In the current thread on Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a poster makes reference to the “Australian” character in the film; yet there isn’t one- the character (and accent) are English, and obviously so, IMHO. I honestly couldn’t understand how someone could miss that, but I’ve noticed that people in the US seem to have trouble differentiating non-upper class English accents from Australian/NZ accents, and vice-versa.
The last time I was in the US I was often asked “Where in England are you from?” (I’m used to it, lots of people here think I’m from England originally), but my wife was asked the same question and she doesn’t sound even vaguely English.
I’ve seen the same confusion in reference to several English characters in the US. To us, the various English accents are about as similar to the Australian one as a Russian accent is to a Middle Eastern one.
I can understand not being able to differentiate an Australian and NZ accent; they are pretty similar to someone who doesn’t live here (much like American/Canadian accents), but I honestly can’t understand how anyone could confuse an Australian/NZ accent with an English one…
It’s no big secret. The accents sound similar. And we in the US rarely hear either on a regular basis and I would guess (from all the UK TV and movies we get) that when someone hears an accent like that, the default answer is “British.”
We don’t hear a lot of Aussie accents around here so the only thing we have to compare it to is the Crocodile Hunter (Steve Irwin), Crocodile Dundee, and MadMax RoadWarrior. We think all Aussies sound like that.
I can’t either, probably it’s the provincial nature of American culture. And even amongst British accents there are so many differences. Most Americans just don’t think about things like that.
OK, let’s stop this right now before it gets ugly.
Martini mentioned in his OP that he can’t tell the difference between an American accent and a Canadian one. I live about 90 minutes from the US/Canada border and I can tell the difference right away. Does that make Martini less “provincial” than me?
It’s all in the experience in what you’ve been exposed to and as I said before, on the average, Americans are exposed to a British accent a lot more than an Aussie/NZ one. So that becomes the default answer for that accent type.
If a typical UK citizen found themselves on Interstate 90, could they distinguish the difference between someone from Buffalo, Cleveland, and Chicago by voice alone? What about someone from Mississippi, Virginia, Texas and the Appalachian region? Could they distinguish an Anglo Canadian accent from that of “NPR American” if the Canadian speaker didn’t use “eh?” as a filler?
“US provincialism?” Every country is provincial when it comes to the details.
FWIW, I can tell the difference between someone from the UK, NZ, and Australia, but if you want to confuse me, throw a non-Afrikaaner South African in there.
And if you do think about things like that, well by gadfrey maybe it’s time you stopped feeding at the tit of the Republic and shipped on back to Jolly Olde, you toffee-nosed colonialist tea-sipper you.
I have 2 questions:
How different is Aussie speech from Kiwi speech to indigenous folks? Do you have any glaring pronunciational cues one from the other or is it mostly a matter of different slangs?
Is traditional Talk Like a Pirate speech not an echo of the coastal south/southwest of England? I hear similarities, notably between Graham Chapman’s flying sheep farmer with his hard r sounds…“Arrr, 'tis that”…“No no, oi live 'errre”…“These sheep arrre laborin’ underrr the misapprehension that they’rrre birrrds.”
When I came over for the excellent Milwaukee World Roleplaying Championships many years ago, I brought along my educated English accent (sometimes called Received Pronounciation).
Everyone was charming , but I was asked:
are you Australian?
are you South African?
are you Scottish?
One of my mates, who was refereeing, was told “Lose the phoney English accent!”.
He is English. :eek:
We do have regional accents, such as West Country, Geordie (Newcastle), Welsh (sevweral), Scottish (several), Cockney, Brummie (Birmingham).
But many people have no strong accent - and anyway I wouldn’t be able to say where the heavy accents came from to within 10 miles, for sure.
Depending on how the experts slice them, there are anywhere from 5-10 regional accents in the U.S. How many of them can you tell apart?
Well, there you go. I think most North Americans consider a Canadian accent (which Canadian accent, by the way?) to be distinctly different from most of the U.S. accents.
I should probably clarify that I personally can- usually, but not always- hear a difference in the American/Canadian accent (I can pick the various regional UK accents with no problems at all, though, for the most part.)
But to most people outside North American, the two sound very similar and, jokes about “Oot and Aboot” aside, you’ve got to be paying attention to pick it up, IME. On the other hand, I travel a lot and I find being able to pick accents a useful social skill, so I try and work at it when I get the chance. But for people that don’t travel much? It’s not really that useful being able to tell whether someone is from Yorkshire or Cornwall or the Yukon just from listening to them speak.
By “indigenous folks”, do you mean Aboriginal people and Maori? I think they generally can tell the difference, but I’ll note also that there are distinct dialects that are called Aboriginal English and Maori English spoken by those indigenous folks.
But, yes, Australians and New Zealanders have no trouble distinguishing the accents. The main difference is the different quality of some vowels: to Australians, NZers pronounce “fish and chips” as “fush and chups”.
I’m pretty deaf to Canadian accents. I live in Michigan. I have Canadian friends north of Lake Ontario. When I first made friends with them though I thought they all sounded alot older then they were. After a bit, I was pretty deaf to their accents. I sometimes tease my one friend when she says “eh”, or aboot with “haha you’re fulfilling a stereotype” even though I say eh alot more.
North Island (particularly Auckland) accents tend more towards the “Fush and Chups” end of the scale and has a greater Maori influence, while South Island (particularly Christchurch) is very close to Received Pronunciation, and, further south (towards Dunedin) has some Scottish influence (the use of “wee” to denote something small, for example. Then again, I use “wee” for “small” and I’ve never lived in Dunedin.).
Can English people distinguish between a Minnesota accent and an Indiana accent? How about Boston and New York City, or Texas and Alabama? Newfoundland and rural Ontario?
To me, they’re all distinct and easy to pick out, whereas all Australians and New Zealanders sound to me like they have the same speech impediment. As for the British Isles, I can distinguish four accents:
Hoity-toity English
Cockney
Scottish brogue
Irish
Of course you’re going to know accents you hear more often. Why would it be otherwise?
many years ago, I brought along my educated English accent (sometimes called Received Pronounciation).
, but I was asked: