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

Factual Questions
21

Cervaise: The Chicago accent is of course part of the Midwestern family of accents, but it’s sufficiently different enough to deserve its own name. I grew in Wisconsin, and when I first saw Dennis Franz on “Hill Street Blues” I assumed that his (to me) strong accent must be some sort of New York accent. After all, no one where I grew up pronounced “college” as anything like “cal-idge.” (And at that tender age I assumed that any strong accent must somehow come from the East Coast. :))

Only when I moved to Chicago did I realize the Chicago accent was a far more pronounced version of what I grew up with.

Likewise, St. Louis has its own distinctive accent–St. Louisians, for example will call highway 44 “highway farty far.” Again, part of the general Midwestern pattern, but not the way a Wisconsonite or Chicagoan would say it!

22

This is related. I live in Eugene, Oregon. The accent here is identical to how people speak on TV and Radio. So it seems very normal. I go to the east and everybody speaks very different. But more people live in the east right? So why use the western accent? Just cause Hollywood is in the west and that is how it developed?
Oh and I was at the San Diego Zoo, and there were some Brits there and it was really funny. Damn, this kid was all, “mummy, mummy, we just saw THE most fascinated burd” The dad,“Sun, can you believe that there are only 50 of these in THE whole wurld?” It was great!

23

I’ve been in Georgia for five years and can say that there is NOT one “Southern” accent. There are various ones, depending on factors like class and/or race. (Compare how rich white city people talk to how poor black people out in the country talk, for example. Very very different.)

Don’t ever believe a “Southern” accent you hear on TV or in a movie unless you know the actor is actually FROM the South, and sometimes not even then. I have yet to hear a convincingly fake accent, now that I hear the real thing(s) on a daily basis.

24

To most people(I think) Northerners all sound alike, and I’m happy if they realize that no one but the Kennedys’ sound…like the Kennedys’. However, since I’ve lived in New England my entire life, I find it easy to tell by accent if someone is from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine (VT, Conn, and RI sound less different than their neighboring states than the other three sound from each other.) or NY(yes, I know it’s not a New England state :slight_smile: ). On the other hand, most southerners sound alike to me as do people in the west(except TX) . In a broader persective, I can usually tell an Irish accent from a scottish one, but have less sucess differentiating between English and Aussie, go figure. My assumption is the farther you get from where you live, the harder to pick out the differences.

Speaking of actors, I have heard some Europeans do dead-on “American accents” in movies and TV. Christian Bale- Welsh- does a good imitation of American in Little Women and American Pycho. Jonny Lee Miller- English- did such a good job in Hackers that I was shocked when Trainspotting came out that he wasn’t an American. The best example I can think of though, is Glen Quinn, who played Mark on Rosanne. Until he took a role on Angel and was allowed to speak naturally, I had no idea whatsoever that he was from Dublin.

25

I don’t notice a difference between a Torontonian accent and an accent from the rest of Southern Ontario, except maybe the Ottawa Valley.

I’ve had the same experience in California; most of the locals don’t recognise that I’m not American. I just explain that I grew up watching American tv. I have had a few people ask where I’m from, though, and they weren’t surprised at my answer. Oh, and an Aussie once asked me why I had a Scottish accent.

As an aside: I’ve started teaching little kids to read now, and some of my peers have corrected the kids on pronunciation “mistakes” that sounded perfectly fine to me.

26

Very interesting discussion.

I suspect the number of American dialects/accents one can distinguish has a lot to do with how many one has actually been exposed to, and how frequently.

I agree that it’s also true that we lump broad regions together (i.e., a Southern accent) when in fact there are subtle differences to be found within the broader category.

I can say with a certainty that there are distinct accents to be found in specific cities beyond just Boston or New York.

To illustrate, I live about 70 miles southeast of Cleveland. I have a half-sister and two half-brothers who grew up in a town about 10 miles northwest of me.

They lived there till the early 80s, when the youngest was about half-way through high school. Then my dad, stepmom and half-siblings all moved to Cleveland.

Now my sister and my brothers all speak with the very distinctive Cleveland accent – whose most notable characteristics are a decided nasality and the way the short “o” sound is pronounced. That is, while most of us would say “Bob” and it would rhyme with “rob” or “knob,” Clevelanders would say “Baahb.”

None of my siblings talked that way growing up; it’s just come about since they’ve lived there. Interestingly, neither my dad nor my stepmom ever developed this accent, and my youngest sibling has by far the “thickest” of the three of them. This all means something, I reckon.

27

Rhode Island isn’t distinct??? No way. I (living on the north shore of MA) can distinguish 3 accents/dialects in RI alone, and I’m sure there’s more. Pawtucket is clearly different from Providence, and Cranston…well…we won’t even go there. Suffice it to say that you know a Cranston Girl when you meet her. And not just because she’s named Cher(v?)yl.

If you need any proof, just ask a Bostonian to pronounce the phrase “I bought some water to make my coffee.” Then compare that to a Pawtucket native (Pawtucker?) and the Cranston girl.

