How do accents develop?

[SuaSponte]

I think that some, like Minnesota's, are due to the influence of the original language of the settlers (there, German/Scandanavian). But that doesn't seem an explanation for ones like Boston or Brooklyn - too many different immigrant languages and (in the case of Brooklyn's, at least), it doesn't appear to match the cadences or tonality of any foreign language I'm aware of.

Sua

[Booklady]

I think accents and dialects develop in isolation--geographic and cultural--and over time. In the old days, places like Brooklyn were actually villages with their own economies. Generations of people could grow up there, being able to do all their essential business-of-life stuff without leaving the area. This leads to a sort of microenvironment of speech patterns with minimal outside influence. As you mention, a core of immigrants with a common language (itself influenced by regional dialect differences) would usually be the start--but time is also a factor; people have to stay put. An ancient city like London, England, has very distinct regional dialects because the city has absorbed entire villages and towns which maintain their original characters.

(Insularity also preserves and mutates cultural traits. Thus the Irish who settled in Appalacia brought the roots of so-called "hillbilly" accents AND the roots of bluegrass music.)

Real old-timers here in San Francisco will tell you that before World War II there were several distinct "district" accents here as well. We had the Italian-influenced North Beach, the old-family Nob Hill, Chinatown of course, and also the Irish "south of the slot" (Market Street), among several others. New mobility from neighborhood to neighborhood and booming population served to sort of homogenize things however.

[ellis555]

I recently took a medical anthropology course in which the professor mentioned that accents become ingrained in infants before they can speak. Take a kid, have culture X raise him with baby talk, and whisk him off to culture Y before he starts yammering. Once he does start, he'll have at least some of the accent normally associated with adults of culture X. I thought that was pretty interesting, but, unfortunately, don't have any further info to back it up.

</slight hijack>

Regarding the OP, how about amalgamation instead of isolation? Say Brooklyn was settled by the Irish and the Italians (I'm making this up) and the Bronx was mostly Polish and French. Each of these cultures have their own distinct accents when speaking English. Thrown together, they (especially the kids) would presumably pick up some of the accent peculiarities of their neighbors. Thus the creation of an accent particular to the region. It seems to me that this could be tested by picking a distinctive regional accent and seeing if it is duplicated in another region with a similar immigration pattern.

-ellis

[SuaSponte]

I like both your points, and probably both are applicable in different places.

But here's a stumper: what about the "accentless" accent of the Mid-West? I don't see how either of your points account for that. The mid-west is too large an area to be considered isolated, its had lots of immigrant of varying backgrounds, and it doesn't appear to be an amalgamation, instead it appears to be an absence.

Sua

[andygirl]

Sua,

It's my understanding (keep in mind that I'm only in my first year of linguistic study) that region has a lot to do with it. In the past, accents have been self-propegating- people tended to stay in the general area where they were born, and their children picked up their own speech habits.

The biggest problem I see, honestly, is the word "accent." You've met me, and I don't think that you'd say I have a Delaware accent. Part of this is because I've had speech therapy, part of it is because I've worked to get rid of it.

However, when I'm at home, I speak with a stronger DE accent than when I'm not. You'll find this is true with most any group. When conversting with someone from your own region, especially if one is not currently in that region, an accent will strengthen. It's a subconscious sign of solidarity and identity.

The way we speak is entirely depending on both the speaker and the addressee. I speak differently to my parents than I do my brother than I do my teacher and so on. In reality, we all have a wide variety of "registers" that we use every day.

It's been suggested that cultivation of accents can have a lot to do with creating an identity. In New Guinea, the place in the world for diverse and original languages, there are several languages which are in all respects virtually identical... but the speakers swear that they are different languages, and more also, that they can tell the difference between them.

Accents vary by region, town, socioeconomic group, and even gender. I disagree with your assertation of an "accentless" Mid-West. A person from northern Kansas would more than likely be able to tell someone from southern Kansas. I live in a truely puny state, but I can tell what part of it someone is from by hearing them speak. It's just one of those things that native speakers in a region know.

Anyway, one of the things in the development of accents is that there's a "meeting" of sorts. If, in an area, there is a distinct minority group who speaks a different language than those in power, there is a tendancy to adapt a system that is a combination of both languages... with a heavy influence on the language that is the more prestigious, i.e., spoken by those in power.

