Where do American Accents come from?
Magnus....@gmail.com
I was wondering where America's distinctive accent comes from. I was
watching an Australian film last night and you can really her the
similarities between Australian and Cockney. There doesn't seem to be
much of an Irish influence despite the close connections.
Boston has a distinct accent but again I can't connect it with
Ireland.
Which European accents have most influenced American accents?
Have other peoples influenced the accent?
It would be interesting to hear how people spoke English 300 years
ago. Are there any people involved in such research. Any links online?
Thanks,
Mangus.
FCS
Firstly it is worthwhile understanding that in the first instance,
particularly when it was considered it may be The Promised
Land of Old Testament (Mosaic-Egyptian Hebrew) prophecy,
America was basically mapped out and split into four by way
of the drawing of a cross. The Germans got a quarter of it, the
French got a quarter of it, the Spanish got a quarter and the
English got a quarter.
What evolved was somewhat more complex but is reflected
in the French influences stretching from Canada to New Orleans
and LaFayette, the preponderance of Germanic surnames in
the MidWest and Spanish placenames alonge the San Andreas
fault (California, Mexico) down to South and Central America
where Spanish still holds linguistic sway from Peru to Argentina.
New York was originally New Amsterdam, New England was so
called because of its climate, New Jersey was donated to a
Channel Island noble by an English monarch having held out
in favour of the Crown against, IIRC, a French attempt to wrest
its sovreignty under their own auspices and so forth. As such,
to look at the American accents and dialects from a perspective
purely English is a misleading and confounding axiomatism.
Various papers in the journal "Language" have tackled various
aspects of these phenomena over the years.
Perhaps a good guide to how American English has evolved
within the wider perspective of English is still MacNeill and McCrum's
"The Story of English" which was released as a textbook to
accompany the BBC television series of the same name.
The problem is that various pronunciations have come from
various other languages, some of them now dead, over the
years and the influence of Chinese, many of whom worked
building the railroads as cheap labour coming from a literate
culture in an ideogrammatic mode with variations in phonology,
African slaves and servants shipped en masse forming linguae
labores amongest themselves as well as the pidgins and creoles
and lingua francae of the European traders and American plantain
managers, and also the indigenous Native languages have all
left their marks in various ways in various areas.
The major factor, however, is as with any accent, dialect or
language (Latin-->Italian, French (French, Swiss, Belgian), Spanish,
Portuguese; OHG-->German, Dutch, Flemish, Afrikaans) in that,
once settled, people tended to stay in comparatively small
communities and evolved their own pronunciations from hand
to mouth. This is as true of British English now, with its influences
from Gaelics, Saesnags, Norse, Anglian, Roman, and Old French,
and whatever Pictish may have been, given that Pictii was a Latin
label applied to a variety of small feudal tribes who happened to
be in their way, as it is of American English.
Alliegances to the British Monarchy prior to the Civil War do have
some influence, but generally it's an organic, random thing that
is showing more of a move toward standardisation with the advent
of real-time broadcast media, from films to television to online
video.
Quite why you should be expecting a strong Irish influence in the
Australian states is surprising as the majority of the deportations
were from London, if I understand correctly, whereas in the US it
was a voluntary exodus to the land of liberty "Give me your poor
and downtrodden and hungry, &c." in the face of the potato blight
of the nineteenth century.
You also maybe should take account of the "ten pound poms"
who moved over post-war as accounting for a skewing of the incidence
of Irish surnames in Australia, albeit Ned Kelly was clearly of some
kind of Irish parentage somewhere down the line.
I understand there is a skew towards Scottish surnames in the
Transvaal along with Dutch, partly because of which regiments
were sent over to do the fighting and then stuck it out to mine the
rich minerals and farm the lush areas on the inland plains. Again,
such forms as -bok (Reebok, Springbok) seem to hail from English
by way of Dutch being a transliteration of -buck, a type of deer or
stag.
> Thanks,
>
> Mangus.
G DAEB
COPYRIGHT (C) 2008 SIPSTON
--
Peter Moylan
> Quite why you should be expecting a strong Irish influence in the
> Australian states is surprising as the majority of the deportations
> were from London, if I understand correctly, whereas in the US it was
> a voluntary exodus to the land of liberty "Give me your poor and
> downtrodden and hungry, &c." in the face of the potato blight of the
> nineteenth century.
You're definitely underestimating the early Irish migration (both
voluntary and involuntary) to Australia. I don't have the numbers, but I
suspect that the number of Irish deported to Australia was a good deal
higher than the number of English. Where the ships departed from isn't a
good indicator. In the cases of the convicts from Ireland that I've
looked up, the trial was held at some distance from the person's likely
home, usually in a different county. I would imagine that after the
trial the convict would have been moved to a port city such as Liverpool.
In any case, convict transportation accounts for a relatively small
proportion of Australians. My own Irish ancestors were, in effect,
potato famine refugees; that would probably be a much bigger influence
than the earlier convicts. My Scottish ancestors also arrived in
Australia in the 19th century, and although I don't have any
documentation on this I suspect that times were also tough in Scotland
at the time, albeit for not quite the same reasons.
Prior to the big migratory waves from other countries that started with
war refugees, the ancestors of white Australians were probably roughly
equally divided among English, Irish, and Scottish people. Certainly in
the 1950s the Roman Catholics accounted for over 30% of the population,
and most of those would have been of Irish descent.
--
Peter Moylan, Newcastle, NSW, Australia. http://www.pmoylan.org
For an e-mail address, see my web page.
Donna Richoux
[big snip of fairly dubious stuff]
>Again,
> such forms as -bok (Reebok, Springbok) seem to hail from English
> by way of Dutch being a transliteration of -buck, a type of deer or
> stag.
Sorry, but that's just as silly as saying that the Dutch (or Afrikaners)
got "man," "hand," or "bed" from the English. There are tons of words
that come from a common heritage of the old Germanic language. Buc, boc,
bock, buck, bucca, or bukkr for "male goat or male animal" show up in
all the northern European languages, and are traced back to
Proto-Indo-European Bhugo.
I assume you merely spaced out on this one, since no one could go on at
such length as you did without familiarity with this concept.
I see that the antelope is traditionally spelled "rhebok" in English,
/Pelea capreolus/, although maybe the shoe company has popularized the
other spelling. I found one dictionary that said that the first syllable
of "reebok" is inspired by the European deer /Capreolus capreolus/ which
is called "ree" in Dutch and "roe deer" in English. Some think that
came from "reddish".
I see those are not the spotted ones -- those appear to be "fallow deer"
/Dama dama/. In North America, only fawns have spots --- Bambi! -- so
the European mature deer with spots strike me as sweetly juvenile.
Nearly every town has a park where children can feed deer.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
An American living in the Netherlands
Steve Hayes
>Hi,
>
>I was wondering where America's distinctive accent comes from. I was
>watching an Australian film last night and you can really her the
>similarities between Australian and Cockney. There doesn't seem to be
>much of an Irish influence despite the close connections.
The first time (and only) I went to Bournemouth, I thought the place was full
of Americans. Then I realised it was the locals.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/stevesig.htm
Blog: http://methodius.blogspot.com
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
cathal_cam...@mail.ie
Listen to these Irish people from Ulster -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H347A2jOouU
Irish and Scottish accents have had very strong influences on those of
America, especially in the south.
Gaelic used to be the official language in some Southern US counties
once upon the time...
/Cathal
Don Phillipson
news:f7561e21-5e2c-4d95...@u10g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
> Gaelic used to be the official language in some Southern US counties
> once upon the time...
What leads you to suppose this true? "Official language" is
a 20th century category that seems absent from American
history before the 1970s, even for places where other languages
are or were spoken (e.g. French in Louisiana, Pennsylvania
"Dutch" and so on.)
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
Don Aitken
<haye...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:22:43 -0700 (PDT), Magnus....@gmail.com wrote:
>
>>Hi,
>>
>>I was wondering where America's distinctive accent comes from. I was
>>watching an Australian film last night and you can really her the
>>similarities between Australian and Cockney. There doesn't seem to be
>>much of an Irish influence despite the close connections.
