Accents

[Harry P.]

Ok, here's an interesting topic... I think...

On another thread Rob and I were talking about accents, and it got me wondering... why do people from different parts of the country have such widely different accents?

I don't mean people for whom English is not their native language. Obviously a German or a Frenchman will have an accent when speaking English because English is not their native tongue. I get that.

But why do people from Boston say "Baaaaaaaaaaaahston?" Why do you "paaaaahk ya caaaaaaah" in Boston, instead of just parking your car? Why do people from New York say "noooo YAWK?" Even here in Chicago, within the same city, there are those who say "Shi-CAAAH-go" (like me) and others who say "Shi-CAW-go?" There's no "W" in "Chicago!

And then there's the whole "valley girl" nonsense... fer sherrr!

Accents must be a learned behavior. But how (why) did they begin? Not that any of you have the answer. It just has always fascinated me.

[Harry P.]

Another one... to my ear, most Canadians have no discernible accent except that they all pronounce the word "out" as "oot!"

Whenever I hear a person say "oot" I immediately know they're Canadian. Aside from that one word (and maybe "about-aboot"), they have no accent that I can hear. But just that one word? Weird...

 

[High octane]

Harry, I just loved the accents that the Southern girls have when I visited in South Carolina. That Southern drawl is quite a bit different than you hear in the Midwest.

[wayne swayze]

Canadians love to get oot and aboot eh?

[Harry P.]

Canadians love to get oot and aboot eh?

[Ace-Garageguy]

Something that fascinated me the first time I was over there...Britain is only a little more than 1/2 the size of California, but there are many strong regional accents, all packed close together...though they seem to be homogenizing somewhat. There are multiple accents in London, some local, some class-related. 

It's definitely a "learned behavior', as you posit. I've read assertions that the Australian accent we seem to recognize easily over here is an evolutionary development of the London Cockney, and that the US "Southern" accent is derived from an earlier English accent.

I once knew a German who spoke English with a decidedly Oxford accent. He learned the accent as he learned the language, and didn't speak at all with the typical German accent.

If you listen carefully to native Russians (for example) speaking English, you'll see there are differences in the way different speakers accent it, depending on where they learned it.

Lots of fascinating reading concerning linguistics and accent derivations to be had, and lots of contradictory theories.

Some linguists have even used birds of the same species but hatched and raised in different locations as study-models for people speaking with regional accents and dialects.

Edited April 18, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[Harry P.]

Yep, I find it fascinating. Especially the point you made about the dozens and dozens of distinct accents in England... all on that relatively small island. Weird.

[Harry Joy]

Accents have everything to do with where the original inhabitants came from. New Orleans has Southern, Cajun and Boston accents. Lots of people moved there from Boston. American regional dialects can easily be traced to the parts of England the colonists came from, and when. Many northern accents are affected by later European immigrants.

[Tom Geiger]

Accents have to do with what you hear as you are first learning to speak as a baby.  That also goes with bi-lingual people.  My daughters were amazed at a little girl who couldn't have been two who was going between English and Mandarin with fluency.  People do have those accents deeply rooted in their speech. My wife's grandmother was born in Ireland, lived in NYC since she was 16 but still had her Irish brogue until the day she died in her 90s.

US regional accents are indeed interesting.  I believe it's a combination of the original accents of folks from different countries who settled there, a blended together and passed down and changed by descendants, most of which never even learned the mother tongues.

As we have become more mobile and people move around the country, regional accents are breaking down.  And I grew up on US Army posts, and people say I have no accent at all.  My wife was born in NY and moved to NJ when she was 5.  People immediately identify her as from New York.

[slusher]

Ok, here's an interesting topic... I think...

On another thread Rob and I were talking about accents, and it got me wondering... why do people from different parts of the country have such widely different accents?

I don't mean people for whom English is not their native language. Obviously a German or a Frenchman will have an accent when speaking English because English is not their native tongue. I get that.