Ellis, your assertation is correct. Babies are born with the ability to use any phonetic system, but very quickly learn the one of whatever language they are addressed in.

I hope this helps.

[2planka]

Finally a thread that can explain my pseudonym! I'm from Massachusetts, hence 2planka and not 2planker. Wheeeee! :-)

Here's a link to an article I found. It seems overly simplistic to me, but the dude that's quoted as a "Dr." before his name, so it MUST be the TRUTH. Yeah. Well here ya'll go:

http://www.rpm-mags.com/us8799/accents.html

Foah us guyz in bahston, it slike jimmies on ah ice cream cones, oah slike a wickid cool drink frum tha bubblah.

[SuaSponte]

Originally posted by andygirl
Sua,
The biggest problem I see, honestly, is the word "accent." You've met me, and I don't think that you'd say I have a Delaware accent. Part of this is because I've had speech therapy, part of it is because I've worked to get rid of it.
1. I intend to start later threads about the evolution of dialects and then languages. I started this thread because I thought it may help me get basic premises down before moving up, as it were.
2. As for your Delaware accent, if we hadn't been in a loud restaurant/bar, I might've picked something up. I grew up in Pennsy 'bout 5 miles from the border, and family members, including myself, went to school in Delaware from 'bout '75-'96. I actually know Delaware much better than my home state.

However, when I'm at home, I speak with a stronger DE accent than when I'm not. You'll find this is true with most any group. When conversting with someone from your own region, especially if one is not currently in that region, an accent will strengthen. It's a subconscious sign of solidarity and identity.
Wholly agree. I've noticed this many times myself.

I live in a truely puny state, but I can tell what part of it someone is from by hearing them speak. It's just one of those things that native speakers in a region know.
Again, wholly agree. The accent of [S]lower Delaware is a vocal marvel.

I hope this helps.
Yep, it does. Thanks.

Sua

[hazel-rah]

Another vote here for "accents arise due to geographic or cultural isolation."

A more interesting question perhaps is why accents happen at all. For example, take a group of people who speak a common language, divide them into two groups and isolate the groups. Wait a while, and eventually they will develop distinct accents, and given enough time, the entire nature of the language can change- vocabulary, syntax, whatever.

It's an interesting phenomenon from a functional viewpoint because natural languages are complete- they don't get more efficient or complex over time, and they don't need to. They just change. Why do they do that?

I assumed it was because of mishearings on the part of children learning the language becoming standard pronunciation, and the creation of accents based on the "averaging" of existing accents of non-native speakers is well-documented, but there are just too many examples of changes that cannot be satisfactorily explained by these two processes.

Take a kid, have culture X raise him with baby talk, and whisk him off to culture Y before he starts yammering. Once he does start, he'll have at least some of the accent normally associated with adults of culture X.

Yes, but how long would the trace of the original accent last? In a kid that young, I'd say not very long. Children's ability to learn languages and pick up accents is very plastic up until about puberty. I wonder what the research was trying to find out.

-fh

[iamthewalrus(:3=]

It's an interesting phenomenon from a functional viewpoint because natural languages are complete- they don't get more efficient or complex over time, and they don't need to. They just change. Why do they do that?

I wholeheartedly disagree. Languages evolve when a new niche is found for them to exist, and must constantly grow to keep up with the social and technological environment in which it exists.

Just look at current "trendy" speak, especially in techno-realms.

Remember when "access" and "dialogue" were just nouns?

"bug" used to just mean insect.

"email," "fax," "tele-<insert almost any verb here>" are all relatively new words.

[hazel-rah]

I wholeheartedly disagree. Languages evolve when a new niche is found for them to exist, and must constantly grow to keep up with the social and technological environment in which it exists.The lexicon maybe, yes, but what about accent and syntax? These things change over time, and not because they lack the facility to function in new niches. Why is that?

"bug" used to just mean insect.Uses of the word "bug" not referring to insects are recorded as far back as the 16th century. Including Shakespeare. A word in use today that carries similar meaning to Shakespeare's "bug" is "bugaboo." Given both meanings of bug, I think it more likely (although I don't have *proof*) that the modern "bug" meaning "defect in a system" came from whatever root "bugaboo" did, and the evolution of the "bug" meaning little crawly thing was unrelated.