>
>The first time (and only) I went to Bournemouth, I thought the place was full
>of Americans. Then I realised it was the locals.
In any case, you might just as validly ask where British accents come
from. Since the two began to diverge, British speech has almost
certainly changed more than American. It is often suggested that if we
could hear Shakespeare and his contemporaries we would think they
sounded American. There was a production of one of Shakespeare's plays
a few years ago which used an experimental reconstruction of that
pronunciation, in which David Crystal was involved, and about which he
has written a book - "Pronouncing Shakespeare - The Globe Experiment".
He tells the story at
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/ling/stories/s1412208.htm
Some people thought it sounded American, others that it sounded
Australian - in fact everyone who heard it seems to have found it more
like the speech they were familiar with than the exagerated "stage
articulation" of RP in which we are used to hearing Shakespeare - an
indication of just how artificial that style is.
--
Don Aitken
Mail to the From: address is not read.
To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com"
Harry Lippitz
(This response is intended to be a light-hearted way of shedding a little
light on the subject. No offence is intended)
The accent obviously comes from a melting pot of immigrants, slaves and
castaways, mixed in with a slight surviving indian influence. I used to
think that the history of the USA had something to do with the accent, but
sadly this is not so, at least no to any specific degree. The Brits did the
same thing with Australia (moved in, killed off the locals, then bred like
rabbits), but the Australian accent sounds nothing like the American accent.
If you isolate two groups of individuals then their languages will begin to
alter. Given sufficient time the two groups may barely be able to understand
each other. Take for example Edinburgh and Newcastle (Scots and Geordies).
They cannot communicate, although most native English speakers cannot
communicate with Geordies.
One interesting point regarding surnames is that Australia was populated
with convicts, rersulting in surnames such as "Swindler", "Ransom", and
"Theif". The USA was populated with pioneers, priests and religious freaks,
resulting in names with other historical origins such as "Pilgrim", "Crier",
and "Hooker".
The founders of the USA (the ones who moved in, killed off the locals, then
bred like rabbits) obviously took with them a huge battery of bibles for
distribution, so you can understand how other words proved to be an
embarrasment, such as "cock" (gallus gallus), "cockroach", and "breasts".
These were changed by the addition of new words to the language: "rooster",
"roach", and "bosom". Even "damn" was considered too rude to use, so say
hello to "darn", "dern", "durn", "danged", "gol-danged", "all-fired",
"blamed", "blasted", "blowed", "confounded", "dashed", "cursed", and of
course "cussed". Hmmmmmm - I wonder if Americans think that the sound made
by a rooster is "rooster-doodle-doo", or what?
The Pilgrim Fathers could not have taken a dictionary with them on their
journey to the "new-found-land", which is why they now spell every alternate
technical word with a "zee". But there is an up-side to it: as a Brit you
can swear at Americans and they do not react. Try using "bugger", or say
"bugger off", or "sod-off" and they just look at you (if you are American,
the British "sod" is not refering to the green stuff on your lawn, but to
"sodomite", and "bugger" is nothing to do with bugs but refers to "the
criminal offense of anal or oral copulation by penetration of the male organ
into the anus.")
So our American friends were isolated, then re-appeared en-mass a hundred
years ago, having re-written the English language. For example:
Arse -> ass
Arse about face -> back to front.
Arse over tit -> to fall over
Arsehole -> asshole
Barmy -> mad or crazy
Belt up -> shut up
Bender -> heavy drinking session
Blimey (God Blind Me) -> Jezzzz
Bogey -> Booger
Bonk -> to have sex
Bung -> a bribe
Cheeky -> flippant
Cheerio -> goodbye (not a breakfast cereal)
Codswallop -> baloney
Drop a clanger -> make a gaffe
Excuse me -> pardon me (when you have accidentally hit someone)
Pardon me -> excuse me (when you have farted)
Wonky -> out of whack (wobbles)
Anyone know any more?
Alan Jones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H347A2jOouU
[...]
The Ulster accents don't sound at all like any American speech I've ever
heard - perhaps my British ears respond differently from yours.
Alan Jones
James Silverton
F> On Mar 15, 11:22 am, Magnus.Morab...@gmail.com wrote:
??>> Hi,
??>>
??>> I was wondering where America's distinctive accent comes
??>> from. I was watching an Australian film last night and you
??>> can really her the similarities between Australian and
??>> Cockney. There doesn't seem to be much of an Irish
??>> influence despite the close connections.
??>>
??>> Boston has a distinct accent but again I can't connect it
??>> with Ireland.
??>>
??>> Which European accents have most influenced American
??>> accents?
??>>
??>> Have other peoples influenced the accent?
??>>
??>> It would be interesting to hear how people spoke English
??>> 300 years ago. Are there any people involved in such
??>> research. Any links online?
I don't have Mangus' post but, as he indicates, there are many
more than one "American accent". I can even pick out the kids
from my county and distinguish them from those from the other
side of the Potomac river! This Montgomery county accent is
something of a hybrid because parents have mostly come from
elsewhere.
James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland
E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
Nasti J
> Firstly it is worthwhile understanding that in the first instance,
> particularly when it was considered it may be The Promised
> Land of Old Testament (Mosaic-Egyptian Hebrew) prophecy,
> America was basically mapped out and split into four by way
> of the drawing of a cross. The Germans got a quarter of it, the
> French got a quarter of it, the Spanish got a quarter and the
> English got a quarter.
where on earth did you come up with that piece of nonsense?
LaReina del Perros
<sipst...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>The problem is that various pronunciations have come from
>various other languages, some of them now dead, over the
>years and the influence of Chinese, many of whom worked
>building the railroads as cheap labour coming from a literate
>culture in an ideogrammatic mode with variations in phonology,
>African slaves and servants shipped en masse forming linguae
>labores amongest themselves as well as the pidgins and creoles
>and lingua francae of the European traders and American plantain
>managers, and also the indigenous Native languages have all
>left their marks in various ways in various areas.
"As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again - as long as I have
this plantain!"
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
It seemed to me that it was a work of the imagination in
response to the OP's query -- ask a silly question and you get a
silly answer.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
There may have been influences but that does not necessarily
mena that the influenced American accent will in total sound
like the influencing Irish or Scottish accent.
>
>The Ulster accents don't sound at all like any American speech I've ever
>heard - perhaps my British ears respond differently from yours.
>
There are many Ulster accents and many American accents so we
can't rule out the possibility that there is one Ulster accent
that sounds very similar to one American accent.
But my English ears have never heard such a similarity during
over three decades in Ulster. But of course my exposure to
American accents has been largely via TV.
jerry_f...@yahoo.com
/The Story of English/, suggested by FCS among his flights of fancy,
is searchable at Amazon. It says New England accents are mostly
descended from the East Anglian of the time, with influences from
Yorkshire, Devonshire, and Kent. The Virginia accent is mostly from
the West Country.
--
Jerry Friedman
rwalker
"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
news:75cot35n7nprihb29...@4ax.com...
snip
>
> But my English ears have never heard such a similarity during
> over three decades in Ulster. But of course my exposure to
> American accents has been largely via TV.
>
>
It's been my experience that American television gives very short shrift to
a lot of local and regional American accents. What you get from TV is
horribly homogenized.
Rob (Am. English.)
rwalker
"Harry Lippitz" <johnsmith@micro$oft.com> wrote in message
news:0AUCj.4817$R_4....@newsb.telia.net...
snip
Well, if it makes you happy to believe all this.....
R H Draney
>
>I was wondering where America's distinctive accent comes from.
Mine comes from my upper chest and throat...some other Americans seem to have
accents that come from the sinus passages....r
--
What good is being an executive if you never get to execute anyone?
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
Indeed. It is very noticeable. The exceptions are in news
reports in which something has happened somewhere and a local
inhabitant is being interviewed.
Peter Moylan
> One interesting point regarding surnames is that Australia was populated
> with convicts, rersulting in surnames such as "Swindler", "Ransom", and
> "Theif". The USA was populated with pioneers, priests and religious freaks,
> resulting in names with other historical origins such as "Pilgrim", "Crier",
> and "Hooker".
