Kruger's accent
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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 -
LeeVing88 — 12 years ago(January 31, 2014 09:44 AM)
And why is it so hard for you to understand that The U.S. is a Melting pot with several different cultures spread over a huge landscape. Boston and New York accents as well as coastal southeastern accent(There's way more than one distinguishable accent in the south) are all non-rhotic. Since you think there is only four distinct dialetcs in the U.S. I've provided a list.
American English - Standard American English is the general form
Cultural
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE)
Chicano English
New York Latino English
Pennsylvania Dutch English
Yeshivish
Yinglish
Regional
New England English
Boston accent
Boston Brahmin accent
Hudson Valley English
Lake Dialect or Lake Talk
Vermont English
Inland Northern American English (includes western, central and upstate New York)
Northeast Pennsylvania English
Mid-Atlantic dialects
Baltimore dialect
Philadelphia dialect
Pittsburgh English
New York dialect
New Jersey English dialects
Inland Northern American English (Lower peninsula of Michigan, northern Ohio and Indiana, Chicago, part of eastern Wisconsin and upstate New York)
NorthCentral American English (primarily Minnesota, but also most of Wisconsin, the Upper peninsula of Michigan, and parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa)
Yooper dialect (Upper Peninsula of Michigan and some neighboring areas)
Midland American English
North Midlands English (thin swath from Nebraska to Ohio)
St. Louis
South Midland (thin swath from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania)
Miami English
Southern English
Appalachian English
Tidewater accent
Virginia Piedmont
Virginia Tidewater [5]
Coastal Southeastern (Charleston, South Carolina, Savannah, Georgia area)
Cajun English
Harkers Island English (North Carolina)
Ozark English
Southern Highland English
Gullah or Geechee
Texan
Yat dialect (New Orleans)
Ocracoke
Florida Cracker
Western English
California English
Boontling
Pacific Northwest English
Hawaiian Pidgin -
olliemankz — 12 years ago(March 03, 2014 05:15 PM)
Fascinating discussion, Professor Higginses my stepfather always used to say that Professor Higgins of Pygmalion/My Fair Lady fame was able to tell where someone came from within blocks. I always thought he was talking about London and that it had to be very large and diverse, although from what you are saying he might have meant the various parts of England, which from what you have said have many accents and dialects.
I speak to people from all over the US on a daily basis and what has surprised me for the past year or two is how much they all sound alike, even in Alaska, which I guess is little surprise as it is populated with so many transplanted mainlanders. I think that's what is behind much of the accent homogeneity even in the deep south, the fact that people are transferred to jobs everywhere. Cracker accent in Florida? If that exists up around Jacksonville, I am very interested; it used to be entrenched in some of the small towns around Tampa, too, but it seems to have disappeared. I don't think I have heard a true cracker accent in years.
But, not to burst anyone's bubble, but I have to say I'm wondering if the distinct "British" accent, if there is such a thing from what you're saying, may be disappearing, too; I'm just not sure I hear the sound variations as strongly now when I watch new British movies, although I guess news commentators if they're in Britain and not over here (U.S.) are still pretty distinct. Yet that brings me to the other reason I suspect accents are beginning to fade television, movies, the general global aspect of everything, the internet with its video reports, You Tube, etc. I mean, obviously it has escaped no none's attention, and I don't mean to go off in a strange tack here, that just about everyone can speak English these days almost in self-defense. The Somalis in Captain Phillips were speaking it, for Pete's sake! The Lost Boys from the Sudan picked it up here in the U.S. very quickly, those lucky enough to survive and make it out of there, and many of them had already been beginning to be taught English in the camps where they lived for a while in Africa and I'm not sure it was just because the officials knew where they were going to be sent. Movies are being made in foreign lands in English! Pick up the phone here to talk to a car rental company or any number of different companies and you're likely to speak to someone who sounds Asian or Indian, so goodness knows where you're calling. Travel to the once "remotest" parts of the globe is now sometimes someone's idea of a holiday. It just wouldn't be surprising if we not only all began to speak the same language, but began to sound alike, too.
I do remember about 30 years ago the BBC did a wonderful series of adapatations of Dick Francis novels which were heavy on the, Cockney, was it? I loved the series but my mother complained she could barely understand it. About Sharlto maybe one reason he sounded the way he does, perhaps even laid it on a little thick, is to harken back to his performance in District 9. Throughout the movie I was saying to myself, "Who is that guy? I know him!" Elysium seems sort of like an extension of District 9; Matt Damon suggested as much even if only in veiled terms. Sharlto played the polar opposite to his character in District 9 but maybe he just didn't want anyone to forget that he was the, if somewhat hapless, hero of that movie. Well, I'm not a language expert like you guys so please realize I am reporting my subjective observations. I grew up in Detroit, too, so maybe there and I guess in a few other states such as Wisconsin we did have one little dialecticism, if you might call it that: may I interest you in some pop?