-fh

[aseymayo]

Sorry, hazel-rah, but the term "bug" meaning "defect in a computer system" comes directly from the little crawly things. Actually, little flying things; Grace Murray Hopper coined the term when she found a moth (http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Bug.GIF) was gumming up the works.

[Sofa King]

I can give you a guess, hazel-rah, as to how accent and syntax change. I'm one of those folks who unconsciously (and sometimes rather embarassingly) emulates the accent and syntax of the people who surround me. By the time I left New Zealand, I was no longer elucidating a vaguely Virginian "yes," but a high-pitched "yee."

So what happens when I take a new word home with me? My abortive attempt to learn German proved successful only in my pronunciation, so when I see a word like "flammenwehrfer," there's a good chance I'm going to pronounce it something a little like a real German would. But when I introduce that word to my own isolated community, others may try to echo my pronunciation. That, invariably, will get a little mangled, and now we have something different on our hands.

Somewhere, I remember reading that the average peasant in Europe in the 1400s might have had a vocabulary of as few as a thousand words, and of course was illiterate. So if I were to come into one of those isolated communities and introduce a couple of dozen new words in my own accent it may carry over into the local dialect. And the dialect I infected might change pretty fast.

That's just a guess, though.

[samclem]

aseymayo You misread hazel's post. She was only talking about the word *bug* to mean a problem in a *general* system, not a *computer* system. The word bug to mean a problem in a general system can be traced back in print in the US to 1878.

[samclem]

Just to set the *bug* story straight for future generations--

Grace Hopper never coined the term *bug* in connections with computers. Go here (http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/first_computer_bug.htm) to discover that she wasn't there when the bug was pulled out of the *calculator* at Harvard. She just retold the story over and over.

What was coined is the term debugged. See OED 1945. The incident in question in the link which I provided supplied the term.

[Johanna]

Bug, bugbear, bugaboo, and boogeyman all come from ancient Welsh (ancient British) bwg, 'demon'. The meaning of 'insect' in modern English is secondary. It's not certain whether the insect meaning of bug comes from the monster meaning or is an independent lexeme.

Something deep and dark and nasty lies buried way back in this word's history. When the Anglo-Saxons invaded and overran the native Celtic Britons, they showed not the least regard for their civilization and subjugated them or drove them to the hills of Cymry in the west. English (which has so voraciously taken in huge amounts of loanwords from all different languages), scarcely got a handful of loanwords from ancient British. Evidently the Anglo-Saxons didn't bother to listen to the natives much. It's curious how one of the few words they did pick up has to do with primeval terrors hidden in the dark, as though the smashed remnants of Celtic civilization they suppressed still haunted their nightmares.

[Johanna]

All right, as much as I enjoyed writing that last post, I may (may) have to eat crow on it. After posting I got out the Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology and looked up the bug words.

Apparently the insect "bug" goes back to the early 17th century, and may be related to Middle English budde 'beetle' and Low German dialect budde 'louse, grub'. The change of d to g seems to have been influenced by Middle English bugge 'bugbear, hobgoblin'.

The origin of bugge turns out to be in dispute. Barnhart says s.v. bugbear:Middle English bugge is of uncertain origin, though Celtic origin has been suggested (compare Middle Irish bocanách supernatural being associated with battlefields, perhaps a goatlike creature, apparently from bocán he-goat, Irish and Gaelic bocan hobgoblin; the oft-cited Welsh bwg goblin, ghost, cannot be traced further back than the 1500s and is now generally assumed to be a borrowing from Middle English bugge.Well, even if it isn't Welsh, it's still Celtic and the eerie, creepy way English got it still holds -- a demon that haunts battlefields! The English invaded Ireland, slaughtered brave Irish warriors on the battlefields there -- and from the shadows hovering over the gore after night fell on the grim scene, they brought home this word. To lurk and fester in the dark corners of their sorry souls, faith!

[aseymayo]

You're right, samclem, I misread it. I feel like a louse - or a grub, maybe. But you have to admit, in this case, there was an actual bug involved, and not just a metaphorical one.

