British people: How funny do we Americans sound to YOU?

Factual Questions
1

After watching “Snatch”, a question that has always bugged me popped up again.

In it, just about everyone speaks Cockney, except this one American guy. Of course, I think all the cockneys speak funny, but I’m sure that anyone that is British thought that the American guy was the one who “had the accent”. Okay, maybe the cockneys do as well, but you know where I am getting with this.

Is there any way to “visualize” how Americans must sound to other English-speakers? Do we all sound like Southerners or New Yorkers to you? Yeah I know we all have different accents as well, but you know what I mean- I hope.

2

This is an interesting topic, and let me add a related question, first with a preface.

I speak German and lived in Germany. Many Germans speak varying degrees of dialect, some of which verge on being mutually unintelligable (and Swiss German truly is – when a Swiss is speaking in dialect on TV in Germany it is usually subtitled). There are lots of major dialects and lord knows how many minor variations, almost to the point where each city has its own dialect, or at least each small region.

People say that the US is equally dialectic, but I beg to differ. I cant tell the difference between a North Carolinian (where I am from) and a Georgian. In that geographic space Germany, or Italy for that matter, would jam in tons of dialects, and let me tell you as a non-native German speaker I CAN hear the differences. Theyre impossible to miss, in fact!

My question is: is England also as strongly dialecticized (is that even a word?). Can a native Brit tell the difference between neighboring cities by virtue of pronunciation differences without the aid of a soccer jersey?

3

By the way, a German once told me that American English sounded to him like the “bubble-gum language” and he illustrated this by saying “rrar rrar rrarrarr rrarrar rar”.

4

Britain has, if anything, even more pronounced variations in accent for such a comparatively small nation (Cockney, Liverpudlian, Mancunian, Geordie and so on).

American accents tend to be portrayed in several categories over here, which (without having heard what you’d call them) I’d describe as rough-nasal-New-Yorker, Foghorn-Leghorn-Southerner and Valley-Girl/Stoner-Californian.

5

I have noticed that when (less talented) British actors try to do “Amurrc’n” accents, they tend to do broad, vaudeville-style Texas or Brooklyn, and throw in a lot of inappropriate "r"s everywhere. The better-trained actors, of course, can do everything from Boston to Virginia to Baltimore, but the short-cut method seems to be Texas/Brooklyn.

6

In England you can pretty much tell where a person comes from within 30 miles, just from his or her accent. However, because a lot of accents tend to make the enunciator sound like either a country bumpkin or a city thug, one is often considered higher class if one drops one’s accent and, instead, assumes the ‘middle english’ accent.
Also, various accents become fashionable. Estuary english was fashionable amongst people some few years ago and in Victorian times, a fake cockney accent was often the grease in many a social wheel.

7

I’ll challenge that!
Yes, as Mattk said, there are some distinctive accents. But Pygmalion was fiction, and (as Twitch also said) many people just have a ‘middle english’ accent anyway.

I’ve only visited the US a couple of times (plus I’ve directed a few tourists in London). So most of my experience of American speech is based on TV and film.
I can often tell if someone is American, but I wouldn’t know which accent was which.

8

I have to confess that I struggle to tell the difference between a Canadian and an American accent… If I have one of each in a room and it’s not too late, I can make an educated guess, otherwise I make a fool of my self!! It’s the same with Auzzies and Kiwi’s…

I can tell the regional variations in a South African English accent (where I was born and raised), but UK English accents (where I am living now) still baffle me. I guess it is just what you are used to…

Gp

9

Let’s face it, some people have more of an ear for regional accents than others. It’s also easier to spot the variations that occur close to where you are from. Notwithstanding the fact that glee is right about Pygmalion being fiction, I’d still feel confident that I can spot a dozen or so north west English accents - I promise you that Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Oldham, Colne valley and Preston accents are easy to tell apart if your from Lancashire, let alone central Liverpool from outer Liverpool (where I’m from). This is within a region fifty miles square. But people from the south have difficulty separating Lancashire from Yorkshire.

It’s also true, though, as Twitch says, that people here often drop their regional accents altogether, and I suspect that doesn’t happen nearly so much in other countries. Does it happen at all in the US?

I’m also sure that British people could identify more variety in America if they would only try. We do occasionally get more examples than the very general ones quoted so far. I think I could tell a person from West Virginia from someone from Texas easily enough, or a Bostonian from person from New York State. I’ve never been to America and am basing this entirely on TV/films.

10

I’ll tell ya, nobody can ever tell what part of the US I am from. I have lived in the south for most of my life and can do a good (if exaggerated) imitation of the local accent, but I dont ever change the way I speak.

