Kruger's accent
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mycelo-338-14473 — 12 years ago(February 10, 2014 02:46 AM)
Are you sure you're talking about this movie? Because, you see, I think the movie where a south african villain who utters "diplomatic immunity" just after dying is called Lethal Weapon 2!!!
Seriously, what the hell? -
bennyshambles78 — 11 years ago(June 20, 2014 09:13 AM)
Um, District 9? Sharlto Copely is South African/Afrikaaner so he's going to speak in an Afrikaans accent and use Afrikaans slang. Hell, he even sings an Afrikaans lullaby to the little girl with leukemia. He might be exaggerating some qualities of it considering he's playing a villain, but it's pretty much just how he speaks. I didn't think that Elysium was very good, but he was definitely the best part of the entire film accent included.
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francojules — 12 years ago(January 20, 2014 11:33 AM)
Well for a start, because it's not American, it strongly suggests that the character has for what ever reason, left his indigenous home place. Couple that with the actions of the character we see on screen, to me at least, indicates that he is always on the run from his violent actions, but he has found a home in LA where his past actions/crimes lend him an air of employability, which the higher members of Elysium have found desirable. And useful to their casue.
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whereisamber — 12 years ago(January 20, 2014 12:49 PM)
The entire film is very international in tone. Jodie Foster's character has a French accent, Matt Damon's character speak fluent Spanish but has an American accent, the President of Elysium is Indian, and Kruger and the other soldiers were all South African as evidenced by both their accents and the South African flag on their ship/plane/craft.
What I got out of all that was that international borders don't really exist anymore in this future. -
zwoopmugen — 12 years ago(February 13, 2014 09:17 AM)
You can also hear Spider say "Porra do caralho" when he's pissed, so you can add brazilian accent to the list.
I personally am not too fond of the afrikaans accent, but I felt it really added to the film. It saddens me to see the complex of superiority some americans display. They fail to realize that their accent is just as annoying for some people. -
bennyshambles78 — 11 years ago(June 20, 2014 09:19 AM)
Finally, an intelligent reply. You hit the nail on the head. I imagine these people would have the same reactions to Scottish (Edinburgh and Glaswegian specifically) and Welsh accents. Christ, we have a plethora of "annoying" accents in our own country.
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Bhaviq — 11 years ago(April 13, 2014 01:45 PM)
I'm South African and of course, I'm used to the 'Afrikaaner' accent and I understood whatever he said, like "boet" means, "my boy" and things like that.
I just don't like him as a villain, him + his accent didn't seem too convincing!
You don't watch Nolan movies, they watch you! -
scootergirl9988 — 12 years ago(January 12, 2014 06:05 PM)
I think he means the American accent we hear in TV shows, in most movies and on every national news broadcast, the one which cannot be traced to any specific region of the country. To us it's as if they are speaking with no accent at all but to the rest of the world? I guess to them that accent is quite heavy and, according to the poster, not very pleasing.
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mmayhem — 12 years ago(January 16, 2014 07:24 AM)
There are no dialects in American English, except in maybe some very extreme cases. There are a few different accents however, but the vast majority of Americans have the exact same one, exceptions being New York, Boston, Southern/Rural, AAVE etc. A dialect is when there is a sufficient amount of different vocabulary to distinguish it from the recognised standard form of a language. There are many different dialects of English in the United Kingdom and Ireland such as Geordie, Scouse, Black Country and Scots. The US, even though much, much larger in both size and population, has nowhere near the same amount of English accent and dialect diversity as does the British Isles. England is where modern English evolved from Anglo-Saxon over a period of 1,500 years, so there are all these prototype and archaic forms of English in certain regions that still survive to this day. English was already in it's modern form by the time it reached the Americas a few hundred years ago, so all the variations of American English come from a much more recent ancestor and don't really vary that much from each other in comparison to most British varieties.
. . . so in fact there is actually a much greater variety of English accents and dialects in just the UK than in the entire United States !!! -
MrAleisterCrowley — 12 years ago(January 19, 2014 01:47 PM)
No. You are absolutely incorrect. Either you simply do not know, or you are not being honest because you are trying to criticize the op. Obviously the US has a population of hundreds of millions who live in very different areas with very, very different histories. The dialect differences are subtle but as important as accent differences, which are massive. Any professional linguist would tell you that you are incorrect. I grew up in Southern California, went to school in Northern California (Stanford for my graduate degree) and lived in the UK for research purposes twice and many visits. As a person who specializes in language (I am a medievalist by profession so I find your mini-history of the evolution of English to be cute) I can assure you that the US with its massive and diverse population, with its wide array of ethnic backgrounds, has a wide array of accents. Watch the "accent tag" on YouTube and note the differences between New York accents (Bronx, Brooklyn, Long Island, Staten Island just for starters), Boston ("Brahmin" vs. Southey), New Hampshire, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, West Virginia, Maryland and D.C., North Carolina vs. South Carolina, nearly EVERY state in the South has its own accent (Texas does NOT sound like Alabama or Lousiana and there variations within the states themselves), the Midwest Chicago, Minnesota, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsinthen there is the west, sections of California (Northern and Southern are quite distinct and again there are many variations throughout the state depending on proximity to the coast and to the major cities), Seattle (and other parts of Washington), Portland, eastern Oregon, etc etc. There is a VERY large variety of accents across the United States, as noticeable to an American speaker as the accent variations in the UK are to our cousins across the pond. Honestly this is a rather silly discussion to anyone who studies languages and knows how very diverse and organic American English actually is (as opposed to the exported, standardized and stereotyped movie and television versions of it).