And I should have known better than to trust the likes of Britannica.com! (http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/9/0,5716,889+1+888,00.html?query=computer%20bug%20origin) From their article on Hopper:
After a moth infiltrated the circuits of Mark I, she coined the term "bug" to refer to unexplained computer failures.

So, does Grace get credit for debug, then? Or should she just get credit for popularizing the term?

[Badtz Maru]

The Midwestern American accent is not a non-accent, it's just one that we are all used to. Radio and telephone announcers are trained to use one, I'm not sure how that was started, my WAG is that there weren't as many negative stereotypes about midwesterners at the time radio was becoming popular - some people associate a Southern accent with rednecks and hicks, while some people think Yankee accents are abrasive.

I am originally from northern Oklahoma, and my father is from Kansas, so my accent is basically midwestern, with a slight Oklahoma twang to it. When I moved to Texas other kids made fun of the way I talk.

[elmwood]

The Midwestern American accent is not a non-accent, it's just one that we are all used to. Radio and telephone announcers are trained to use one, I'm not sure how that was started,


I think the Buffalo, New York area is the only television market in the United States where radio DJs and television news reporters and anchors often speak in a Buffalo accent, with a pronounced "flat A." You sometimes hear what's called the "Italian ethnolect" on Buffalo newscasts, but never the staccato "Polish ethnolect" of the eastern suburbs. The announcers on Canadian television sound more American than those on the Buffalo stations ...

[G. Nome]

I hope you don't see this question as flippant - it's not meant to be. It's this: If the "dude" accent is not defined by class or region how did it develop? Is it something that is deliberately and self-consciously fostered by young males - something they lose as they grow older? Is it proof that accents can develop independent of place? Like I said, I intend these as serious questions.

[TheThill]

Accents, dialects, and eventually complete languages seem to develop in two different and often paradoxical ways.

1. They develop in isolation. This is because people never actually pronounce a word the same way twice -- there is no such thing as complete speech accuracy. This leads to a kind of lingustic "drift". For reasons of prestige (i.e. if people with a higher ranking in society start to speak differently by chance) others might begin to emulate the new kinds of speech. There have been all sorts of theories on the matter. One of particular interest is the "wave theory" in which neighboring groups emulate each other in sort of a wave that washes over a whole language or languages.

2. They are influenced by newcomers/outsiders. This is what happened in New York (Brooklyn was never an isolated village -- especially not for the amount of time it takes to form new speech varieties!) The influx of immigration including Irish, Yiddish, Italian and other forms of speech added to the base dialect of the first English speakers in New York. In fact, this is not surprising because the majority of New Yorkers are of Non-English heritage, so their ancestors, who learned English as a second language, just passed on some of their own speech habits to their descendants.

Of course, in most cases accents/dialects develop as a mixture of both 1 and 2, it's not a case of either-or.

As far a North American/colonial dialects in general, many of the differences today go back to the origins of the groups of English-speakers who first settled in the new areas. Southern U.S. English, e.g., goes back to another English dialect than New England and New York English.

[zub]

i bet none of u have heard an indian talking english
indians have no accent
all the other ppl (americans english etc) have accents
its like india is the sun and all the other countries revolve around it
try being indian, u ijits

whats the sense of ur stupid accents?

and u americans better start pronouncing "z" as zed and not zee

[elmwood]

No Indian accent? Bawhawhawhawhaw!

Seriously, I was recently thinking about why Americans find Asian Indian accents to be humorous, compared to other ethnic accents. The onlt things I can think of is ...

* The relative "stiffness" and formality of Indian English compared to American English (i.e. "I am velly much in needing of some assistance please?" instead of "Could you give me a hand?")

* The combination of a stressed sound, which to some American ears sounds as if the speaker may be in pain, combned with the sing-songiness of the accent.

I noticed that when Americans try to imitate or make fun of a foreign language, they'll use distinct sounds that are percieved to dominate a language, for instane making a bunch of guttural hacks for Arabic, bleeping and "ow" sounds for Chinese, and slow random sounds ending in "a" and "o" for Spanish. (Supposedly, Chinese speakers use a lot of hissing noises to create their version fake English.) If someone says a lot of random syllables punctuated with "beedee" every few syllables, it's suppoded to represent Indian English.

