Do we really all speak English? I noted as a joke in another thread a supposed New Zealand organisation called Rutch, Thuck and Kremy- as any aussie knows ( there are over half a milliuon legal New Zealand immigrants here in a population of only 21 million) this translates from Kiwiese as ""Rich, Thick and Creamy"". It got me thinking about the subject of accents, and how communication on the Net in most cases erases them.
New Zealanders, for example, switch vowels, so that a six pack becomes a sex peck, and a very large house becomes a mention. South Africans do much the same....
This may seem a bit rich ( or in NZease, a but rutch) coming from someone who probably sounds to you as if he has two fingers stuffed up his nose- but to me sounds perfectly normal, of course.
So, what is or are the strangest accents you have encountered?
Indian sub-continent, with the head-waggleing and the v/w switch ? ( ..take a wote on it..)
Spanish and Swedish, with the j/y transposition?
..or maybe Aussie, with it's ""mate""...?
One of my favorite movies is Canadian, Strange Brew, eh?
...and ""oot"", as out- the main difference to aussie ears between US and Canadian.
Everyone north of Brisbane here adds an ""eh"" , as well. Must be a Northern thing... ;)
Well I remember my kintergarden teacher reciting the rules of pronounciation making us repeat the 44 phoentic sounds...
We all did these in school right?
When two vowels go a walking the first one does the talking.... So when you have the out... the u has no sound and no influence in the pronounciation of the word.... In Canada it is unmistakenly "O" with the "t" sound at the end of the deliberate full long "O"
In America that would be pronounced Owt....letting the u in the middle of the word out to influence and dominate the sound of the o at the start of the word.
This is commonplace in American pronounciation.... The Phoenetics and rules of grammer have been superceded by twang
I dug up some of my old school readers from when I was five years old and showed them to my wife's family....My Mother in law remembers reading the Little red Green and Blue readers in School and the lessons in Grammer spelling and pronounciation.... So I have converted 2 Americans anyways :P
Just had to remind them that texas twang is not a correct form of english...to be found per se in a dictionary
which is a good thing because I shudder still when I hear Dubbya the Dummy try to say "Nuculur"
We also have New England and "Beah". :)
I speak Canajun mostly, but without having "eh" tacked onto every breath. My sister's do that tho' :-/
[interesting note: Firefox's spellcheck gives you the option of Canadian or Cajun for that deliberate mispselling]
Cajun english is definitely not english as we speak it either. Try Creole.
"Out" is always a giveaway, as well as "been" when I talk here in NM. (Americans say "I've bin to the store." whereas "I've bean there"
When I was in the UK years ago I had a devil of a time understanding the older folks in Wales.
I spent a few years of my life with Hawaiian Pidgin. Pretty much as educated people spoke it.
Still occasionally use "da kine" for almost any thing or idea, da kine war, or da kine scissors or just da kine when you don't know a noun.
Or "pau." As in finished. I'm pau with that horrible job. Or....you pau with da kine?
Not fond of the "society" southern accent.
But I try, and usually fail, to talk country.
""....you pau with da kine? "" :) Pidgin is a fascinating style of speech- part short cut, part baby-talk. In Papua New Guinea Pidgin is a way for the hundreds of different tribes, each with their own language ( tribal groups are Won-Toks ie: One Talks, as in one who speaks the same language) to communicate, and includes Dutch, Indonesian and English as well as native words. There are no tenses or grammer, so ""my daughter"" becomes ""pikinnini Mary Bilong ( belong) me""
I worked in PNG many years ago, and I can still remember my profound shock at discovering during the first few days that the Pidgin word for White Man was ""Master"". ::)
Raised central Va still a bit of old kings english a cross between the Stones and James Taylor sound homey?
..sounds like a strange combination, Leo- Mick Jagger always sounded black to me.... :o
Not as thick an accent or as hard for the aussie ear to understand as that used in the Rap and Hip-Hop gardening songs I hear snatches of- it seems, and this is no doubt a cultural legacy of the cotton fields, to consist mostly of advice about different ways to use a hoe...
In our country western music culture, we used to have something called a "hoe down", Pete -- nowadays those words spoken on the sidewalk in the city would bring an ambulance, several firetrucks and emergency response teams.
In the old days it was caused by drinking too much beer (or Beah in Massachusetts) while the local band played and everyone still standing tried to dance (at least I thought I was dancing until someone stepped on my fingers). :-/
Friends don't let friends do Rap. :-/
Quote"hoe down", Pete -- nowadays those words spoken on the sidewalk in the city would bring an ambulance, several firetrucks and emergency response teams.
LOL ROF ;D
QuoteLOL ROF ;D
Well, hot damn. I finally got one. :)
You don't know how hard it is to drop all of these bombs I drop, Don. :-/
;D Makes you wonder just how much beer those triple-vision Santas have consumed.
Western Australians ( Perth is the main city) say ""beah"" as well, and Heah and Deah. Light beer is ""Queah Beah""... :o
I want to ask Rob, if he sees this, just what the ""waaaagh"" sound Japanese men make so often means..Is it a word, or a form of verbal headscratching, maybe?
When I lived in the FL Keys, the local McDonald's had a lot of Haitian workers who only spoke patois (pronounced pat wa Depending upon the instance, it can refer to pidgins, creoles, dialects - wikipedia). I once stood behind a German tourist who tried to order in a succession of languages, getting progressively more frustrated by the blank stare of the employee. At one point she said something like "I speak seven languages, I've never been anywhere in the world where I couldn't make myself understood." We locals knew how to communicate. We pointed at pictures of the food items we wanted.