As I said in my earlier post I am not German and learned German as an adult. Although I speak very well, it is not my native language. I can pick out several dialects in German – the markers are often clear. Many Germans DO in fact drop any regional dialect and speak “High German” (the Hannover dialect), but lots dont or can only get so close, and almost all Germans occasionally pronounce something or use a regional version of “no” or the diminutive that gives them away after a few beers.

In the US this is simply not the case. I know many many Americans who have no regional accent whatsoever. Did they drop it or did they never have it? I would say for myself I just never had it. Some Americans develop a thicker regional accent when around family, but I have NEVER experienced anything in the US like seeing my German then-girlfriend speak to her Grandmother and switch DRASTICALLY like flipping a light switch. It took real concentration on my part to understand her.

And then there’s all the German-born Turks speaking their own version of German.

Well, now that I think about it I take that back. Black people do it all the time in this country. But not so much us honkies, or at least to the degree you hear in some European contries.

I could be that Americans relocate more. I could be that we are a relatively young country.

11

…but I read one in which an Englishman was subjected to a loudly vocalized expression of annoyance and rising rage delivered by an American southerner, which sounded to him like “Armageddon pier staff”…

Don’t know why I found it so funny, but it cracks me up every time I think of it!

12

regnad kcin and everton: There are plenty of people in the US who drop their regional accent–you can find classes in most large US cities that teach you how to lose your Brooklyn/Boston/Southern/etc. accent. I’ve known folks from NYC who would turn their Noo Yawk accent on and off like a switch, just as some Brits do.

It’s probably true that a larger percentage of people in the US are raised to speak with the non-regional American Received Pronounciation than in the UK or Germany. But even Americans with “no accent” have regional accents, subtle though they may be. Just listen to national news reporters. A Brit or someone who’s not paying close attention might think they’re all using a generic American accent. Listen closely, though, and it’s clear that Peter Jennings is Canadian, Tom Brokaw is from the Upper Midwest, Dan Rather is from Texas, etc.

13

in ireland(and especially northern ireland) there are very obvious regional variations, each county has its own accent. as well as this there are variations within smaller areas, there is a west and east belfast accent and a north and south dublin accent for example.
many northern irish people can tell which TOWN people are from (and our towns usually have only about 10 000 people in them, as the whole population is about 1 million) which is quite scary.

myself, i have what is known a a “floating accent”.
my mother is from zimbabwe, and when i’m at home i speak with a version of that accent, i speak with a broad “norn irish” accent to my friends in belfast, and with a neutral accent to my friends in dublin.

i tend to speak a weird mixture of accents at college because my friends are english, american, canadian, irish, south african, kiwi and australian.

most irish people assume i’m american (as do most yanks, who seem to be tone-deaf as far as accents are concerned)although generally i’m just seen as “other” and not local.

it’s not a conscious decision to alter my speech, i just pick up the accent of who i talk to. i too do the light switch, and my friends are amazed when my accent totally changes as i speak to my parents on the phone.

i do have a very acute ear for accent, and can tell aussie/kiwi, zimbabwe/south african, USA/canada, boston/new york, US east coast/US west coast
without much trouble.
this also goes for languages other than english, as i can hear the differences between french/belgian french, swedish/norwegian, northern italy/southern italy.

i don’t think americans in general develop the same level of acuity to accents, and my theory on this is also based on the dismal attempts at a french accent that my friend (from new orleans) attempted during a conversation with a european student. and he had studied french for 6 years at school. obviously i’m basing my opinions on personal (limited) experience and the previous posts.

it’s a matter of hearing and learning vocal clues, and a lot of people don’t seem to do this.

14

As an American, I often have trouble discerning regional accents within my -own- country! I usually don’t think about different dialects much as long as I can still understand what the person is saying.

That said, I often have a hellish time trying to understand my British friends when I converse with them over the phone or in person. It’s not so much that they sound “funny” per se, but rather that I actually can not understand them unless they speak very slowly. Perhaps this is because I have not heard -enough- British people speak to better grasp the effects of the accent?

I’m from southern California, not the beach, but farther inland, in the desert. I have an ‘Uber-accent’. It’s largely non-existant, but tends to change slightly depending on my mood, and it often throws a lot of people off when they try to guess my background.

-Ashley

15

Depends on the American. One of my friend’s Dad is an amateur linguist. He can identify 5 dialects in Detroit alone.

Living in Michigan I can usually tell two or three different types of Upper Peninsula natives, Detroit and “the rest” apart.

16

But there is no one “Canadian” accent either.

Jennings is from Ottawa (I think). English-speakers in Montreal sound different from Torontonians (the latter sounding pretty annoying).