[hazel-rah]

Sofa King: Somewhere, I remember reading that the average peasant in Europe in the 1400s might have had a vocabulary of as few as a thousand words, and of course was illiterate.Illiterate, maybe, but a vocab of only a thousand words? No way. Three year olds know more than that, and they can't read (or can they? I don't remember). Ten thousand is a conservative estimate on the small side. A college-educated person today knows (again, conservatively) about 30-45,000 words. Depends on how you define a word of course.

For instance, any European peasant in the 15th century would have a lexical knowledge of names and other words relating to plants and animals that we could only dream of. Take Cecil's recently posted column about the meaning of "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme" for example.

The "thousand words" estimate probably sounds plausible to most people because they assume that since they lived before us, and were pre-technological, they must have had less complicated lives.

Jojo Mojo: Something deep and dark and nasty lies buried way back in this word's history. When the Anglo-Saxons invaded and overran the native Celtic Britons, they showed not the least regard for their civilization and subjugated them or drove them to the hills of Cymry in the west. English (which has so voraciously taken in huge amounts of loanwords from all different languages), scarcely got a handful of loanwords from ancient British.Yep, placenames and words for local geographical features, and that's about it. Same thing happened to the Native American languages when European languages came to America, and for pretty much the same reasons.

Also, nice exposition on the bug histories. Now what about "bugger?" hee hee

I noticed that when Americans try to imitate or make fun of a foreign language, they'll use distinct sounds that are percieved to dominate a language [...] it's suppoded to represent Indian English.One of my favorite things in the world is to hear native speakers of other languages that don't know English "imitating" it by talking English-sounding (to them) gibberish. Even British English speakers imitating American English will do. I love being able to "hear" what my own accent sounds like to others.

-fh

[samclem]

elmwood said Seriously, I was recently thinking about why Americans find Asian Indian accents to be humorous, compared to other ethnic accents. I think Americans, including myself, find all non-English speaker's accents to be equally humorous. :D Seriously.

[Davidbw1]

Well, I don't know how they come about, but if anyone here knows where I can get one of those cool British accents, let me know

[Biggirl]

How much of your accent depends on who is listening? When I'm home (raised in The Bronx, Brooklyn resident for the last decade and a half) I'm told I have a slight Spanish accent. When I'm not at home, I've been told I have a New York accent. My black friends tell me I sound white.

Also, about the Brooklyn accent. There isn't one. There are several. The one that someone like Sylvester Stallone has is very Italian. Rosie Perez sounds like a Spanish person. Jacke Mason is very Jewish. There's also the LonGuyland variation. Add to this the over-all New Yorkese. Words like "inneresting" instead of interesting and "frinstnce" instead of for instance. The one thing I have never, ever heard a Brooklynite say is "toitytoid and toid". I don't care how many times some actor from California says this on T.V.. People from Brooklyn may say "turd" instead of "third", but never "toid".

[Jeremytt]

Originally posted by SuaSponte


But here's a stumper: what about the "accentless" accent of the Mid-West? I don't see how either of your points account for that. The mid-west is too large an area to be considered isolated, its had lots of immigrant of varying backgrounds, and it doesn't appear to be an amalgamation, instead it appears to be an absence.

Sua

ROFL! I live in Reno, NV, and whenever anyone moves here from the Midwest, especially the Upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, etc) we Renoites can spot it IMMEDIATIELY!

Why do Midwesterners insist on telling everybody they don't have an accent, when it's so thick you can slice it?

[Jeremytt]

One thing that just occurred to me is that almost all these questions can be answered by reading Dr Suzette Elgin's books. She is a renowned neurolinguist who used to be a professor at the UCSan Diego who worked with the world renowned Leonard Newmark.

If you ask a diction coach, or anyone in the acting profession, a "neutral" accent in America is called Standard American English. It's most representative of West Coast America Speech, most definitely NOT Midwestern American, where short "o"s are pronounced in the nasal cavity, and long "o"s are tight and clipped, (very similarly to the Canadian).

In fact, like I said in my last post, Midwesterners here in Reno NV are spotted almost instantly because of the vastly different speech, and are sometimes mistaken for Canadians..

I suppose most of you are living in the Midwest, accounting for a little bit of regionalism in this post.

