Or Major Charles Emerson Winchester. Or maybe Dr Zachary Smith.
Thai definitely has it.
Bed, then.
In Norwegian, the dialect associated with certain old, fashionable neighborhoods in Oslo (particularly Frogner and Majorstuen) is considered an upper class accent, together with dialects from similar neighborhoods in other cities (for instance Singsaker in Trondheim). It’s pronounced enough that some people make a conscious choice to copy these dialects, and others who naturally speak that way make a conscious effort to suppress their dialect in public.
My husband is North Indian from UP and when he speaks to his parents in their really formal classical Hindi, I can barely understand it. When he speaks to his friends in what he lovingly calls “mix Hindi,” my Marathi gives me enough of a base such that I can follow what he’s saying.
My parents also seem to speak 2 versions of Marathi, one which they describe as a more literary and formal version of Marathi. There is no such differentiation in the language they speak to us in the house (Konkani). Konkani is Konkani is Konkani-the only difference is that our Konkani is closer to Marathi and the further you get down the Konkan coast it becomes more Kannada-based.
Interestingly, when we went to Goa for our wedding I was enjoying showing off my command of Konkani to my husband and my in-laws (very convenient that we had it in the tiny state where I speak the local language) and the waiter pegged the exact town my parents grew up in because I had used a word for fish that is only used in this one town.
Although when I think “posh” Indian accent it makes me think of those rich Indian kids who have been convent educated and have that sing-songy quasi British thing going on when they speak English. I am extremely happy my husband does not have this accent because it grates on my ears.
Very well. Nice to read about Konkani. Dialects are common in India. One of my friends was from coastal Andhra, used to say that Telugu spoken in Hyderabad is a bastardized version of pure telugu that they speak in his native-place. In UP itself, western UP they speak lath maar Hindi, in eastern UP like in Varanasi, Allahabad etc they speak shuddha(pure) Hindi. Like, if you follow Indian politics a little, Rajnath Singh’s way of speaking is typical of Eastern UP, Arun Jaitley’s way is typical of Delhi, Karan Johar’s(Indian movie Producer/Director) way is typical of what you think “posh” I guess, which thankfully is considered uncool.
Obviously I am an ABCD and can’t tell the difference in Hindi regionalisms, but with his friends it’s this easy to follow Hindi (I picked it up within a few months) with lots of yaar, lumpats and bhai thrown in, spoken very quickly. Not that much English though.
With his parents it’s sloooow, lots and lots of ji ji ji and I can barely make out the words. I asked my parents why it’s so different once and they told me he’s speaking a very formalized version of Hindi to his parents, the same way there’s a “high Marathi” version that is spoken around Pune (which I believe just means using bigger words and using all the right respect-markers). I’m not sure where they’re from originally-my MIL’s family are agricultural landowners that have an estate on the Bihar/Nepal border. They speak Bhojpuri amongst themselves and look Nepali honestly. My FIL’s family is settled around Lucknow but they fled there from somewhere else after they lost their land. They are on a mission to get me to learn Hindi and North Indianize me, but I told them I’m a proud Maratha and 1.5 Indian languages is quite enough, thanks.
What I meant about posh Indian accents is the difference in accents between the socioeconomic classes in the way they speak English. I can instantly peg people who come from money within India (or somehow studied at rich people schools)-they all have exactly the same annoying way of speaking English. Maybe it’s the pitch or the inflection, but it just sounds so pretentious. My husband attended undergrad with a range of kids, many of whom grew up in more affluent households and they kind of mock his English to him sometimes (he attended the public school at IIT Kanpur before college) but I find his way of speaking to be far less pretentious and annoying, even if he does mangle and murder every aphorism under the sun.
yeah, we too use yaar and bhai commonly. Lumpat is not spoken here in Delhi, must be used in Bihar.
very well. If you are to settle in India, I suggest you learn some hindi(just speaking) because atleast 70% of the country speaks/understands basic Hindi.
I can understand. The reason could be that in their subconscious, they think that being able to speak in English is a big thing and do not realize that language is just a medium to express your thoughts, not a status symbol, a thing to show-off etc… But while there are people like that, majority of private school educated people are not like that.
I studied in a *sarkari *(Government/public) school myself. There are no pretensions in us *sarkari *school educated people at all:).
There’s a core Indian accent of English. There’s too thick, broken-English and too girly/pretentious/high pitch versions of it. Watch thisvideo, listen of Rajeev Masand in this, for the pretentious version and Arjun Rampal for standard version.
Sorry to the OP for derailing the thread.
OMG, that is it totally! I HAAAATE that high-pitch and sing-songy inflection. And the worst is that accent + the passive-aggressive nature of discourse where they say semi-bitchy things and add “just kidding yaar hahahahaha!” at the end of it in that high-pitched voice (not that he does that in the video but I see it a lot). That to me is pretty much the “stereotypical” Posh/Rich Indian accent and affect.
Hehehe, funny imagining this. But some of them may be trying too hard to impress their bhabhi(sister-in-law) who has an American accent.
Also I’d like to clarify that public school people aren’t pretentious with only their English but ofcourse they can be that with other things, same as other people.