Accents

[FranTastic444]

Fun fact, in Norway where we live, the people here think that we're from the USA when we speak Norwegian with some English vocabulary in it. It is the English that make them think that we're from the USA?

That is because the USA is the bigger country that speaks English. It is why we UK people have to tick the American flag to get some websites in to English language.

One of my former colleagues observed how many non-native speakers of English sound American. There is a simple reason for this - they almost certainly consumed a lot of American tv and films over the years and this has shaped their English speaking accents.

[alexthebird]

I visited Stockholm about ten years ago and (at least in the city) everyone spoke English. About half the people we met spoke with a kind of flat American accent and the other half with a London accent. When I asked the desk clerk in our hotel about it, she said that in school they are taught London English, but people who learn English from TV or movies learn with an American accent.

What I also thought was interesting was that there is a comic/stereotypical “Swedish” accent that you sometimes hear in the US when someone is trying to portray someone from a Swedish background. In Sweden, we didn’t hear that at all - just variations on generic American or London.

[joking1966]

I know Canadian and Australian accents, but would have no clue which part of their respective countries a speaker is from. What are other people's experience of this? Can Americans distinguish British accents? I am originally from Yorkshire and my accent is vastly different from that you would hear in London. What English-speaking accents do people here find challenging?

Lastly, at a slight tangent, how comfortable are people here using a dictionary to work out standard pronunciation? I'm insulting anyone's intelligence here but I used to find some of my students struggled with the IPA guide in dictionaries when looking up an unfamiliar word. For example, they would hear my pronunciation of "sponges" and "glasses" and see the dictionary showed Standard Southern British English (SSBE) "ˈspʌnʤɪz" and ˈɡlɑːsɪzˈ" while I, being a Yorkshireman, would be pronouncing these words "ˈspuːnʤəz" and "ˈɡlæsəz" which is closer to the Standard American pronunciation than to SSBE. Does the dictionary help in this regard or do you find the IPA symbols confusing?

I would be interested in any comments/experiences.

Stu - I am Canadian and can respond to some of your questions. First off, after having spent some time in the UK I can pick up SOME of the regional accents but not with any precision. But I can tell if two individuals talking to me came from different areas.

As for Canadian accents, there are differences as you go across the country. For most, Ontario and west the accents are very very close. If you know some of the regional terms you can pick up slight differences. The area called Northern Ontario (which most of it is south of western Canada) you'll pick up a bit of the classic mimicked Bob and Doug Mackenzie accent. in southern Alberta you'll hear a bit of American western twang. Where I grew up in Manitoba we have a habit of not pronouncing the g in words ending with 'ing'. Quebec of course will have the French influence even for those with English as a first language. In the Maritimes accents start getting more pronounced. New Brunswick has that French English mix. But not to be confused with Cajun. Nova Scotia and PEI have a definite down homer accent and unique regional words. Then we get to Newfoundland. (Pronounced nu fund land.) You get into the Bays and it is a sub dialect with Irish and Scots Gaelic mixed into a isolated Newfoundland English. Very difficult to understand initially.

Bonus points if you can tell me what a Bunny Hug is and what province I would come from if I use that term.

[Sepchugang]

joking1966 wrote:
Bonus points if you can tell me what a Bunny Hug is and what province I would come from if I use that term.

A hooded sweatshirt from Saskatchewan

See: https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/ ... -bunny-hug'"

An interesting article. Isn't the internet wonderful!

Here is another one with many examples of Canadian slang https://www.dictionary.com/e/canadian-slang/

[Rokje]

Fun fact, in Norway where we live, the people here think that we're from the USA when we speak Norwegian with some English vocabulary in it. It is the English that make them think that we're from the USA?

That is because the USA is the bigger country that speaks English. It is why we UK people have to tick the American flag to get some websites in to English language.

One of my former colleagues observed how many non-native speakers of English sound American. There is a simple reason for this - they almost certainly consumed a lot of American tv and films over the years and this has shaped their English speaking accents.

That sounds plausible sir. In the Netherlands they use Dutch subtitles, and English or any other language as the normal audio. It helped my English at that time.

In Norway tv is like tv in the Netherlands. English with Norwegian subtitles or Norwegian programs with subs for the deaf. It helps me to learn Norwegian.

Germany turns every audio track into German. Picture this: John Wayne talking German

[Dotty]

In all my years of careful listening to the wonderful variety of accents associated with the spoken 'english' language there are two things I have learned.
Telling the difference between northern americans' and between antipodeans' can be tricky to an Englishman's ear. In general, from their accent alone, Canadians prefer not to be mistaken as American and New Zealanders prefers not to be mistaken for Australian. The converse is usually treated with indifference.
When in doubt, if need or curiosity arise, I will always appropriately ask, are you American. Or, are you from New Zealand. Asked that way around never causes embarrassment nor regret, the person will gladly correct, or congratulate for my acute observation.
This simple rule of thumb has held me in good stead.

[Stu]

Bonus points if you can tell me what a Bunny Hug is and what province I would come from if I use that term.

Saskatchewan. It's their word for a hoodie, right?

Canadians prefer not to be mistaken as American and New Zealanders prefers not to be mistaken for Australian. The converse is usually treated with indifference.

I don't usually have a problem picking out Canadians as I listen for how they say certain words, like "about" - which sounds like "ə be wd" to me.That's not how Americans speak.

