[Digitalis]

I have found that when I spend some time in a place where the accent is different than mine, I tend to pick up that accent.

I have the same habit, though for me slang words and expressions maintain the original accent I heard them in though.

I love to try and narrow down someone's personal history just from hearing them speak.

You would have a wild time trying to trace the origins of my bastardized English. Last time I was in the RAH emergency ward they thought I was Irish.

[Sandy Hancock]

You would have a wild time trying to trace the origins of my bastardized English.

It remains a source of disappointment that I have not yet had the opportunity

[robgski]

Do you have a link?

I posted the link in a new thread about YouTube photography channels

---------- Post added 02-15-20 at 09:02 ----------

trying to trace the origins of my bastardized English

In the book, The Name of the Rose, there is a character who mixes several languages together when he speaks. When I was living in in Germany, but travelling to multiple countries, I found myself doing the same thing. Sometimes, only another language, dialect, or slang conveys the proper meaning.

[robgski]

I had to watch several of this woman's videos to determine where she was from, her accents are very good. It's also interesting to see how her face and attitude change each time she does a new accent.

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

After watching the video above, this was next video, which is pretty good for American accents

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

I have the same habit, though for me slang words and expressions maintain the original accent I heard them in though.




You would have a wild time trying to trace the origins of my bastardized English. Last time I was in the RAH emergency ward they thought I was Irish.

You have to consider what the English of the time of settlement was like. People in England have continued to change the language since the emigration to Australia (and Virginia). For example, I grew up pronouncing the "ou" diphthong as people do in Scotland, where the consonant following the diphthong is unvoiced (house, mouse, about, etc., but unlike "proud" which would be pronounced "prowd"). It's the same as in the area around Toronto, as both Tidewater Virginia and Toronto were settled by English folks who came from the same part of England at about the same time. But insular communities are conservative in linguistic modification, while the "mother tongue" continues to change. Even now, a millenium after the Norman Conquest, I'm told that Americans speaking French have an accent much closer to late Medieval French than to Modern French, because they haven't lost the Norman influence on English phonemes.

[lesmore49]

You have to consider what the English of the time of settlement was like. People in England have continued to change the language since the emigration to Australia (and Virginia). For example, I grew up pronouncing the "ou" diphthong as people do in Scotland, where the consonant following the diphthong is unvoiced (house, mouse, about, etc., but unlike "proud" which would be pronounced "prowd"). It's the same as in the area around Toronto, as both Tidewater Virginia and Toronto were settled by English folks who came from the same part of England at about the same time. But insular communities are conservative in linguistic modification, while the "mother tongue" continues to change. Even now, a millenium after the Norman Conquest, I'm told that Americans speaking French have an accent much closer to late Medieval French than to Modern French, because they haven't lost the Norman influence on English phonemes.

Good post.

I would like to recommend a book, The Story of English by Robert MacNeil and Robert McCrum. Think it is still available.

I have an old dog eared copy and it is a wonderful look at the English language , how it developed and also has interesting information on the kind of thing you talk about...how in some isolated areas of the USA which were settled by early English settlers...they still have remnants of the original English as spoken by those early settlers, in the current spoken language, common to these areas.

[robgski]

People in England have continued to change the language since the emigration to Australia (and Virginia)

I live in Central Virginia, so we get the mix of Tidewater and Appalachian. (anddamYankeetransplant) but I notice that native born residents here often pronounce about like "aboot" or "aboat".

Marylanders along the Chesapeake have a noticeable and unique accent, which slowly changes up into Philly, and South Jersey.

I would like to recommend a book, The Story of English by Robert MacNeil and Robert McCrum.

[Kerrowdown]

but for some reason the characters are all Irish...

Or Australian... the truth is we're just a bit fussy about what we act in.

[bertwert]

Or Australian... the truth is we're just a bit fussy about what we act in.

But why wouldn't a good old Scot play in such an accurate documentary as Braveheart or Rob Roy? *

*in case it is not clear, I am being mildly sarcastic

[robgski]

It is interesting to hear actors speak in their true voices, with accents and dialects, especially if they became prominent in roles where they spoke in another accent. Quite a few actors from the UK are cast in American productions, and they adopt a neutral "Midwestern" accent or a slightly southern accent, unless the role calls for a distinct regional accent.

It is also interesting to hear films that were overdubbed with a voice actor but have been re-released with the original actors voices. In the US release of the original "Mad Max" some must have though 'Mericans couldn't understand "Strine" so the voices were overdubbed with voice actors, including one who was a popular radio host as well as the voice of numerous cartoon characters.

Speaking of cartoons, in Germany, there are fewer voice actors overdubbing dialogue in German, so the same actor reciting dramatic dialogue is also voicing animated characters. Bugs Bunny without the Brooklyn accent is a rare bit indeed.