Just to make things a little more interesting, try tossing in a Revere girl with authentic Revere hair, a Gloucester fisherman, and an average guy from Worcester. The differences in pronunciation and word choice will shock you. And realize that that’s all in far less than a 100x100 mile square.

28

A friend of our family came here (Calgary) from Northern Ireland about 25 years ago. My mom works in an office, and her boss is an ex-Royal Marine from England who did some undercover work in Northern Ireland for a few years. Once our friend dropped by her office, spoke just a couple sentences, then left. Afterwords, mom’s boss asked if he was from Ballymena… boss was dead-on; even though he’d never met/listened to the guy before or heard a thing about him from anyone. It was as Irishgirl pointed out about Northern Ireland. Some people who have a keen enough ear are incredibly good at picking out accents and dialects - even after the changes that 25 years in a foreign country bring to them.

29

ah rihat bouy, he was frim Ballameena, hey?

it’s one of the more identifiable dialects in Ulster.
think Ian Paisley…
that big fat guy who says “Ulster says NO!” a lot.

northern irish is one of the hardest dialects to imitate by a non-speaker. witness brad pitt. fantastic as a Traveller in Snatch (which i know at least one of you has seen) but dreadful ulster dialect in that terrible film with harrison ford. and he’s a method actor who spent a lot of time in belfast “researching” the role.

it’s supposed to be because ulster substitutes dipthongs for single sounds, and basically we mangle all of our vowels.

so “Brad Pitt is an attractve man with fair hair”
becomes “Broad Pitt is un attrective mon with fur hur” in a belfast dialect.
belfast also gives us such gems as “rowl up, rowl up, come and see the erratic dancer” and “thurs murse in thur”

which, of course, were advertisements for an erotic floor show, and an observation about the presence of mirrors in a room.

30

Actually, the Belfast accent is the only one I can imitate with anything approaching competence. It wouldn’t fool a native, I’m sure.

The Ballymena accent is an odd one - down here in southern Ireland, people with it are often mistaken for Scots. The dialect of Ballymena/North Antrim is in fact often referred to as Ulster Scots, or “Ullans” (cf. Lowland Scots “Lallans”). Unfortunately, recognition and appreciation of it as a distinct dialect has been somewhat hampered by the politics of the region (of course, it doesn’t help that the main promoters of Ulster Scots go about insisting that it’s actually a separate language deserving of the same status as Irish, which is plainly ridiculous).

BTW, I disagree with Cervaise on the accent/dialect issue. “Dialect” refers to all aspects of a language, from pronunciation to vocabulary to grammar. “Accent” is strictly pronunciation. If we’re talking about whether one says “soda” or “pop”, that’s dialect. If we’re talking about how one says “soda” or “pop”, that’s accent.

31

All American sound slightly Texan to me for some reason, sorry :smiley:

— G. Raven

32

Again I would like to chime in that dialects here in the US and Canada are NOTHING in comparison what I experienced in Germany with the possible exception of the black dialects, and I must assume in other languages as well, most notably (I have heard) Italian.

Obviously I have a tin ear for dialect because Ill be damned if I can pick out a fraction of the dialects people are listing here in my own language, yet strangely I can pick out lots in a language I only began learning ten years ago.

As an ESL teacher I have met countless West Africans who can rattle of handfuls (sic dammit!) of completely distinct languages and come from countries smaller than an average US state. I have met lots of Vietnamese Montangnards who speak one or several of their languages which are completely different than Vietnamese.

And then theres Turkey, a pretty big country, which supposedly has NO dialects or regional differences whatsoever.

Why do some countries dialectically diversify strongly (Germany, Italy), others less (France, US), and some none at all (Turkey)?

And what is the border line between language and dialect anyway? Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish are all mutually intelligible languages, whereas German German and Swiss German are mutually unintelligible dialects.

33

Where did you hear this? Ethnologue lists the following dialects of Turkish: Danubian, Eskisehir, Razgrad, Dinler, Rumelian, Karamanli, Edirne, Gaziantep, Urfa (I admit that I have no idea what any of these are).

As to your final question, there isn’t one.

34

It’s interesting to me that in the “thurs murse in thur” of Irish, you can see the roots of the Kentucky Coalfield Appalachian dialect that I grew up with, since most of us have either Irish or Scotch ancestry.

I would say (if not trying to hide my accent) Law, they’s meuur’rs(long e) in thar.

I would most certainly say that you would never mistake my original home, no matter how carefully I spoke. A few years ago I was in central Ohio and ordered a Sweet Tea, without thinking of where I was, it came out “properly pronounced” as SWAEEtee and completely lost the waitress, who then called over another waitress and asked me to repeat it for their amusement. I didn’t find it at all funny.

35

In Fight Club, Helena Carter does a pretty damn good American sound. In fact, I had no idea she wasn’t American until I did some research on her.