New Zealand is easy and absolutely unique because they have the famous vowel shift. My eldest daughter worked there for some time and she's an accent magnet. She asked me to pass her a "pen". What she wanted was a pan (frying pan, not a writing implement). If she had wanted to write, she would have asked for a "pin", and if she had wanted to pin something, she would have asked for a "pun". A quick way to tell a Kiwi is to listen for the word "yes" with sounds like "yiss". The only other accent which sometimes does this is South African English, where I will hear "bink" for "bank". South Africans also drop the glottal fricative (the /h/ sound), so they might cite the famous play by Shakespeare - "Omelette".

[Kirbstone]

In June 2000 I was one of five crew aboard a 37 ft yacht bowling at about 8 Knots Eastward before a brisk Sou-Westerly between Castletownshend and Glandore (Google Maps!) on the South Cork coast of Ireland when we came across a long monofilament salmon net extending several miles out to sea, kept just under the surface by a line of tiny little black floats, hard to pick out in the 2+ meter swell that day. (These nets were made illegal a few years later)

Helm hard over at the last second, but we became tangled in the top line and couldn't get out of it without cutting the rope. Of the five, I was the only Irishman, three others being English, the fifth being Austrian with excellent English. I took nearly 20 minutes for the fisherman to appear in his little boat and when he got within hailing distance he shouted out: 'Yerrah have-ooo noah c-c-cop-on ataall ?' in a thick rural Cork accent. I hastened to translate for my crewmates: Yerrah is a direct adaption of the Gaelic expression 'a ra'....'To say'. Have you no 'Cop-on' means knowledge, understanding, sense.....at all ?

Anyway, he allowed us cut his top line and we got down to leeward and sailed into Glandore, where having secured us to a guest mooring buoy one of us went overboard with a knife in hand to free the line from our rudder/prop assembly. One bonus: While waiting for the fisherman we found a fine 9 lb. salmon entangled in the net next to our cockpit. We snatched the fish out of his net and didn't mention it to the bloke when he showed up.

Tom

[MrSoapsud]

I knew a woman from the Netherlands when I was a student. She referred to "elevator" (US English) rather than "lift" ("real" English!) because a lot of her exposure to the language was from American TV as mentioned.

[joking1966]

Bonus points if you can tell me what a Bunny Hug is and what province I would come from if I use that term.

Saskatchewan. It's their word for a hoodie, right?

NAILED IT! Honourary Canadian status for you!

[joking1966]

joking1966 wrote:
Bonus points if you can tell me what a Bunny Hug is and what province I would come from if I use that term.

A hooded sweatshirt from Saskatchewan

See: https://nationalpost.com/entertainment/ ... -bunny-hug'"

An interesting article. Isn't the internet wonderful!

Here is another one with many examples of Canadian slang https://www.dictionary.com/e/canadian-slang/

You got it. Honourary status for you as well.

[Stu]

Bonus points if you can tell me what a Bunny Hug is and what province I would come from if I use that term.

Saskatchewan. It's their word for a hoodie, right?

NAILED IT! Honourary Canadian status for you!

Thanks. (I am a retired linguist BTW )

[Tazzmac]

G'day Stu , Perhaps like you I'm interested in different accents .. Fascinating subject . One of the main reasons of them is due to until quite recent times wide scale travel was very difficult so people living in close proximity only spoke to nearby folk and rarely anybody from afar. so local accents developed. Regarding us Aussies .. We have a large number of indigenous nations prior to European contact as well ..I guess like all other continents ..With the English speakers though most were primarily from the U.K .only for a long time and it's said the majority were from southern England ..The standard Australian accent developed from that but with nuances that differentiated away from that over time .Unlike the USA and the U.K our accent isn't vastly different from State to State or Territory . It's more generally the same I think but localized sayings , phrases , words can determine what part of the country you originate from.. I'm Tasmanian and as an example many Tassies will say the last part of the weekdays as if it's spelled dee not day .. Monday for many of our older folk especially will say Mondee ,Tuesdee , Wednesdee etc .... Some will say "Where did you go yesty , not Where did you go yesterday .. It's slowly disappearing but still fairly common trait our our State .. Very interesting stuff ... Cheers..

[Stu]

G'Day Tazzmac

I can usually tell which part of an English-speaking country someone comes from by their accent, but I have no idea when it comes to Australia. I guess you have to live there to be able to manage that. You highlight an interesting point about how older people's accent is often fossilised and so it doesn't change while younger speakers does become different. That's pretty normal and of course it doesn't just apply to accents, but also to vocabulary (different words are used) and even - in baby steps - the grammar changes too. Some older colloquial terms in northern England can be traced back to the Vikings, over a thousand years ago, although these days it's more American influence which is affecting our language.

As someone interested in accents, you might want to check out the You Tube videos of my fellow linguist, Dr Geoff Lindsey. About a month ago, he did one on the Australian accent and how it has both developed, and been reported on, over time. The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPxLnalkh-s Geoff does use some phonological terms which are obviously no problem to linguists (like diphthong, and glide), but I think someone without that technical vocabulary would still be able to make sense of and enjoy his content.

Anyway, just going to boil the billy. 'Av a cuppa with a bikkie. Nah! Second thoughts. I'll call at the bottlo for some tinnies.

[Ozdelights]

A mate just offered coffee and fresh damper, unfortunately I have a decent flu I'd prefer not to share.