tend to put an R on the end of everything and others can come off a bit snobby. My English relatives come off sounding quit superior at times . If one didn't understand the accent one could be quite offended . They're accents are so varied for such a small land. Even in London there are accents for each district and a lot of snobbery about it it seems. Did you ever notice how British say everything in question form. For instance, I would say "it sure is a nice day" they would say " It's a lovely day...Innn tit ? They add "did it?" or "was it?" or "aren't you" to the end of every sentence....don't they??

What about Madonna's new British accent...she's from Detroit for god's sake...it's laughable co's it drifts in and out.
Did ja' ever notice how the American actors in old 30's and 40's movies spoke? I understand that they were trained to speak that way...sort of an off British.

 

[dreamer20]

...
Did ja' ever notice how the American actors in old 30's and 40's movies spoke? I understand that they were trained to speak that way...sort of an off British.

In fact many of them were British. With the advent of the new "talking pictures" the movie studio heads didn't like the voices of many former silent film stars and they replaced them with British actors.

B. Davis and K. Hepburn are notable for being U.S. actresses who were able to manage British accents with ease. I was disappointed when Johnny Depp did not do a cockney accent in the Corpse Bride as his character's parents spoke in that manner. I'm sure that he could have pulled it off, but my friend Steve said he might sound "like a drunken John Cleese" and that wouldn't be good for the picture.

lol dreamer20

 

[B_Stronzo]

Did ja' ever notice how the American actors in old 30's and 40's movies spoke? I understand that they were trained to speak that way...sort of an off British.

No. They were trained (much like Joan Crawford had her Texan accent removed) to sound like the East Coast elite. Boston Brahmins still speak this way and it's a hold-over accent generationally handed to that level of society by its forbears. But of course since the accent is more similar to an English accent it was easier for the likes of Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn to simulate it in various roles. Davis was from Lowell Massachusetts.

Even the Kennedys took it on when they attempted to mainstream themselves into Old Guard Yankee parlance. Ted Kennedy still says "cahn't" for "can't" and 'ahfternoon' for 'afternoon'. Both my parents speak precisely this way. And to them it's not an affectation. It's how they were raised to speak. They say "hah' past eight" where most Americans say "eight thirty" when telling time.

Katharine Hepburn is the perfect example of the phenomenon. She's a Connecticut Yankee by birth and her ancestral roots were as distant from her English forbears as the intervening 300 plus years would suggest.

Northeast New England is one of the few places on this side of the world where bother and father do not rhyme.

See this link for full description of the etymology (or more properly derivation) of the New England - later Hollywood - accent (used in the 30s and 40s in Hollywood)


http://students.csci.unt.edu/~kun/ch15.html

 

[D_Melburn Pudmuncher]

No. They were trained (much like Joan Crawford had her Texan accent removed) to sound like the East Coast elite. Boston Brahmins still speak this



http://students.csci.unt.edu/~kun/ch15.html

Yep...you have this exactly right. The actors of that time were trained to speak in an "upper crust" manner to suggest "class". As far as Hepburn goes...she was simply speaking in the manner of the region she was born in.

 

[NCbear]

Re: Shakespearean English remnants in North America

Visit http://facweb.furman.edu/~mmenzer/gvs/, a website showing what happened to accents during the time Europeans were colonizing what became Canada and the United States.

I have also been taught in linguistics classes that the socioeconomic status of Northerners and Southerners (i.e., above and below the Mason-Dixon Line) were different from the start--that they came from different parts of England, and that therefore Southern American English was recognizably lower-class than Northern American English from the get-go.

Re: Southern dialect all sounding lower-class

I disagree: Not all of it is lower-class. In fact, there's an extremely high-class Northern Virginia accent that was a blend of the Deep South drawl, the South Carolina low country accent, and the 1800-1825 Regency British accent (because American cotton planters who were traveling to England picked up the latest linguistic fashions as well as the latest clothes and furniture--it's also why Southerners say "ain't" [an upper-class Regency affectation] and no one else does).

This upper-class accent survives today and you can hear it in (of all movies!) The Hunt for Red October. Remember the guy who played the National Security Advisor in the scene when Alec Baldwin's character presented information on the Red October submarine in a White House briefing room?
Rent the movie and play that scene--you'll hear the National Security Advisor character use that rare Northern Virginia accent.

To me, that particular accent connotes VERY old money along with both power and prestige. It's one of the few power dialects in the South, but it's compellingly upper-class due to its "Britishness." Similar French accents in New Orleans and Spanish accents in Miami and Puerto Rico, I've been told, act as their respective relics of earlier colonial upper-class accents.

Amusing note: Because I allow myself to drawl but still put ends on my words, I've been told I "sound like an educated Southerner." I guess that remains a distinction down here, especially any place more than 15-20 minutes away from an interstate highway. :wink:

NCbear

 

[B_Stronzo]

Interesting NCbear.

I've heard an accent from generational landholders who live on an island off the Carolinas which sounds very much like "Yankee" English in its dropped r-ness.

I knew of your reference to the Regency English use of "ain't". Similarly in Boston only two generations ago the use of "he don't" and she don't" in familial parlance was considered entirely appropriate and acceptable use.

 

[NCbear]

Now, of course, accents are homogenizing due to global communications and the pressure for TV news anchors to sound alike.

NCbear