In this thread we compare English accents and dialects

[Penos_Rider]

Or even better, look up "Emmigrate".

Why? It doesn't have an entry.

Touchee.

However, I had googled it before hand to double check I was correct...and found this:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q= ... ning&meta=

Howeever, after clicking the top link, I found this:

http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictio ... /Emmigrate


I can't even trust google nowadays.

[Dancing Mustard]

Heh heh... Penos_Rider.

[Neoteny]

[Jenos Ridan]

....Or even better, look up "Emmigrate".

But seriously Jenos, you're a fucking ridiculous twat.

My terrible mistake, all it ment was to leave an area. Just consulted my dictionary. I apologize for any misunderstanding. Makes sence, now that I think it through, given the meaning of "Immigrate".

What I ment to say, was that alot, but certainly not all, of what caused the big boom out here is fairly recent and mostly American citizenry. Not down playing the role of the Scandianavian, Finnish, German and other immigrants that settled here, who make up easily half of the cultural heritage out here (at a guess), so don't all jump down my throat!

[PLAYER57832]

No one seems to have mentioned the folks who were here first. Talk to older Navaho, Lakota, etc and you hear some accents to the English. Even when no one speaks the original tongue, as is true for many tribes, you can often hear faint echoes in the English they speak.

Language does give an interesting window into travel and demography. England has many more dialects and accents (both) than American. Distinctions in the east and south are much more pronounced than out west. If you think about the weather, history, and times of settlement ... you can understand why. OR you can look at language and understand the settlement better by looking at how the language has and has not changed.

[rhoges6]

Then you have CA "beach" or "valley", New England, midwestern -- all within the US. Canada has yet more dialects.

I don't think you can lump all of New England together. I mean, I live in Connecticut, but sound completely different from Bostonians (thank god). And you can even hear people from south west CT that have slightly New York accents.

Maybe i haven't been exposed enough to Minnesotans, but I don't really hear much of an accent there. then again, I don't know anybody from Minnesota.

And let's not forget about Jamaican and other Caribbean accents too, Noo wat Ah'm sayin' Mon?

[btownmeggy]

No one seems to have mentioned the folks who were here first. Talk to older Navaho, Lakota, etc and you hear some accents to the English. Even when no one speaks the original tongue, as is true for many tribes, you can often hear faint echoes in the English they speak.

Language does give an interesting window into travel and demography. England has many more dialects and accents (both) than American. Distinctions in the east and south are much more pronounced than out west. If you think about the weather, history, and times of settlement ... you can understand why. OR you can look at language and understand the settlement better by looking at how the language has and has not changed.

For realz. Is anyone here from New Mexico? Very unusual, distinctive accent there.

[Jenos Ridan]

No one seems to have mentioned the folks who were here first. Talk to older Navaho, Lakota, etc and you hear some accents to the English. Even when no one speaks the original tongue, as is true for many tribes, you can often hear faint echoes in the English they speak.

A friend of the family is Yurok Indian and I haven't noticed her to have an accent. I've listened to a member of the Wiyot tribe speak about some of their history and there was not a noticible accent there either. Maybe I have bad ears : .

[billy07]

i'm a geordie, north east england.

there's a helluva lot of slang in geordie and very few english speakers would understand a conversation in broad geordie as it's also spoken quite quick.

we on the other hand have no problem understanding any other english accent, if you keep the words to two syllables or less.

[tzor]

Actually I don't feel like reading 6 pages but has anyone yet defended the glorious tongue of "Lung eye land?'" (Long Island?) Where comes the mighty tongue of "Rooklyn?" (Brooklyn?)

[crapgame]

I was hired from the american midwest for a previous job specifically because the midwesterners in iowa were considered by sprint/blackberry to have a 'neutral' American accent. This was where they located their largest tech support center.

According to this line of thought, the corporate ladder people at Sprint believed that 'most' people in the u.s. would be able to follow along/not start laughing when they heard us talking to them on the phone.

Of course this all crap. But one begins to wonder how you would judge a 'neutral' English accent.

I think it depends on who has the most guns.

as re: billie 07

we on the other hand have no problem understanding any other english accent, if you keep the words to two syllables or less.

Have you been to Fargo? Not many syllables, but a lot of strange stuff going on with that accent. It's like they took the worst from Canada AND the worst from the US.

[Frigidus]

I was hired from the american midwest for a previous job specifically because the midwesterners in iowa were considered by sprint/blackberry to have a 'neutral' American accent. This was where they located their largest tech support center.

According to this line of thought, the corporate ladder people at Sprint believed that 'most' people in the u.s. would be able to follow along/not start laughing when they heard us talking to them on the phone.

Of course this all crap. But one begins to wonder how you would judge a 'neutral' English accent.

