I honestly can’t remember if I meant the continent or just the US. The US itself has Spanish and English as rather widespread languages (including a sizable number of people native to the US, as opposed to immigrants). Numerous other languages and dialects are rather rooted to different smaller regions.
But knowing me, and since I recall making mention of the president of Mexico, I probably meant the Continent as a whole, which brings in even more in. It was a snark-heavy comment based on someone talking about an “American accent”, which I suppose is the instinctive reaction that most Brits get when hearing mention of a British accent.
Someone ought to tell all those authorities, including many UK government departments, whose literature refers to “Punjabi” as a language. But it was obviously just an example that I employed for the general point that perhaps some “immigrant” languages can be considered native too. It is no surprise to me that someone closer to the region, such as AK84, considers the dialects spoken there to be actually separate languages. It is always the case - from afar, the distinctions are less clear, and several dialects tend to be grouped together under one name. There’s always debate on what is a dialect vs. what is a language. I understand that academic linguistics avoids the question altogether.
It’s a similar thing whenever we discuss English/British accents round here - Americans get chided for not appreciating that there are many dialects in Britain, but from their point of view, they all sound “British”.
They’re all “North American accents.” I can’t believe that this is being nitpicked. “British accent” and “North American accent” are perfectly valid terms with easily understandable meanings.
I’d say exactly the opposite. Most Americans have no clue about accents outside their own personal circle. Most Americans will not be able to distinguish among New Zealand, Australian, South African, British, Irish, and certain South Asian accents. They have no clue. I’d think that a pretty large proportion of Americans will also think that Frazier Crane, Charles Emerson Winchester III, and Katharine Hepburn have British accents of some kind.
I was once at a Malaysian restaurant with a group of highly educated and fairly wide-traveled Americans from a variety of backgrounds. We noticed that all the waiters at the restaurant were not Asian in appearance, but rather were Caucasian. They all shared a distinctive accent, and everyone started speculating about the accent. The general feeling was that they were Scottish. I was the only one who said that there was no way that they were British at all, but sounded like they were from somewhere in eastern Europe. The rest of the group laughed at me. So a bit later, on a trip to the men’s room, I ran into a few of the waiters and asked them. They were all from Hungary.
Its certainly archaic. After independence various Pakistan Governments have promoted Urdu (and English) over regional languages. Many many Urdu and Persian loanwords have entered the language and the one spoken in Britain sounds almost … rural…hillbilly…definatly strange. The accents are also quite different.
I would not say its hard for a Pakistanis to understand; more that its challenging; for the most part you can follow, but occasionally they will say a sentence that will leave you stumped; at a car wash once I could not follow what a friend was saying until he told me in English that he had said “I hope the car dose not get scratched”.
With regards to the OP, the reason I have asked this question is that I have only ever had Americans (and I include the erstwhile British North America here) think that my accent is British., never Brits, Europeans or Aussie. Though I suppose the latter would have had more exposure to Pakistanis.
I would say it all comes down to exposure. Folks in the US, by nature, are just going to tend to be exposed to a smaller variety of European and Asian accents, and thus will have less experience telling them apart. Doesn’t mean they can’t tell ANY accents apart, just that they can’t tell accents apart that they don’t encounter often.
They figure that it’s better to err on the side of caution, and not accuse a Kiwi of being an Aussie, or a Canadian of being American. That can sometimes get people offended, whereas confusion the other way around is less likely to cause problems.
It seems very odd (IMHO) to get upset when someone foreign mistakes ones accent for somewhere nearby. As a Kiwi I promise not to get offended if anyone asks if I’m from Australia.
Though in my experience people are more likely to think I’m British… even people in NZ have assumed I’m British… which is puzzling to me (and a little amusing).