I've never heard of an Australian with the name "Swindler" or "Thief"
(with either spelling). The names "Ransom", "Pilgrim", and "Hooker" do
exist in Australia, although I wouldn't call them common.
Dan Leifker
> It would be interesting to hear how people spoke English 300 years
> ago. Are there any people involved in such research. Any links online?
When I was lived in Maryland I learned about a tiny island in the
Chesapeake Bay called Tangier Island. Wikipedia claims that:
"The tiny island community has attracted the attention of linguists
because its people speak a unique dialect of American English,
hypothesized to be nearly unchanged since the days of its first
occupation by English colonists. Each of the original surnames and
several of the present surnames on the island originated in the British
Isles, particularly in Scotland, and the accent has a distinctly Celtic
flavor, similar to those in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Cornwall, four
of the six Celtic nations."
Sadly, I couldn't find any links to more information or to online audio
samples, but I do remember watching a TV show in the 1980s about
language, and they interviewed several people from Tangier Island. To
my ear, they sounded very roughly somewhere between modern American
Southern and modern BrE. I remember my shock at hearing native
Americans speaking in such a (from my perspective) strange,
incomprehensible dialect.
It's really a remote place... I seem to recall also that residents of
Tangier Island are exempt for jury duty in Virginia courts. Another
example of linguistic petrification from isolation, I guess.
dleifker
John Holmes
>
> /The Story of English/, suggested by FCS among his flights of fancy,
> is searchable at Amazon. It says New England accents are mostly
> descended from the East Anglian of the time, with influences from
> Yorkshire, Devonshire, and Kent. The Virginia accent is mostly from
> the West Country.
The TV series made from the book was very good too, since you could
listen to examples of the accents. Unfortunately it looks like it has
never been released on DVD. I wonder why?
--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au
Harry Lippitz
>> with convicts, rersulting in surnames such as "Swindler", "Ransom", and
>> "Theif". The USA was populated with pioneers, priests and religious
>> freaks, resulting in names with other historical origins such as
>> "Pilgrim", "Crier", and "Hooker".
> I've never heard of an Australian with the name "Swindler" or "Thief"
> (with either spelling). The names "Ransom", "Pilgrim", and "Hooker" do
> exist in Australia, although I wouldn't call them common.
When I worked over there I noticed the name at the foot of the employees
pention fund annual report. The CEO was called "Swindler", which I thought
it was hillarious, although no-one else reacted.
Pilgrim (or Palgrim) is reasonably common. My own real (British name) is
Lethall, but that is better than "De-ath" of french origin.
H
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
My best friend at primary school in England was called Peter
De'ath.
"De'ath" was two syllables with "De" pronounced "dee" and "ath"
with a short "a": /&T/.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<johnsmith@micro$oft.com> wrote:
> My own real (British name) is
>Lethall,
I had to read that three times before realising the point you
were making. The name Lethall is unfamiliar to me, and by
default I "heard" the "e" as short as in Lennon, Lethbridge,
Letchworth, and other personal and place names.
I started wondering whether it was pronounced Let-hall, Let'all,
Leth-all, or something else. Only after that did I recognise the
possible deadly pronunciation.
Donna Richoux
> On 16/03/08 05:29, Harry Lippitz wrote:
>
> > One interesting point regarding surnames is that Australia was populated
> > with convicts, rersulting in surnames such as "Swindler", "Ransom", and
> > "Theif".
The premise that somehow the surnames of English settlers were acquired
or substantially altered in colonial times is, of course, really absurd.
Now, if you were talking about aboriginal populations needing to acquire
European names...
Be that as it may, here's some info from _ The Oxford Dictionary of
English Surnames_.
It traces "Ransom" back to "Randesson, Randson" in the 1300s (son of
Rand or Randolph).
It has no "Swindler" as a surname, although there are a dozen names
starting with "Swin-". The closest is "Swindell," from Swindale,
Skelton, Yorkshire.
It knows of nothing resembling "Thief" or "Theif."
>>The USA was populated with pioneers, priests and religious freaks,
> > resulting in names with other historical origins such as "Pilgrim", "Crier",
> > and "Hooker".
Are you shifting from "People's last names were changed 200-400 years
ago, like nicknames" to "Their existing names determined their destiny
and their personality"? You think someone descended from, say, a pilgrim
of 1200, is therefore more likely to go settle in the New World in 1600?
>
> I've never heard of an Australian with the name "Swindler" or "Thief"
> (with either spelling). The names "Ransom", "Pilgrim", and "Hooker" do
> exist in Australia, although I wouldn't call them common.
ODES:
"Hooker" has an unusually old date of 975 in the Latin form "Hocere,"
and then as Hoker, Hokere, Houker, etc, in later centuries. The spelling
"Hooker" shows up in 1558. Several explanations are given -- maker or
hooks, user of hooks in agriculture, a dweller by a hillspur.
"Pilgrim" in over a dozen variations begins to be recorded as a name in
1189.
"Crier" starts as "le Criur" in 1221. Being the town crier was of course
a perfectly respectable and responsible job.
Harry, I believe you've only been around a few days, and you may have
been misled by the general chitchat and bonhomie about the standards
around here.
--
Best wishes -- Donna Richoux
Dan Leifker
> In article <i8adnaNnSuCuOEHa...@comcast.com>,
> Dan Leifker <dlei...@leifker.com> wrote:
>
>> Sadly, I couldn't find any links to more information or to online audio
>> samples, but I do remember watching a TV show in the 1980s about
>> language, and they interviewed several people from Tangier Island. To
>> my ear, they sounded very roughly somewhere between modern American
>> Southern and modern BrE. I remember my shock at hearing native
>> Americans speaking in such a (from my perspective) strange,
>> incomprehensible dialect.
>
>
> <http://web.ku.edu/idea/index.htm>
>
> They don't have a search function though...
>
No contributions from Tangier Island people, but thanks for the link.
However, they had a nice audio snippet from a "caucasian male, born
1938, Dripping Springs, Texas, highly educated and with a rich Texas
dialect" that I found oddly comforting.
dleifker (TxE)
Mike Page
--
Mike Page
Google me at port.ac.uk if you need to send an email.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
I don't know what happened to him. Our friendship was at school.
I don't recall visiting one another's homes. The school was a
state primary school, Chater, Watford, Herts. We would have been
aged 11+ in 1954.
I would be surprised if anyone had gone from there to an
independent school such as Winchester.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
My mental arithmetic has not improved since I was at Chater.
Computer says: 1948.
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>
>I would be surprised if anyone had gone from there to an
>independent school such as Winchester.
It is not impossible I suppose. There could have been temporary
social and financial disruptions during WWII which took a little
time to resolve after the war.
tony cooper
wrote:
Patricia Cornwell's "Isle of Dogs" is set on Tangier Island. It was
an odd style of writing for her, but I wouldn't have reviewed it as
negatively as:
http://www.epinions.com/content_144421392004
She doesn't do humor well.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida
Hatunen
<rwa...@despammed.com> wrote:
"Homogenized", perhaps. But why "horribly"?
--
************* DAVE HATUNEN (hat...@cox.net) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *
Hatunen
Surely this is much the same as when a BBC talking head
interviews a local native in the UK.
Hatunen
<not.jim....@verizon.not> wrote:
> FCS wrote on Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:48:21 -0700 (PDT):
>
> F> On Mar 15, 11:22 am, Magnus.Morab...@gmail.com wrote:
> ??>> Hi,
> ??>>
> ??>> I was wondering where America's distinctive accent comes
> ??>> from. I was watching an Australian film last night and you
> ??>> can really her the similarities between Australian and
> ??>> Cockney. There doesn't seem to be much of an Irish
> ??>> influence despite the close connections.
> ??>>
> ??>> Boston has a distinct accent but again I can't connect it
> ??>> with Ireland.
> ??>>
> ??>> Which European accents have most influenced American
> ??>> accents?
> ??>>
> ??>> Have other peoples influenced the accent?
> ??>>
> ??>> It would be interesting to hear how people spoke English
> ??>> 300 years ago. Are there any people involved in such
> ??>> research. Any links online?