"I love those redheads!" (Wooderson, Dazed and Confused, 1993) -
mmayhem — 12 years ago(January 19, 2014 09:42 PM)
Well I grew up in both Detroit and DC, my mother is Australian so I also grew up in Sydney for a bit (I can do a perfect Australian accent) and attended the University of Sydney for my graduate degree. I have lived in Amsterdam, Berlin (where I worked as an english teacher), Barcelona and London. I have lived in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the north-east of England for over 5 years now, hence my reference to the Geordie dialect in my previous post. I can speak German, French, Spanish and even a little Dutch (although admittedly none of them particularly fluently). I have travelled all over the United States as well as the United Kingdom not to mention the entire world including multiple trips to Asia and South America. If you want to turn this into a competition as to who is more well travelled, educated etc I think I kind of win . . . and I think I might just beat you when it comes to linguistic expertise and experience as well. But I honestly can't stand Americans who have to name drop their university, do you honestly think it makes you a bit special or even better then someone who didn't attend as Wikipedia puts it "one of the most prestigious universities in the world" ? (I know I name dropped my university as well, but it's practically a crappy state school compared to your superior Stanford) Who really cares. If you spent more time in the UK you would find that people who boast about their education are aptly referred to as 'posh twats' . . .
I never said that there weren't different accents in American English, in fact I actually mentioned a few of the more distinct varieties, but can you give me an example of an actual dialect ? I admit that maybe some extreme examples of AAVE may come close and probably Cajun as well, but in general they would be very rare. Have you ever even heard of or actually heard the Geordie dialect and accent ? (here's a particularly good example
) Are you aware that it is widely recognised to be the closest surviving remnant to the language that the Anglo-Saxons brought over from the continent 1,500 years ago (although Stephen Oppenheimer theorises that Belgic tribes may have introduced a Germanic language into Britain significantly before that). To my ears, Geordie does indeed sound much more like a Germanic language then any other English language accent or dialect. In fact I had always struggled to believe that English was a Germanic language at all until I heard Geordie and it was as if I had suddenly discovered the 'missing link' between English and the rest of the Germanic tongues. I regularly mistake particularly strong Geordie speakers for conversing in German, Dutch, Danish or even Norwegian until I eventually realise that they are in fact just talking in English. Can you give me an example of one American English dialect that can be considered to be the closest surviving relation to the original ancestral form of English ?
How many times do Americans travel from one part of their country to another and struggle to even understand each other ? This is a very common occurrence here in the UK, especially when out-of-towners visit places like Newcastle, Liverpool and Glasgow. The last time I was in Glasgow I was utterly bewildered, and I am usually quite good at understanding all kinds of English accents (or so I thought before moving to the UK). Just ordering food I had to ask the kid to repeat himself 3 or 4 times whenever he asked me something. I remember when I lived in Berlin, and the Germans there would tell me how they would struggle to understand Bavarians because of their accents. I honestly couldn't even imagine not being able to understand another English speaker, because that is something I had never experienced before in all of the United States or Australia. Until I came to the UK of course. There was actually a bit of a controversy here in the UK when a relatively well known Geordie singer called Cheryl Cole who appeared on the British version of the X-Factor got booted off the American version because apparently the Americans were having trouble understanding her strong Geordie accent . . . this is clearly due to the fact that the difference between some British English accents and every other English accent (including other British English accents of course) is generally much greater than the difference between any two American English accents.
There are just so many officially recognised accents and dialects in the UK, just off the top of my head the ones I can name are, Received Pronunciation/Queens English/BBC English, Cockney, Jafney, Estuary English, West Country, Welsh, Brummie, Black Country, East Midlands, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Mancunian, Scouse, Cumbrian, Smoggie, Mackem, Pitmatic, Geordie, Northumbrian, Edinburgh, Glaswegian and Belfast. This is all in a country with 'only' 63 million people and roughly the same size as Michigan. In each of the Regions there will be a gradient between Received Pronunciation and the local accent. On one end wil