Having the dubious peasure of working in a field which requires travel throughout the US, and some of Canada, I can assure anyone that the US is flooded with different styles of speech. In Ohio itself, where I grew up, I could tell at least three. One was the Ohio version of a southern sound, which is decidedly different than what I have heard in North Carolina, Georgia, and definitely Mississippi. There was the Middle Ohio sound, which is the suburbs around Medina, Akron, etc. And people from Cleveland had their own sound, too. No doubt there were more, but Ohio never peaked my interests as far as travel goes.

I would disagree that the standard Amercian sound portrayed on films and television is a Western sound. In fact, I can spot a Southern Californian within a few moments of conversation(never mind the valley girl connotation). I think the non-southern sounding Midwest is the “default” sound.

I think, *wishbone you do a disservice to the Massachusettes sound. There is a decidedly distinct New England dialect in general, with differing accents on top of that. I think the difference between South Boston (southies!) and the northern suburbs is very clear…in fact, almost to the point of humorously clear. I can’t tell whether someone comes from Somerville, Cambridge, or Woburn but for Eris’s sake hand me someone for Dorchester and I’ll know it.

I assume, however, that this is larely because I’ve lived in these areas. It would not suprise me in the least to know that all heavily populated areas have similar patterns.

Interesting anecdotal comment:
I have the distinct pleasure of working with a lady from Lithuania. She recently returned from a vacation to Montreal, Canada, and informed we that understanding that sound of English was far, far easier than understanding my generally midwest sound (though the New England is slowly creeping in, after only a year!).

36

True that dialect differences are distinguishable depending upon location.

I’m from Minneesohtah
Me, I can tell the dialect difference between those in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul who seem to have a more cosmopolitain version of the traditional Minnesotan Norwegian/Swedish/German accented amalgamation and those in outstate Minnesota. Moreover I can say that there are those who speak a “Dulut” dialect who are distict from those who speak a “Fargoh” dialect. The movie actually had a good interp. of the MN dialect par universale, but it wasn’t consistent enough to pin the sherrif down to one locale, doncha know? This isn’t necessarily incorrect because, fact is, Minnesotans travel around in their own state quite a bit, but don’t seem to like to venture much outside it, so the mixing of the Minnesotan accent is pretty common in the state but changes as you leave.
When I slather on my accent nice and thick people don’t have any idea what place I’m doing (and some have even seen Fargo!). Canada? No! Montana? No!

It’s hard when your a foreigner. You betcha!

37

I work for a French company in England, and we have quite a few French guys working from us (all of whom seem to have come from ‘just outside Paris’ - apparently that’s where most of France live). Recently, a French-Canadian colleague came over from Montreal. He had to talk to most of the French employees in English, as they couldn’t understand his accent when he spoke in French.

38

Halfpint: thats extremely interesting! I had no idea it was that different.

Ruadh: Well, I guess this is another example of being careful to not believe everything you read. An Italian friend of mine was learning Turkish, and I read (in English, mind you. My friend is half Brit) the introduction to her textbook, which said that Ataturk took them off the Arabic alphabet and switched to the Roman, eliminated all but one irregular verb, and regularized dialects, and that the Turkish people pretty much swallowed this whole. I found it extremely difficult to believe that a man could have so much lunguistic power, but it was there in black and white. But I guess it must not be true.

However, if the rest of the book wasnt also putting me on, it seems Turkish is an astoundingly complex language with tons of prefixes and suffixes that can be piled on to words. It looked daunting.

I have also heard that Turkish and Korean supposedly have a common ancestor, but this I find even more difficult to believe.

39

I agree about the Southern accents in movies and TV being just AWFUL, though I have heard one of two that weren’t bad. I’ve lived about half my life in TX and the other half in AL. The two mistakes that actors seem to make the most are 1)They don’t study the accent from the state that they are supposedly from (Nicolas Cage’s “Mobilian” accent in Con Air was simply HIDEOUS)and so they’ll use,say, a Georgian accent when they are supposedly from Florida, and 2) They think we all speak “Suthun Plantayshun” and so they drop all the “R’s” from their speech (as in “cahs” and “bahs”) and rarely use the word “y’all” properly (it is SINGULAR, not PLURAL, at least where I’m from). I would prefer if actors wold for the most part do as Clark Gable did in Gone With the Wind:refuse to use a phony accent and just speak as they normally do.

40

Korean is classed as a language isolate, which means it is not known to be related to any other language. But there is a fairly widely-accepted theory that it is actually of the Altaic family, which includes Turkish. I’m sure there are Dopers who would be able to evaluate that theory better than I would.

My experience with French-French and Canadian-French is quite different to Halfpint’s. I worked for a company in California that had a Canadian call centre. All the French speakers in the call centre were actually from France, and while they did find some noticeable differences between their dialect and the Québecois’ (one that I remember is that the latter say “Bonjour!” when they hang up the phone; the French guys found this very strange), they were fully mutually intelligible. I’d guess that Halfpint’s Québecois colleague just had an unusually strong accent, either that or his/her French colleagues are just unusually thick :).