>
> I don't have Mangus' post but, as he indicates, there are many
>more than one "American accent". I can even pick out the kids
>from my county and distinguish them from those from the other
>side of the Potomac river! This Montgomery county accent is
>something of a hybrid because parents have mostly come from
>elsewhere.
Nevertheless, the USA has always had far less differentiation by
accent the even a few counties in the UK.
>
>James Silverton
>Potomac, Maryland
>
>E-mail, with obvious alterations:
>not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not
R H Draney
>
>In article <v97st312lgeh8d1nd...@4ax.com>,
> Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:43:14 -0400, "rwalker"
>> <rwa...@despammed.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
>> >news:75cot35n7nprihb29...@4ax.com...
>> >snip
>> >
>> >>
>> >> But my English ears have never heard such a similarity during
>> >> over three decades in Ulster. But of course my exposure to
>> >> American accents has been largely via TV.
>> >>
>> >It's been my experience that American television gives very short shrift to
>> >a lot of local and regional American accents. What you get from TV is
>> >horribly homogenized.
>>
>> "Homogenized", perhaps. But why "horribly"?
>
>
>Ever watched Law & Order? For a show (ok, shows) set in NYC there's a
>dearth of New York accents, isn't there?
>
>I never watched Dallas, but how many of those characters had an
>authentic Dallas accent?
>
>Isn't there a daytime soap set in New England? Are the accents right?
>
>Even on Friday Night Lights the accents are quite subdued for small-town
>Texas, and that show does much better than most.
The only plausible Carolina accent in "The Andy Griffith Show" belonged to Andy
himself....r
Matthew Huntbach
> On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:56:34 +0000, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
> <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>> On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:43:14 -0400, "rwalker"
>> <rwa...@despammed.com> wrote:
>>> It's been my experience that American television gives very short shrift to
>>> a lot of local and regional American accents. What you get from TV is
>>> horribly homogenized.
>> Indeed. It is very noticeable. The exceptions are in news
>> reports in which something has happened somewhere and a local
>> inhabitant is being interviewed.
> Surely this is much the same as when a BBC talking head
> interviews a local native in the UK.
Yes, it is very noticeable - you will generally hear a huge difference
between the accent used by a British professional media person and
a member of the general public interviewed as part of a news report, or
a competition winner, or the like.
Matthew Huntbach
Matthew Huntbach
There was a RC priest, chaplain of Sussex university while I was there, by
that name, his age would be about right to be the same person.
Matthew Huntbach
Matthew Huntbach
> On 16/03/08 05:29, Harry Lippitz wrote:
>> One interesting point regarding surnames is that Australia was populated
>> with convicts, rersulting in surnames such as "Swindler", "Ransom", and
>> "Theif". The USA was populated with pioneers, priests and religious
>> freaks, resulting in names with other historical origins such as
>> "Pilgrim", "Crier", and "Hooker".
> I've never heard of an Australian with the name "Swindler" or "Thief"
> (with either spelling). The names "Ransom", "Pilgrim", and "Hooker" do
> exist in Australia, although I wouldn't call them common.
Surnames were already universally established in Britain by the time the
USA and America were populated by white people of British origin.
The settlers would use the surnames they already had, not invent new ones.
Matthew Huntbach
Donna Richoux
> <cathal_cam...@mail.ie> wrote in message
>> Listen to these Irish people from Ulster -
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H347A2jOouU
>>
>> Irish and Scottish accents have had very strong influences on those
of
>> America, especially in the south.
>> [...]
>
> The Ulster accents don't sound at all like any American speech I've ever
> heard - perhaps my British ears respond differently from yours.
First, I have to agree that accent perception is a very individual and
variable thing. We've listened to recordings by the same speaker
(Alistair Cooke) where the American listeners have said "He sounds
English (British) because of A, B, and C" and the UK listeners have
said, "He sounds American because of D, E, and F." So I would not expect
you to notice the similarities an American might.
From my own perspective as an American hearing a great many speakers
throughout the UK on television, I agree that there is a certain Ulster
accent, or group of accents (not just anybody from the region), that
resembles American speech more than most, especially in overall flat
sentence intonation. You have to disregard particular vowels, like "air"
for our "er/ir/ur." I've heard this accent-pattern from Donegal (north
Ireland) and western Scotland as well.
On the tape mentioned above, it comes mostly from the woman on the right
(at 1:50) who speaks with the least "lilt" (the upturn at the end of
sentences). The nicely rhotic R is important, too. There are whole
phrases that might be American, although words like "thanking" (for
"thinking") and "wuth" (for "with") are jarring.
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Matthew Huntbach
>> Listen to these Irish people from Ulster -
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H347A2jOouU
>>
>> Irish and Scottish accents have had very strong influences on those of
>> America, especially in the south.
>> [...]
>
> There may have been influences but that does not necessarily
> mena that the influenced American accent will in total sound
> like the influencing Irish or Scottish accent.
>> The Ulster accents don't sound at all like any American speech I've ever
>> heard - perhaps my British ears respond differently from yours.
> There are many Ulster accents and many American accents so we
> can't rule out the possibility that there is one Ulster accent
> that sounds very similar to one American accent.
>
> But my English ears have never heard such a similarity during
> over three decades in Ulster. But of course my exposure to
> American accents has been largely via TV.
I'm not sure it is one accent, just features of it that have got
into American English. There does seem to me to be a correspondence
between the nasality of Ulster English and the nasality of American
English. It happens I've heard a couple of Irish accents over the
weekend, and on one of them half-heard it did sound oddly American.
It's a sort of trick the ear plays - once one has tuned in to what the
accent actually is, the Americanness disappears, it's as if one is
trying accents before picking the right one and tuning in. So it may
just be the odd shared features which bring to mind one accent when
another is being spoken.
Matthew Huntbach
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
I corrected the date to 1948. Would that still fit?
Matthew Huntbach
Yes. I can't find him by Google, which may mean he's not around or
at least no longer a priest these days.
Matthew Huntbach
Barbara Bailey
news:K8edncmDcMhyvUPa...@giganews.com:
> In article <v97st312lgeh8d1nd...@4ax.com>,
> Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:43:14 -0400, "rwalker"
>> <rwa...@despammed.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
>> >news:75cot35n7nprihb29...@4ax.com...
>> >snip
>> >
>> >>
>> >> But my English ears have never heard such a similarity during
>> >> over three decades in Ulster. But of course my exposure to
>> >> American accents has been largely via TV.
>> >>
>> >It's been my experience that American television gives very short
>> >shrift to a lot of local and regional American accents. What you
>> >get from TV is horribly homogenized.
>>
>> "Homogenized", perhaps. But why "horribly"?
>
> Well, often characters who SHOULD have accents don't.
>
> Ever watched Law & Order? For a show (ok, shows) set in NYC there's a
> dearth of New York accents, isn't there?
>
> I never watched Dallas, but how many of those characters had an
> authentic Dallas accent?
>
> Isn't there a daytime soap set in New England? Are the accents right?
>
> Even on Friday Night Lights the accents are quite subdued for
> small-town Texas, and that show does much better than most.
If I may chime in, in addition to the lack of accent where there should
be one, there's the fact that if an accent is used, it's almost always
one of a set of extreme, verging-on-parody accents from somewhere in the
general quadrant of the country it's supposed to be from. Someone who's
supposed to be from New Orleans has the same accent as someone who's
supposed to be from Atlanta, which is the same as someone who's supposed
to be from the Tidewater Virginia area. And the accent that they use is
as likely as not going to be the one that you'd really hear in the
mountains of Tennessee -- but on TV it's what a "Southerner" sounds like.
The same thing happens to characters who are supposed to be from the
Northeast -- if they have an accent at all, it's Boston, Brooklyn or "New
Joisey", and it's the broadest possible variant of the variant. Everybody
from the Great Plains westward sounds the same, and that one's not even
any real, identifiable regional accent; it's a mish-mash of ear-catching
fragments of real accents. And if you're from the Midwest, you either
sound like a born-and-bred Southside Chicagoan, like someone from
"Fargo", or like a TV news anchor, with no accent at all.