But why do people from Boston say "Baaaaaaaaaaaahston?" Why do you "paaaaahk ya caaaaaaah" in Boston, instead of just parking your car? Why do people from New York say "noooo YAWK?" Even here in Chicago, within the same city, there are those who say "Shi-CAAAH-go" (like me) and others who say "Shi-CAW-go?" There's no "W" in "Chicago!

And then there's the whole "valley girl" nonsense... fer sherrr!

Accents must be a learned behavior. But how (why) did they begin? Not that any of you have the answer. It just has always fascinated me.

Is the accent in Boston just north eastern?

Edited April 18, 2016 by slusher

[Harry P.]

[slusher]

I love to hear English women talk. I also you to love to hear Sheena Easton talk.  I was crazy about her in the 80's 

Edited April 18, 2016 by slusher

[Harry P.]

It's funny that many Americans seem to think that when someone speaks with a British accent, they must be very smart. Not that Brits aren't smart... but not necessarily smarter than we are!

[Harry P.]

Accents have to do with what you hear as you are first learning to speak as a baby.

Yes, exactly. That's why I said it's a learned behavior.

But why do people in different areas of the same country speak so differently?

[Ace-Garageguy]

This guy hits a lot of US and more of the class-and-ethnic dependent Brit accents and a bunch a udders. 67 in all.  

Edited April 18, 2016 by Ace-Garageguy

[slusher]

It's funny that many Americans seem to think that when someone speaks with a British accent, they must be very smart. Not that Brits aren't smart... but not necessarily smarter than we are!

I Have not heard this before...

[Harry P.]

I remember when Dave Wannstedt was head coach of da Bears. He was from Pittsburgh, I think, and he had a very noticeable accent. At least to us Chicagoans he did. And Pittsburgh isn't all that far from Chicago.

[Ace-Garageguy]

People from the North always ask me if I'm from the South. People from the South always ask me if I'm from the North. People from England and Scotland always ask me where I'm from, because they say I don't sound American. Go figure.

[Harry Joy]

There is an excellent book called Albion's Seed, which traces most basic American accents to the region of England the primary colonists came from. And it is widely accepted nowadays that the much maligned modern Southern accent is much closer to the British accent dominant at the time of the Revolution. It was about 100 years later that the "fancy" British accent, dropped Rs and all, developed. Likewise, the modern American Standard Midwest accent is very modern.

[Can-Con]

Then you wouldn't be able to tell I'm Canadian then Harry. That "oot and aboot" thing is regional, central Canada mostly.

Also, you wouldn't believe how many rural people around here affect a southern U.S. sounding accent, You'd think some of them were born and raised right next door those those Duke boys. 

[Joe Handley]

Funny this comes up, I saw an interview with either Nicole Kidman or Kieth Urban on Ellen one day (it was on in the restaurant I was in) and Ellen asked about their girls and somehow they got to their accents, with both parents being Australians while living in Nashville, TN, their accent is rather.........interesting, then when those girls would combine their Aussie version of English they've inherited from Kidman and Urban with the Southern U.S. version of English they're around in Nashville and can give their Grandmothers back in Australia fits trying to figure out all of what they're saying

[Harry P.]

Keith Urban sounds very Australian to me. He has the classic Australian accent.

[Harry P.]

Then you wouldn't be able to tell I'm Canadian then Harry. That "oot and aboot" thing is regional, central Canada mostly.

Well, that makes sense, since the nearest province to me is Ontario.

[cowboy rich]

Interesting topic, but let's try this on for size, my mother was born in Alton Illinois as were her parents, my dad Baton Rouge. My dads father was born in Kentucky and his mother in Iowa. Then along comes me I was born and raised in central Washington and north east Oregon. Everybody asks me what part of TEXAS I'm from??

[Harry P.]

Interesting topic, but let's try this on for size, my mother was born in Alton Illinois as were her parents, my dad Baton Rouge. My dads father was born in Kentucky and his mother in Iowa. Then along comes me I was born and raised in central Washington and north east Oregon. Everybody asks me what part of TEXAS I'm from??

Man, you're just a freakin' mess!