[lesmore49]

It is interesting to hear actors speak in their true voices, with accents and dialects, especially if they became prominent in roles where they spoke in another accent. Quite a few actors from the UK are cast in American productions, and they adopt a neutral "Midwestern" accent or a slightly southern accent, unless the role calls for a distinct regional accent.

It is also interesting to hear films that were overdubbed with a voice actor but have been re-released with the original actors voices. In the US release of the original "Mad Max" some must have though 'Mericans couldn't understand "Strine" so the voices were overdubbed with voice actors, including one who was a popular radio host as well as the voice of numerous cartoon characters.

Speaking of cartoons, in Germany, there are fewer voice actors overdubbing dialogue in German, so the same actor reciting dramatic dialogue is also voicing animated characters. Bugs Bunny without the Brooklyn accent is a rare bit indeed.

Interesting stuff. I have found, going by my own ear that many English actors do a pretty good job of speaking with an American accent. Think part of it is that a number of actors are also excellent mimics...which helps in their field of endeavor.

My wife and I just finished watching Vienna Blood, a mystery series taking place in Vienna around the turn of the last century. It was filmed in Austria and has a mix of German, British and Austrian actors. The series' dialogue is in English and I was quite surprised how well the German/Austrian actors handled speaking English with little discernible Germanic accent.

I used to follow Formula One quite avidly during the Jacques Villeneuve days, Jacques being a fellow Canuck. There were always interviews of F1 drivers, back then ('90's) and there were a number of European drivers who spoke English well, although this language was not their native tongue. Some of the Euro drivers had different English accents which I understood that they had picked up through regular interaction with their team's British engineers, mechanics and other team members during their racing careers.

[robgski]

Some of the Euro drivers had different English accents which I understood that they had picked up through regular interaction with their team's British engineers, mechanics and other team members during their racing careers.

When I lived in Germany but travelled extensively, I had noticed that most of the Europeans spoke English to varying degrees, but the older ones often had a British accent and the younger ones had a less uniformly British accented English, I assume it had something to do with movies, television and the Internet supplementing the lesson they learned in school. I once met a German student from Berlin who I took to be an American due to her unaccented fluency. Thought perhaps one of her parents was American and she had been raised bilingually as my own children had been, but no, she just had a knack for languages.

[JensE]

A knack for languages is one thing, but you also need a fair amount of immersion to get informal conversations 'right'. After a few years of working embedded in US-based teams remotely and traveling to the US every quarter, with close social relationships, people were occasionally surprised when they learned well into a conversation that I wasn't American. But then, just two evenings with my British friend and I would happily return to the English which I had learned at school. Being less immersed into a 'proper' English speaking community, it now has worn off considerably and media consumption doesn't make up for it. My kid's English classes are a lot less focused on Britain and British English than mine were, this may have contributed to the difference among the age groups. Btw., am I the first non-native English speaker posting here?

I immensely enjoyed lesmore49's story about the train ride. It reminded me of a workshop in Seattle, where I filled in when the Aussies' twist of vowels frequently left the locals puzzled. I also attribute that ability to a grandparent childhood story: I spent a lot of holidays at my grandparent's farm in northern Germany, when the older people still mostly used 'Plattdütsch', a language which is spoken along the German coasts and into the Netherlands - with dialects, of course. Similar to lesmore49, I didn't always understand what I was hearing, but I still get most of it today. Platt shares its Old Saxon roots with English, so English feels a lot less 'foreign' to me than other languages and I understand some things subconsciously.

The great variety of dialects, which we have in German, is much more of a treasure than a barrier, even though I don't understand the southern ones. We anyway all have High German to fall back on. I lived in Switzerland for a while, and it took me about three months to even get the subject of the conversation in Swiss German at the table during lunch breaks. I do like the sound of it though, people almost seem to sing. My own dialect would be 'Berlinerisch', quite the opposite of singing, but I've always been very flexible in adjusting to my environment, so I'm not using it anymore where I live, in Saxony. Flexibility as a child went so far, that in one conversation with an adult and a boy of my age, I would talk in perfect 'high German' when addressing the adult and in full dialect when addressing the boy.

As for accents, I enjoy the soft French slur in German, not as much in English though. My heart still jumps when I hear the stretched north-German vowels. As for accents and dialects in English, it depends a lot on my mood. Most times, the more "archaic" sounding ones tend to resonate with me.

[SpecialK]

Y'all talk weird. I verbless!

[monochrome]

In the USA Kansas is said to have a neutral accent. Radio and television news readers are taught a “Kansas” accent. Personally I could listen to a female from Winston-Salem North Carolina speak all day long.