It been homogenized the same way that a pork chop, a salad, some home
fries, and a cup of coffee put in a blender and turned on for five
minutes is. Homogenized, yes, but into something horrible.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> The only plausible Carolina accent in "The Andy Griffith Show"
> belonged to Andy himself....r
Who grew up in North Carolina. Looking at Wikipedia, I see that there
were a few other southerners: Don Knotts (Barney) grew up in West
Virginia and Jim Nabors (Gomer) and George Lindsey (Goober) grew up in
Alabama.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Marge: You liked Rashomon.
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |Homer: That's not how *I* remember
Palo Alto, CA 94304 | it.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 19:14:35 GMT, "James Silverton"
> <not.jim....@verizon.not> wrote:
>
>> I don't have Mangus' post but, as he indicates, there are many more
>>than one "American accent". I can even pick out the kids from my
>>county and distinguish them from those from the other side of the
>>Potomac river! This Montgomery county accent is something of a
>>hybrid because parents have mostly come from elsewhere.
>
> Nevertheless, the USA has always had far less differentiation by
> accent the even a few counties in the UK.
This is the natural linguistic conservatism of the frontier. As you
get less and less frequent interaction with the linguistic "center",
you tend to miss new fads and hold onto forms that disappear "back
home". It's also why you see a distinction within the US between
dialects from places that had more contact with England (e.g., Boston
and Virginia) picking up novel features like loss of rhoticism while
dialects further west didn't.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Of course, over the first 10^-10
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |seconds and 10^-30 cubic
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |centimeters it averages out to
|zero, but when you look in
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |detail....
(650)857-7572 | Philip Morrison
Barbara Bailey
news:7ig12t...@hpl.hp.com:
> R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net> writes:
>
>> The only plausible Carolina accent in "The Andy Griffith Show"
>> belonged to Andy himself....r
>
> Who grew up in North Carolina. Looking at Wikipedia, I see that there
> were a few other southerners: Don Knotts (Barney) grew up in West
> Virginia and Jim Nabors (Gomer) and George Lindsey (Goober) grew up in
> Alabama.
And Gomer and Goober's accents were pretty accurate rural northern Alabama
accents.
Hatunen
<g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopiesofposts> wrote:
>In article <v97st312lgeh8d1nd...@4ax.com>,
> Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>> On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:43:14 -0400, "rwalker"
>> <rwa...@despammed.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
>> >news:75cot35n7nprihb29...@4ax.com...
>> >snip
>> >
>> >>
>> >> But my English ears have never heard such a similarity during
>> >> over three decades in Ulster. But of course my exposure to
>> >> American accents has been largely via TV.
>> >>
>> >It's been my experience that American television gives very short shrift to
>> >a lot of local and regional American accents. What you get from TV is
>> >horribly homogenized.
>>
>> "Homogenized", perhaps. But why "horribly"?
>
>Well, often characters who SHOULD have accents don't.
>
>Ever watched Law & Order? For a show (ok, shows) set in NYC there's a
>dearth of New York accents, isn't there?
And no one on Boston legal has a Boston accent. Nor a harvard
accent.
>I never watched Dallas, but how many of those characters had an
>authentic Dallas accent?
>
>Isn't there a daytime soap set in New England? Are the accents right?
>
>Even on Friday Night Lights the accents are quite subdued for small-town
>Texas, and that show does much better than most.
But why is this "horrible"? Personally, I have much more serious
things that I consider horrible.
Hatunen
wrote:
Which is appropriate, since Griffith was born in Mt Airy, NC, a
town that was mentioned frequently on the show.
Hatunen
Like the language, though, some surnames did mutate in the
Americas.
Hatunen
New Orleans is kind of a special case, since a New Orleans accent
seems closer to Brooklyn than to even, say, Baton Rouge.
[...]
>It been homogenized the same way that a pork chop, a salad, some home
>fries, and a cup of coffee put in a blender and turned on for five
>minutes is. Homogenized, yes, but into something horrible.
Homogenized into the Standard American accent. Why is this
"horrible"? I should think that word should be preserved for the
likes of genocide in Darfur.
If, though, you are claiming that the Standard American accent is
itself horrible, that is a rather different argument than concern
about the verisimilitude of speech on some shows on the telly. I
really don't go to television shows for verisimilitude about
anything at all.
tony cooper
>
>And no one on Boston legal has a Boston accent. Nor a harvard
>accent.
While I understand your point, I would not expect the lawyers working
for a prestigious Boston law firm to be from Boston or even the East
Coast. If you grow up in Des Moines, go to Harvard Law and exit a
distinguished graduate, you are likely to seek a position in Boston,
New York, or some other major city.
What I would expect at a Boston law firm is the non-lawyers to have
local accents. Not the receptionist, though. They always seem to
have British accents. An attractive female with a British accent
seems to be a must at the front desk of a major law firm.
"Crane, Pool & Schmidt" (the firm in "Boston Legal") doesn't seem to
employ anyone but lawyers. One wonders who does the filing and runs
errands.
R H Draney
>>himself....r
>
>Which is appropriate, since Griffith was born in Mt Airy, NC, a
>town that was mentioned frequently on the show.
Actually, I think Mayberry was supposed to be a fictionalized version of Mt
Airy...I don't remember anyone on the show ever mentioning Mt Airy (Mt Pilot,
yes, and occasionally Raleigh)....
Don Knotts and the Pyle cousins were mentioned as real Southerners, but not real
Tarheels...meanwhile, the town was filled with supposed lifelong residents like
Aunt Bee (New York City), Floyd the barber (Los Angeles), Otis the drunk
(Michigan), Mayor Stoner (Utah) and Ernest T Bass (Bronx)...we'll leave Howard
Sprague and Helen Campbell out this because they were actually described as
having moved from elsewhere....
(People think of Ernest T as appearing frequently on the show, but he was
actually only in five episodes...Allan Melvin, on the other hand, appeared nine
times, but as a different character each time)....r
Hatunen
<tony_co...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 09:58:32 -0700, Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> wrote:
>
>>
>>And no one on Boston legal has a Boston accent. Nor a harvard
>>accent.
>
>While I understand your point, I would not expect the lawyers working
>for a prestigious Boston law firm to be from Boston or even the East
>Coast. If you grow up in Des Moines, go to Harvard Law and exit a
>distinguished graduate, you are likely to seek a position in Boston,
>New York, or some other major city.
>
>What I would expect at a Boston law firm is the non-lawyers to have
>local accents.
Yes. They're included in "no one".
>Not the receptionist, though. They always seem to
>have British accents. An attractive female with a British accent
>seems to be a must at the front desk of a major law firm.
>
>"Crane, Pool & Schmidt" (the firm in "Boston Legal") doesn't seem to
>employ anyone but lawyers. One wonders who does the filing and runs
>errands.
They're down two floors.
Hatunen
<g.k...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopiesofposts> wrote:
>In article <mm8tt39mu4083mo7p...@4ax.com>,
>It's not horrible, it's 'horribly homogenized'.
Why "horribly"?
Mike Lyle
> On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:50:30 -0600, Lewis
>
>
>
>
>
> >In article <mm8tt39mu4083mo7pfldprid6i0ej9l...@4ax.com>,> >> <g.kr...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopiesofposts> wrote:
>
> >> >In article <v97st312lgeh8d1ndfhk0rgg2l4ms0o...@4ax.com>,> >> >> <rwal...@despammed.com> wrote:
>
> >> >> >"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
> >> >> >news:75cot35n7nprihb29...@4ax.com...
> >> >> >snip
>
> >> >> >> But my English ears have never heard such a similarity during
> >> >> >> over three decades in Ulster. But of course my exposure to
> >> >> >> American accents has been largely via TV.
>
> >> >> >It's been my experience that American television gives very short shrift
> >> >> >to
> >> >> >a lot of local and regional American accents. �What you get from TV is
> >> >> >horribly homogenized.
>
> >> >> "Homogenized", perhaps. But why "horribly"?
>
> >> >Well, often characters who SHOULD have accents don't.
>
> >> >Ever watched Law & Order? �For a show (ok, shows) set in NYC there's a
> >> >dearth of New York accents, isn't there?