Folks from Vancouver tend to suffer from suffer-dude-speak. And of course, those living on the Canadian east-coast tend to have a slightly more pronounced accent. As for Newfoundland, some have very strong accents that are a mix between Scottish and I dunno what.

Of course, it may me that English-speaking folks in Quebec and Ontario have no accent. I was in Virginia years ago and this local (who had moved their from California and was aware that he had developped a foolish accent) insisted that I had no accent at all.

Which just goes to proove my theory that Montrealers speak standard English and everyone else speaks some bastardized version.

17

The Marquis de Sade?

And just one clarification to the discussion: Some people are doing it properly, but others aren’t. The preferred term is “dialect,” not accent. Accent implies that there is a single neutral “correct” way of speaking the language, and that an accent is then layered onto it. Dialect is simply one of the many variations into which a language divides.

Yeah, it’s kind of a nitpick, but I didn’t take years of speech class for nothing.

18

What’s this about no accents from English Montrealers???

I’ve met TONS of Montrealers who I was SURE were French, and turned out to be English but spoke with a French accent!

And there are many words that English Montrealers “borrow” from French that I’ve never heard in other parts of Canada… For example, instead of a workshop leader, people I’ve met from Montreal call the person an “animateur”… Very odd, considering that they’re anglophones…

And having lived in Toronto for 7 years before moving to California, I have to say the Toronto accent is pretty tame… I have virtually never had anyone here in California notice I had an accent at all…

And Peter Jennings isn’t the only Canadian who is working in U.S. news… John Roberts who I think reads the news on CBS used to be J.D. Roberts when he was a VJ on MuchMusic in
Toronto.
Although, when I think “aboot” it, maybe I do talk different sometimes!

19

As an American I know of several clearly distinct accents. I coined names for some of them myself since I do not know if they have a real name.

Regular(spoken on the west coast, southern Florida, all the major cities.)- It is spoken by the majority of Americans, on sitcoms and commercials.

Country - Spoken mostly in the south, some places in the midwest and just inland of the west coast.

New York - Spoken mostly in the different burroughs of NYC(Brooklyn, Queens, etc.)

Boston - Spoken in and around Boston.

Upper-class - Spoken among the extremely wealthy class on the east coast. Bears some resemblance to English.

Chicago - Not spoken by all Chicago Natives, but definitely distinct to a trained ear.

Cajun - Spoken in Louisiana. Sounds like a combination of American and French, or an American with a French accent.

Hawaiian(Pidgin) - A slang developed among the Hawaiians, Japanese, Chinese, and Portugese. Very much it’s own language(in the spoken form). It can be unintelligable to the average American.

Native American - An accent spoken by some Native Americans. Again very distinct.

Latino - Prevalent among Mexican Americans. Even though they may not speak much Spanish, they retain an accent like they are Mexican.

Ebonic(for lack of a better word) - Spoken by many of the black population and by Eminem.

Canadian Accents.

I can only think of two that I know.

Western Canadian - Essentially regular American, but wierd pronunciations on many words.

Victorian - Many Residents of Victoria, BC, have retained a British Accent since the British settled in different places in the Puget Sound.

These are all I can think of but I am sure there is more. American’s if you can think of any more.

20

Wishbone: A Queens dialect is distinct from a Brooklyn dialect, which is distinct from a Staten Island dialect, and they’re all distinct from New Jersey.

And “regular” English, on the West Coast, isn’t. There are subtle vowel differences from North to South, from the lazy middle vowels of Southern California – “eh,” as in “bed,” is about a third of the way to “a,” as in “bad” – to the weird diphthongs of the Pacific Northwest – “eh” as in “measure” is about a third of the way to “ay,” as in “may-zhur.” That’s why they’re called “dialects” instead of “accents.”

And your “Chicago” note is simply a modified version of a flat Midwest dialect, which shows up from Wisconsin to Oklahoma in varying degrees (depending on migration and family history). It’s the nasally flat dialect that turns “aw” (as in “call”) into “ah” (as in “father”), and “ah” halfway to “a” (e.g., the first syllable of “college” sounds almost like the first syllable of “Albert”).

There are many, many, many regional variations: Philadelphia, North Carolina vs. Tennessee vs. Georgia vs. a Texas twang, and so on. I used to have a speech teacher who could listen to somebody talk and, four times out of five, peg the individual’s birthplace to within a hundred miles. She was only stumped if people had made a conscious, specific, deliberate effort to change their accent (e.g. somebody who had been a child in Pittsburgh but spent junior high and high school in Alaska). Otherwise she was very accurate; pretty neat trick.