[samclem]

Jeremy Are you sure you can spot a MidWesterner? Not those pseudo-types from MN or WI, but someone from Ohio or Indiana? I was born and raised in Tidewater Virginia,and sometimes lapse into the *Canadian* speech you think that Midwesterners use. I don't think the people in Northern Ohio have the accent which you think you hear. But I would be willing to be convinced otherwise.

[Jeremytt]

Originally posted by samclem
Jeremy Are you sure you can spot a MidWesterner? Not those pseudo-types from MN or WI, but someone from Ohio or Indiana? I was born and raised in Tidewater Virginia,and sometimes lapse into the *Canadian* speech you think that Midwesterners use. I don't think the people in Northern Ohio have the accent which you think you hear. But I would be willing to be convinced otherwise.

That's a good point. Almost all our transplants are from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Chicago area. I don't think I've ever met anyone from Ohio.

The aforementioned people definitely DO have an accent. A very thick one.Presumably, parts of the lower Midwest might not have that same accent. :)

[ruadh]

Originally posted by hazel-rah
Jojo Mojo: When the Anglo-Saxons invaded and overran the native Celtic Britons, they showed not the least regard for their civilization and subjugated them or drove them to the hills of Cymry in the west. English (which has so voraciously taken in huge amounts of loanwords from all different languages), scarcely got a handful of loanwords from ancient British.

Yep, placenames and words for local geographical features, and that's about it.

That's the traditional view, but not long ago I read a book by Irish linguist Loreto Todd which argues the possibility that English took more from the Celtic languages than is usually acknowledged. As an example, she cites the progressive tense, which doesn't exist in any other languages the Anglo-Saxons of England would have been greatly exposed to, as well as numerous English words which are usually considered "origin unknown" but bear a remarkable similarity to Celtic-language words.

Back to accents: I've noticed a lot of similarities between certain regional American accents and the Dublin working class accent. Like Noo Yawkers, Dubliners with this accent would say "anudder" instead of "another" and "yous two" instead of "you two". The Bostonite "pahk the caaaah" is also a strong feature of this Dublin accent. Given the heavy Irish populations of these two cities I do wonder if these similarities are more than just coincidence.

[Morrison's Lament]

This reminds me of an interesting theory I heard once, I hope someone can back me up with a source.

Apparently linguistics experts believe that the British accent is actually nothing like the English that was spoken in the time of Shakespear. The closest thing to Shakespear English would be the accent of a College-educated American, typically from the east coast and with no trace of a southern accent.
I think it's at least an interesting theory. Don't know if it's possible to research something like this properly, though.


--- G. Raven

[TheThill]

Yes, I've heard that about Shakespeare's English before. Actually, there is no sure way of knowing just exactly how people of his time and place spoke. But many of the features of today's British English are definitely much newer than that. Probably the best answer is that his English was something completely different from everything we know today, i.e. neither "American" nor "British" English. The biggest irony, I would think, is that lots of American actors put on approximations of English accents when they play Shakespeare. They might as well save themselves the trouble, and stop making themselves sound silly for no good reason. (Of course, some are actually good at it, but can save themselves the effort anyway.)

As far as the "toity toid and toid" accents are concerned, I have heard older Brooklynites (in this case Jewish, I believe) speak like that, as in "you goils is wonduh-full!" -- a quote. It may be in the process of dying out, though.

[Jeremytt]

Originally posted by Morrison's Lament

This reminds me of an interesting theory I heard once, I hope someone can back me up with a source.







Apparently linguistics experts believe that the British accent is actually nothing like the English that was spoken in the time of Shakespear. The closest thing to Shakespear English would be the accent of a College-educated American, typically from the east coast and with no trace of a southern accent.



I think it's at least an interesting theory. Don't know if it's possible to research something like this properly, though.











--- G. Raven





















































This is interesting. I once heard a voice recording of King Edward, who I believe died in the 'teens. Funny thing: he sounded much more American than today's Englishmen, and somewhat similar, indeed, to Bostonese English. More accurately, he sounded nearly identical to speakers from Southern Massachusetts (below Boston) who have a subdialect somewhat different from Boston.

With this in mind, it's possible British English has been the dialect to change, not American English in its variations.