>
> >> And no one on Boston legal has a Boston accent. Nor a harvard
> >> accent.
>
> >> >I never watched Dallas, but how many of those characters had an
> >> >authentic Dallas accent?
>
> >> >Isn't there a daytime soap set in New England? �Are the accents right?
>
> >> >Even on Friday Night Lights the accents are quite subdued for small-town
> >> >Texas, and that show does much better than most.
>
> >> But why is this "horrible"? Personally, I have much more serious
> >> things that I consider horrible.
>
> >It's not horrible, it's 'horribly homogenized'.
>
> Why "horribly"?
You don't think there's a major and irreparable loss if a sub-culture
is hastened toward extinction? You do think that cultural
homogenization is /not/ horrible?
--
Mike.
Mike Lyle
scale, so there's little more to be said. But smaller things matter
too, you know.
--
Mike.
Hatunen
<mike_l...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>On Mar 17, 8:49?pm, Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>> On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:50:30 -0600, Lewis
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> <g.kr...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopiesofposts> wrote:
>> >In article <mm8tt39mu4083mo7pfldprid6i0ej9l...@4ax.com>,
>> > Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>> >> On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:42:39 -0600, Lewis
>> >> <g.kr...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopiesofposts> wrote:
>>
>> >> >In article <v97st312lgeh8d1ndfhk0rgg2l4ms0o...@4ax.com>,
>> >> > Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>> >> >> On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:43:14 -0400, "rwalker"
>> >> >> <rwal...@despammed.com> wrote:
>>
>> >> >> >"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
>> >> >> >news:75cot35n7nprihb29...@4ax.com...
>> >> >> >snip
>>
>> >> >> >> But my English ears have never heard such a similarity during
>> >> >> >> over three decades in Ulster. But of course my exposure to
>> >> >> >> American accents has been largely via TV.
>>
>> >> >> >It's been my experience that American television gives very short shrift
>> >> >> >to
>> >> >> >a lot of local and regional American accents. ?What you get from TV is
>> >> >> >horribly homogenized.
>>
>> >> >> "Homogenized", perhaps. But why "horribly"?
>>
>> >> >Well, often characters who SHOULD have accents don't.
>>
>> >> >Ever watched Law & Order? ?For a show (ok, shows) set in NYC there's a
>> >> >dearth of New York accents, isn't there?
>>
>> >> And no one on Boston legal has a Boston accent. Nor a harvard
>> >> accent.
>>
>> >> >I never watched Dallas, but how many of those characters had an
>> >> >authentic Dallas accent?
>>
>> >> >Isn't there a daytime soap set in New England? ?Are the accents right?
>>
>> >> >Even on Friday Night Lights the accents are quite subdued for small-town
>> >> >Texas, and that show does much better than most.
>>
>> >> But why is this "horrible"? Personally, I have much more serious
>> >> things that I consider horrible.
>>
>> >It's not horrible, it's 'horribly homogenized'.
>>
>> Why "horribly"?
>
>You don't think there's a major and irreparable loss if a sub-culture
>is hastened toward extinction?
No. Well, I suppose it might be irreparable, but it's not major.
>You do think that cultural homogenization is /not/ horrible?
Why should I? And I don't really see convergence of accents as a
"cultural homogenizaion". the people in Maine will still have a
somewhat distinct culture even if that old Downeast accent has
softened. On the other hand, we here in the Desert Southwest have
a distinct culture even though our accents are pretty much
Standard American. See, e.g., the book, "The Nine Nations of
North America" by Joel Garreau, who says I live in the nation of
MexAmerica. The culture here is more in danger from immigrant
Easterners who won't give up their Eastern ways.
Incidentally, reading the section of that book regarding
MexAmerica might go a ways toward explaining why The Fence is
such a bone of contention down here.
Hatunen
<mike_l...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>On Mar 17, 10:52 pm, Mike Lyle <mike_lyle...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>> On Mar 17, 8:49?pm, Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:50:30 -0600, Lewis
>>
>> > <g.kr...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopiesofposts> wrote:
>> > >In article <mm8tt39mu4083mo7pfldprid6i0ej9l...@4ax.com>,
>> > > Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>> > >> On Mon, 17 Mar 2008 01:42:39 -0600, Lewis
>> > >> <g.kr...@gmail.com.dontsendmecopiesofposts> wrote:
>>
>> > >> >In article <v97st312lgeh8d1ndfhk0rgg2l4ms0o...@4ax.com>,
>> > >> > Hatunen <hatu...@cox.net> wrote:
>>
>> > >> >> On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:43:14 -0400, "rwalker"
>> > >> >> <rwal...@despammed.com> wrote:
>>
>> > >> >> >"Peter Duncanson (BrE)" <m...@peterduncanson.net> wrote in message
>> > >> >> >news:75cot35n7nprihb29...@4ax.com...
>> > >> >> >snip
>>
>> > >> >> >> But my English ears have never heard such a similarity during
>> > >> >> >> over three decades in Ulster. But of course my exposure to
>> > >> >> >> American accents has been largely via TV.
>>
>> > >> >> >It's been my experience that American television gives very short shrift
>> > >> >> >to
>> > >> >> >a lot of local and regional American accents. ?What you get from TV is
>> > >> >> >horribly homogenized.
>>
>> > >> >> "Homogenized", perhaps. But why "horribly"?
>>
>> > >> >Well, often characters who SHOULD have accents don't.
>>
>> > >> >Ever watched Law & Order? ?For a show (ok, shows) set in NYC there's a
>> > >> >dearth of New York accents, isn't there?
>>
>> > >> And no one on Boston legal has a Boston accent. Nor a harvard
>> > >> accent.
>>
>> > >> >I never watched Dallas, but how many of those characters had an
>> > >> >authentic Dallas accent?
>>
>> > >> >Isn't there a daytime soap set in New England? ?Are the accents right?
>>
>> > >> >Even on Friday Night Lights the accents are quite subdued for small-town
>> > >> >Texas, and that show does much better than most.
>>
>> > >> But why is this "horrible"? Personally, I have much more serious
>> > >> things that I consider horrible.
>>
>> > >It's not horrible, it's 'horribly homogenized'.
>>
>> > Why "horribly"?
>>
>> You don't think there's a major and irreparable loss if a sub-culture
>> is hastened toward extinction? You do think that cultural
>> homogenization is /not/ horrible?
>>
>I've just read further down. I find you're thinking on the Darfur
>scale, so there's little more to be said. But smaller things matter
>too, you know.
It's not a question of whether they matter, it's a question of
how much they matter, and whether scare words like "horrible" are
appropriate. Inappropriate use of words like "horrible" and
"fascist" and the likes go much further toward causing harm than
whether a South Carolinan starts pronouncing "r".
American regional accents were quite a bit stronger when I was
young in the 1940s. Yeah, it's kind of unfortunate the diversity
is fading, but come on, it's not the Holocaust, and it does
represent a more united nation.
I was a child in a Finnish "ghetto" in my ssmall home city in
Ohio. Three or four square miles of nothing but Finns. Every
young child was a towhead. We hd our own Finnish Lutheran Church,
a Finn (social) Hall, Finnish bakeries and stores and all that. I
went back last summer for the first time in nearly fory years.
It's gone now, occupied in large part by Blacks. The older Finns
have died off and the younger Finns have all assimilated and
moved on. I miss it, even got a little tear in my eye looking at
the house my grandfather built, but that's life.
rwalker
"Barbara Bailey" <rabr...@yayhu.comm> wrote in message
news:Xns9A645408C526Er...@194.177.96.78...
snip
Homogenized, yes, but into something horrible.
_____________
Exactly. Well put and precisely what I meant.
Garrett Wollman
Mike Lyle <mike_l...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>You don't think there's a major and irreparable loss if a sub-culture
>is hastened toward extinction? You do think that cultural
>homogenization is /not/ horrible?
No. Next question.
-GAWollman
(for every subculture hastening toward extinction, another one is born
to take its place)
--
Garrett A. Wollman | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are
wol...@csail.mit.edu| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry
Opinions not those | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape
of MIT or CSAIL. | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness
Mike Lyle
> Hatunen <hat...@cox.net> writes:
[...]