I think it depends on who has the most guns.

as re: billie 07

I, for one, support this notion. The midwest doesn't have any distinguishing features aside from corn, so at least front us the neutral accent.

[Jenos Ridan]

IF, and that is a mighty big if, a neutral accent could be found, I'd pay good money to hear it.

[suggs]

Anyone diverging from the Queens English, as she speaks it, must be shot.

[jiminski]

comprehensible scot here. there is just as much linguistic variety in our guttural wailings as there are exist in merry old england. i have to ask glaswegians everything twice

I worked with 3 lads from Cork and a Glaswegian (in Australia hehe) .. took me 2 months of constant exposure to understand a word without repetition. And then another month to get them when they spoke amongst themselves.
(having been exposed to both for fairly long periods; Many Irish accents/ dialects are very similar to some Caribbean.. it is uncanny and based perhaps on who English was learned from in the plantations)

the rhythm of their speech is different and the boundaries of the words impregnable to the newcomer.
Most of the words are the same with slight adjustments but where each one starts and finishes is another thing.. it becomes a collection of sounds incomprehensible to the uninitiated.

[mandyb]

I dinnay key fit yur haverin on aboot min! Can ye nay spik propa english like?

[mandyb]

yer a canny wee loon, nay doot at a.
But I'll no be roamin' in the gloamin' wi yer, if yer ken fit I mean.

[jiminski]

I am very aroused!

[mandyb]

I am very aroused!

better not speak to you in french then - god knows what might happen...



*note ellipses

[jiminski]

I am very aroused!

better not speak to you in french then - god knows what might happen...



*note ellipses

hehe is God a French Woman..... (in this case they mean raised eyebrows)

[Jenos Ridan]

Anyone diverging from the Queens English, as she speaks it, must be shot.

Any lobsterback attempting to force his royalist crap down any american's throat will find two well-placed 7.92mmx39mm rounds, fired from a Mauser with a 32x mag scope, in his arse.

Saavy?

[AlgyTaylor]

Anyone diverging from the Queens English, as she speaks it, must be shot.

Any lobsterback attempting to force his royalist crap down any american's throat will find two well-placed 7.92mmx39mm rounds, fired from a Mauser with a 32x mag scope, in his arse.

Saavy?

Do you have humour in the US, then?

I'm quite pleased with my mild West Midlands accent (obviously from the Black Country, but not blatently so).

England - encountered most accents, south-west (Cornwall / Devon) is the only place I've not been to many times. And they're pretty distinctive anyway
Wales - Can recognise north Wales (eastern), north Wales (western), mid Wales (eastern) and south Wales as separate accents without problem. Could probably expand that to western mid Wales too, but I've not been there for years & don't know anyone from the area so wouldn't bet on it.
Scotland - Can tell the difference between south west & Glasgow if they're side by side, but not individually. Don't have any problems with understanding / telling where people are from going up the east coast - either been to or know people from seemingly everywhere up that way
Folk on the Western Isles sound way too much like the Irish for my liking (big ups to the Isle of Lewis tech support massif)
Ireland - bit weak. Can work out 'norn iron', 'south' or 'Dublin' but struggle after that. Not been to that fine pair of countries anywhere near enough

Outside the UK I struggle massively. Can tell most nationalities, but other than that - I'm at a loss.

[daddy1gringo]

Good, I've been wanting to ask: Has anybody seen the movie "Millions" where these 2 kids get a satchel of money from a robbery that was thrown off a train? What kind of accent is that with which the kids speak? It doesn't sound quite Irish or Scottish.

[heavycola]

I dinnay key fit yur haverin on aboot min! Can ye nay spik propa english like?

Aye aye Mandy, are you fae Aberdeen? I used tae bide near inverurie...


i fuckign HATE australian accents. That way? that everything has to become a question? A nasal, whining question? That really, like, irritiates the sh!t out of me?
I love australians though, even if your men do all have highlights and use aborigines as packhorses.

[jiminski]

Good, I've been wanting to ask: Has anybody seen the movie "Millions" where these 2 kids get a satchel of money from a robbery that was thrown off a train? What kind of accent is that with which the kids speak? It doesn't sound quite Irish or Scottish.

Never Seen it... but the some of the Scottish accents sound a little like a mix between the two and certainly not stereotypically identifiable.

Not necessarily related to it sounding like a Scots-Irish highbred but i have found the there is a propensity of them to pronounce an 's' at the end of a word as 'sh'.

Most Scottish accents tend to whistle the last 's' in a word, Beers for example becoming:
"biearssse" (probably if said softly could be Edinburgh, with a bit more attitude it could double phonetically as a Belfast accent)

in the Outer Hebrides:
"biershhhh"

Posh (oxford) English:
"Birzz"