I don’t see any other posts that suggest this.
IIRC, AK84 is Pakistani. Which might account for some of his observations, actually. My understanding is English is commonly taught in Pakistan (and many other former British colonies). The dialect taught there is much closer to British English than American English. An American ear will hear a lot of pronunciations and words that sound vaguely like the English accent.
That could explain it. Lots of, even most of, Pakistani immigrants in our area sound to me like maybe they went to school in England.
^
So what exactly makes accents sound “English” to Americans. What is it about Billy Zane in Titanic or Carrie Fisher in Star Wars that makes so many people say British when it is not; its a person speaking who has a certain elocution and pronounces words and dose not use contractions. Why dose your poor immigrant who probably has never seen England except in movies sound like he went to school there.
Wait just a minute - I’m American and used that phrase just today in the kitchen at work. It was, indeed, a foul stench!
Rhotic vs. non-rhotic (how R is pronounced) is one of the most plainly obvious distinctions. British “Received Pronunciation” is non-rhotic, and the vast majority of American accents are rhotic. (The few exceptions in America include the Boston Brahmin accent, which becomes a sort of standard short hand for “patrician” in popular media.)
Most Americans just got finished watching 10 years worth of Harry Potter films. That’s what British accents sound like to us.
This is why the term ‘British accent’ is misleading. Scottish accents are all rhotic. RP is basically one type of English accent.
Carrie Fisher has said herself that she slipped in and out of a British accent in Star Wars. Her defense was basically that she had just finished studying drama in London and that she was high all the time.
What I meant was not that they’re numerous, but that they collectively represent a really broad scope of difference from each other. - it’s probably really hard to measure, but I think for most pairs of non-British English acccents (selected from English-language nations), we could find a pair of British English accents that are further apart from each other.
While I’ve never known anyone in RL to mistake one of us for British, my history of the English Language text book does support this notion by saying that New Englanders and Appalachians sound more like 17th century Brits than anyone else (including modern Brits!) does.
OTOH, it’s not Connecticut that’s supposed to sound vaguely British, it’s Cambridge Massachusetts.
Did you read the OP?
I did. The OPost does not say that the OPoster does not her/himself have an accent. Nobody says that. AK84 is simply asking what characteristics might lead (many) Americans to identify this accent or that one as “British” when they really aren’t.
My knee-jerk answer to the question in the OP is: “British people sound like the Doctor.”
“The entire cast of Harry Potter” is probably a valid answer too.
Of course, I gotta call out some of the stuff I’ve seen in here: What is a North American accent, pray tell? Scarlett O’Hara? John Wayne? Jimmy Stewart? Barack Obama? The girl from Clueless? Felipe Calderón? We’re talking about a continent that natively speaks no less than three different languages without counting the “imported” languages like German and Italian, or the many Native American languages that are less common now than they used to be.
But yeah, most Americans, I would presume, can easily tell an Englishman from a Scotsman or Irishman, though I understand being able to tell a Scotsman from an Irishman is a bit harder to do for many. Wales and Cornwall probably not, just because most of us have to be reminded that those places exist (Hey, give us a break, we gotta keep track of 50 of our own states already:p)
On a sidenote, it has been established that I can’t tell an English accent from a South African accent. Kinda shot myself in the foot trying to chat up a girl that way.:smack:
On a related note, I have been told by a small number of people that I talk with a “Cowboy accent”. These folks mainly seem to be from New England. Everybody from Texas is quick to remind me that I have no Texan accent to speak of whatsoever, despite being born and spending half my life there (coming and going to other places though, probably the reason for me not having much of the accent).
That’s one of the things one does in the loo.
You think this is a valid point when we’ve been talking about a ‘British’ accent? What is a British accent, pray tell? Ian Paisley? Cerys Matthews? Ringo Starr? The cast of Eastenders? The cast of Trainspotting? Have you heard a Stornaway accent, or one from Lerwick?
Great Britain also has 3 native languages currently being spoken. Do you think we don’t also have many languages that have come from other countries? Some of those communities have influenced the accents of others, especially in London.
Well, yes, I do believe it is a valid point. The fact that the concept of a “British” accent is silly does nothing to detract from the fact that the concept of a “North American” accent is also silly. And I already answered the “British Accent” question with “The Doctor”.
Anything that sounds like oil. As in, “Oil” (I’ll) have the fish."
That’s roight. Loike: Blimey Govnah don’t get your knickers in a twist, roight? Oil just pop down to the pub for a quick point and, Bob’s your uncle, what?
Please note that I didn’t say that the range of accents in the U.K. was more or less than the range of accents outside the U.K. I take no position on that question. What I said was that it’s not possible for a resident of a region to accurately say that the range of accents within his own region is more or less than the range of accents in some other region. In general, one will always tend to overestimate the variety of accents in one’s own region and underestimate the variety of accents in some other region. One will be more familiar with the range of accents in one’s own region and more able to notice the differences and less familiar with the range of accents in some other region and less able to notice the differences. An objective account of how large the differences are in accents would take a phonologist (a linguist specializing in the sound structure of languages) doing a thorough survey of the region.