>> Nevertheless, the USA has always had far less differentiation by
>> accent the even a few counties in the UK.
>
> This is the natural linguistic conservatism of the frontier. As you
> get less and less frequent interaction with the linguistic "center",
> you tend to miss new fads and hold onto forms that disappear "back
> home". It's also why you see a distinction within the US between
> dialects from places that had more contact with England (e.g., Boston
> and Virginia) picking up novel features like loss of rhoticism while
> dialects further west didn't.
I've always seen this as analogous to the evolution of animal species.
At least as I understand it, typically, the closer you get to the home
of the most significant common ancestor, the more variation in phenotype
you tend to find. (Perhaps others have figures to confirm or
contradict.)
--
Mike.
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
Mike Lyle
> On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:07:51 +0000, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
> <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>
>>
>> I would be surprised if anyone had gone from there to an
>> independent school such as Winchester.
>
> It is not impossible I suppose. There could have been temporary
> social and financial disruptions during WWII which took a little
> time to resolve after the war.
I wonder if Mike was indulging in a little whimsy there.
Stupot
> On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 04:48:21 -0700 (PDT), FCS
> <sipst...@my-deja.com> wrote:
>
>
>> The problem is that various pronunciations have come from
>> various other languages, some of them now dead, over the
>> years and the influence of Chinese, many of whom worked
>> building the railroads as cheap labour coming from a literate
>> culture in an ideogrammatic mode with variations in phonology,
>> African slaves and servants shipped en masse forming linguae
>> labores amongest themselves as well as the pidgins and creoles
>> and lingua francae of the European traders and American plantain
>> managers, and also the indigenous Native languages have all
>> left their marks in various ways in various areas.
>
> "As God is my witness, I'll never go hungry again - as long as I have
> this plantain!"
>
Banana republic.....and the living is easy......
OK, so it doesn't scan too well.
--
Stupot http://insignity.blogspot.com
Peter Duncanson (BrE)
<mike_l...@REMOVETHISyahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>Peter Duncanson (BrE) wrote:
>> On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:07:51 +0000, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
>> <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> I would be surprised if anyone had gone from there to an
>>> independent school such as Winchester.
>>
>> It is not impossible I suppose. There could have been temporary
>> social and financial disruptions during WWII which took a little
>> time to resolve after the war.
>
>I wonder if Mike was indulging in a little whimsy there.
>
Possibly.
Mike Page
> On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:07:51 +0000, "Peter Duncanson (BrE)"
> <ma...@peterduncanson.net> wrote:
>
>>>> <johnsmith@micro$oft.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>> One interesting point regarding surnames is that Australia was populated
>>>>>>> with convicts, rersulting in surnames such as "Swindler", "Ransom", and
>>>>>>> "Theif". The USA was populated with pioneers, priests and religious
>>>>>>> freaks, resulting in names with other historical origins such as
>>>>>>> "Pilgrim", "Crier", and "Hooker".
>>>>>> I've never heard of an Australian with the name "Swindler" or "Thief"
>>>>>> (with either spelling). The names "Ransom", "Pilgrim", and "Hooker" do
>>>>>> exist in Australia, although I wouldn't call them common.
>>>>> pention fund annual report. The CEO was called "Swindler", which I thought
>>>>> it was hillarious, although no-one else reacted.
>>>>>
>>>>> Pilgrim (or Palgrim) is reasonably common. My own real (British name) is
>>>>> Lethall, but that is better than "De-ath" of french origin.
>>>>>
>>>> My best friend at primary school in England was called Peter
>>>> De'ath.
>>>>
>>>> "De'ath" was two syllables with "De" pronounced "dee" and "ath"
>>>> with a short "a": /&T/.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Did he go on to Winchester and then to read Maths at King's?
>> I don't know what happened to him. Our friendship was at school.
>> I don't recall visiting one another's homes. The school was a
>> state primary school, Chater, Watford, Herts. We would have been
>> aged 11+ in 1954.
>
> Computer says: 1948.
>
>> I would be surprised if anyone had gone from there to an
>> independent school such as Winchester.
>
thereabouts. It seems Peter may be quite a common combination with
De'Ath or D'Eath. A bit of googling shows the one I'm thinking of is
still at Cambridge.
--
Mike Page
Google me at port.ac.uk if you need to send an email.
Mike M
>
> When I was lived in Maryland I learned about a tiny island in the
> Chesapeake Bay called Tangier Island. Wikipedia claims that:
>
> "The tiny island community has attracted the attention of linguists
> because its people speak a unique dialect of American English,
> hypothesized to be nearly unchanged since the days of its first
> occupation by English colonists. Each of the original surnames and
> several of the present surnames on the island originated in the British
> Isles, particularly in Scotland, and the accent has a distinctly Celtic
> flavor, similar to those in Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and Cornwall, four
> of the six Celtic nations."
>
> Sadly, I couldn't find any links to more information or to online audio
> samples, but I do remember watching a TV show in the 1980s about
> language, and they interviewed several people from Tangier Island. To
> my ear, they sounded very roughly somewhere between modern American
> Southern and modern BrE. I remember my shock at hearing native
> Americans speaking in such a (from my perspective) strange,
> incomprehensible dialect.
>
Many years ago, I read an article in National Geographic about a small
island in Chesapeake Bay where the natives supposedly had a "quasi-
British" accent. I can't remember whether it was Tangier, but I DO
remember that it claimed they were mostly descended from English west
country (specifically, Devon) folk, and the accent was said to be very
similar to the current Devon accent. Not "Celtic".
I'd like to hear it.
Mike M
John Kane
think it's Video #6: "Pioneers O Pioneers" The accents are quite similar.
--
John Kane, Kingston ON Canada
John Varela
(in article <47de9a30$0$26076$8826...@free.teranews.com>):
Yes, and the reason is obvious.
The people who came from the British Isles to settle the United States came
pricipally from only a few places (according to D. H. Fischer in "Albion's
Seed"): from East Anglia to Massachusetts, the South of England to Virginia,
the North Midlands to the Delaware, and the Borderlands to the back country
of Virginia and the Carolinas.
So the Massachusetts accent, for example, is based on that of East Anglia
(with later infusions from the Irish, Portuguese, Italians, etc.). Other
British accents were not present. And similarly for other regions of the
country. Many British accents never made it to these shores at all, at least
not in enough numbers to influence anything.
So of course there is more diversity in Britain than in America and, as Mike
says, the same principle applies to the genetic diversity of species
populations. There is more genetic diversity at the place of origin than in
the places of expansion, which is one of the arguments for the "out of
Africa" theory of human evolution.
--
John Varela
Trade NEW lamps for OLD for email.
Richard Fontana
>>
>>And no one on Boston legal has a Boston accent. Nor a harvard
>>accent.
>
> While I understand your point, I would not expect the lawyers working
> for a prestigious Boston law firm to be from Boston or even the East
> Coast. If you grow up in Des Moines, go to Harvard Law and exit a
> distinguished graduate, you are likely to seek a position in Boston,
> New York, or some other major city.
Hmm. I'd say it's very plausible that the Des Moines fellow would end up
working in New York (LCIA), or, say, D.C., but not as likely that he'd end
up in Bwahston. For lawyers, Bwahston is nowadays a somewhat provincial
place (as most places are), and I'd expect most who end up in law firms
there to have school ties to the region (as so many people do), or to be
from the Northeast (LEIA), if not the region itself. But it's certainly
far from impossible that he'd end up in Bwahston.
> What I would expect at a Boston law firm is the non-lawyers to have
> local accents. Not the receptionist, though. They always seem to
> have British accents. An attractive female with a British accent
> seems to be a must at the front desk of a major law firm.
That last one hasn't been true IMLE. But I agree with the other points,
in a less strong sense. I think secretaries (nka "assistants") are most
likely to have local accents, though even that's been changing in recent
decades, while paralegals aren't particularly more likely to have them
than lawyers are.
Also, there hasn't been a "Harvard accent" since, I dunno, Winchester was
graduated from the Hahvad Med School.
--
Richard Fontana
Sara Lorimer
> On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 20:43:14 -0400, "rwalker"
> <rwa...@despammed.com> wrote:
> >It's been my experience that American television gives very short shrift to
> >a lot of local and regional American accents. What you get from TV is
> >horribly homogenized.
> >
> >Rob (Am. English.)
> >
> Indeed. It is very noticeable. The exceptions are in news
> reports in which something has happened somewhere and a local
> inhabitant is being interviewed.
Sometimes subtitles are used in those situations.
--
SML
John Holmes
> Alan Jones <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> <cathal_cam...@mail.ie> wrote in message
>
>>> Listen to these Irish people from Ulster -
>>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H347A2jOouU
>>>
>>> Irish and Scottish accents have had very strong influences on those
> of
>>> America, especially in the south.
>>> [...]
>>
>> The Ulster accents don't sound at all like any American speech I've
>> ever heard - perhaps my British ears respond differently from yours.
>
> First, I have to agree that accent perception is a very individual and
> variable thing. We've listened to recordings by the same speaker
> (Alistair Cooke) where the American listeners have said "He sounds
> English (British) because of A, B, and C" and the UK listeners have
> said, "He sounds American because of D, E, and F." So I would not
> expect you to notice the similarities an American might.
From the neutral corner (non-Irish, non-American), I agree. It helps to
stand back a bit in terms of familiarity with the accents. A question of
trees and forests.
I remember a chap from Ulster who lived down the road when I was growing
up -- almost everybody who didn't know him well thought he was American,
despite the obvious clue that his name was Paddy. It wasn't all that
common to hear fresh Irish accents in Australia in the 1960s. Most of
the Irish immigration here was in the 19th and earliest 20th century.
I have heard a lot more northern Irish accents in the years since. Not
many of them sounded as American as he did, but every now and then I
hear one who does. As you say below, it is a certain type of northern
Irish accent, though I couldn't say exactly what.
> From my own perspective as an American hearing a great many speakers
> throughout the UK on television, I agree that there is a certain
> Ulster accent, or group of accents (not just anybody from the
> region), that resembles American speech more than most, especially in
> overall flat sentence intonation. You have to disregard particular
> vowels, like "air" for our "er/ir/ur." I've heard this accent-pattern
> from Donegal (north Ireland) and western Scotland as well.
>
> On the tape mentioned above, it comes mostly from the woman on the
> right (at 1:50) who speaks with the least "lilt" (the upturn at the
> end of sentences). The nicely rhotic R is important, too. There are
> whole phrases that might be American, although words like "thanking"
> (for "thinking") and "wuth" (for "with") are jarring.
Yes, it sounds to my ears just as you describe, though even that
"thanking" might have influenced the "thayngking" of some southern
accents (did somebody mention the Andy Griffith Show?).
I wonder whether that particular accent is less common today, but was
perhaps more dominant at the time of a lot of the emigration to the USA.
--
Regards
John
for mail: my initials plus a u e
at tpg dot com dot au
Bob Cunningham
<see...@instead.com> said:
> Yes, it sounds to my ears just as you describe, though even that
> "thanking" might have influenced the "thayngking" of some southern
> accents (did somebody mention the Andy Griffith Show?).
If I understand correctly what you mean by "thayngking",
that's the way "thanking" is pronounced in my speech, and
I'm not from the South. You can hear me saying "ankles",
"angels", and "angle" at http://tinyurl.com/6a5al *.
At least one person here (was it Skitt?) has commented that
my vowel in those words is not the same as the vowel in
"bake", but that's what I'm conscious of saying when I say
"thank". In any case, I think it's closer to "bake" than to
"back".
I once asked around at a gathering of people and found at
least one person who was from somewhere in the Midwest and
pronounced it my way.
I've made a recording of "beak, bake, bank, thank, back,
beck". It shows that the first and second formants of my
vowel in "bake" are quite close to the ones in "bank" and
"thank", while the formants of "back" are much different
from them.
The sound file is at http://tinyurl.com/32x86s **.
The Praat display is at http://tinyurl.com/33za85 ***. It
has the time function in a top pane. The bottom pane has
spectrum analysis with superimposed formant displays.
*
http://www.exw6sxq.com/sparky/aue_related/speech_examples/rain_in_spain.html
**
http://www.exw6sxq.com/sparky/aue_related/speech_examples/beak_bake_bank_thank_back_beck_8_bit.wav
***
http://www.exw6sxq.com/sparky/aue_related/speech_examples/beak_bake_bank_thank_back_beck.jpg
Bob Cunningham
Magnus....@gmail.com said:
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering where America's distinctive accent comes from. I was
> watching an Australian film last night and you can really her the
> similarities between Australian and Cockney. There doesn't seem to be
> much of an Irish influence despite the close connections.
>
> Boston has a distinct accent but again I can't connect it with
> Ireland.
>
> Which European accents have most influenced American accents?
>
> Have other peoples influenced the accent?
>
> It would be interesting to hear how people spoke English 300 years
> ago. Are there any people involved in such research. Any links online?
I've searched the seventy-seven responses so far under this
subject line to see if anyone has mentioned H L Mencken. The
search has produced no hits, so I feel free to mention him.
You should find it interesting to read about American
pronunciation in H L Mencken's _The American Language_.
I have here an abridged edition, edited by Raven McDavid
(Published 1977, Ninth Printing 1992).
He says, for example, about others' conclusions that the
early American speech came largely from East Anglia:
Further confirmation is provided by Read, who has
shown that the Americans of the early Eighteenth
Century were quick to notice peculiarities in the
speech of recent immigrants from the British
Isles, but saw nothing to remark in that of those
who came from east of Wiltshire or south of the
Wash.
But later he says about the remarkable uniformity of
American English over much of the country
What, then, was the origin of this widespread and
now thoroughly typical form of speech, and why is
it prevailing against all other forms? "The
Piedmont of Virginia and the Carolinas, and the
Great Valley," says Kurath, "were largely settled,
during the half-century preceding the Revolution,
by the Scotch-Irish, who spoke . . . the English
of the Lowlands of Scotland and the north of
England as modified by the Southern English
Standard. They neither dropped their _r_'s nor
did they pronounce their long mid-vowels
diphthongal fashion. The large German element
from Pennsylvania ultimately acquired this type
of English." Moreover, it also found lodgment in
western New England, which received a considerable
admixture of Scotch-Irish during the same period,
and the speechways of the region soon "became
established in New York State and in the Western
Reserve of Ohio," and thence moved into the whole
of the opening West.
Incidentally, there's an amusing bit of Menckenese a little
later in that chapter, where he's discussing the prevalence
of schoolteachers who were first Scottish or Irish men, but
were later women, most of whom had only limited education.
He says of those women and their limited education
the great majority, indeed, were simply milkmaids
armed with hickory sticks.
Hatunen
<exw...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>Incidentally, there's an amusing bit of Menckenese a little
>later in that chapter, where he's discussing the prevalence
>of schoolteachers who were first Scottish or Irish men, but
>were later women, most of whom had only limited education.
>He says of those women and their limited education
>
> the great majority, indeed, were simply milkmaids
> armed with hickory sticks.
Sometimes you gotta just love mencken.
I wanted to quote some Mencken, too (I also have that book) but
it just seemed like so much work....
R H Draney
>
>
>...schoolteachers who were first Scottish or Irish men, but
>were later women, most of whom had only limited education.
If they were better educated, they'd've known not to kill just one of a pair of
mating snakes....r
John Holmes
> Alan Jones <a...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> <cathal_cam...@mail.ie> wrote in message
>
>>> Listen to these Irish people from Ulster -
>>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H347A2jOouU
>>>
>>> Irish and Scottish accents have had very strong influences on those
> of
>>> America, especially in the south.
>>> [...]
>
> On the tape mentioned above, it comes mostly from the woman on the
> right (at 1:50) who speaks with the least "lilt" (the upturn at the
> end of sentences).
This "lilt" that you mention is rather similar to the uptalk phenomenon
that has often been discussed here. Could this be the ultimate ancestor
of what the Poms try to blame on Oz soaps?