How your idiolect differs from the standard language

[Nortaneous]

Wow, that's wierd I've never heard /O/ in "I'll", mine is also almost always /ai/.

For me, "I'll" tends toward [A5] or [AL\] in casual speech (the same, I think, as "all") but otherwise I have [aI ~ AI] for /ai/.

Do you have the cot-caught merger? /A/ never occurs before /l/ for me. And "I'll" and "all" always sound the same for me.

[finlay]

http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~fc503/zbb/stella-en.wav
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~fc503/zbb/fr.wav
http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~fc503/zbb/stella-de.wav

When was the original "Voices of the ZBB" done? I'm not sure I actually have that recording of myself any more, although obviously I can now download it.

Anyway, I've done a new one to compare and contrast, plus a german and french version, which I'm well aware are reasonably accented and I can't read them out loud at speed (I do badly enough at English, after all), but enjoy, anyway.

[Jipí]

http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~fc503/zbb/stella-en.wav

I think this was said before, but you don't sound Scottish at all.

http://www-users.york.ac.uk/~fc503/zbb/stella-de.wav

Nice. <Sechs> is pronounced [zEks], since -chs is [ks] when it all belongs to the same morpheme, e.g. des Dachs 'of the roof' has [Xs] because the -s is an inflection for genitive, while der Dachs 'the badger' has [ks] because -chs is part of the root.

When was the original "Voices of the ZBB" done?

Apparently in 2006.

[finlay]

Neither does your mum. It's certainly a "weaker" accent than before, but it depends on who you ask and how drunk I am – one thing that many will also note is that the Edinburgh accent is different from the Glaswegian one that people expect.

as for -chs, I think there's some part of me that can't quite get over it sounding like "sex", and mentally correcting it from that.

[Rui]

Wow, that's wierd I've never heard /O/ in "I'll", mine is also almost always /ai/.

For me, "I'll" tends toward [A5] or [AL\] in casual speech (the same, I think, as "all") but otherwise I have [aI ~ AI] for /ai/.

Do you have the cot-caught merger? /A/ never occurs before /l/ for me. And "I'll" and "all" always sound the same for me.

I have the same, or similar, reflex as Bosko, and I distinctly do **NOT** have the cot/caught merger (mine is so strong that I can barely tell the difference between people who have a simple /A/ vs. /O/...mine is more like /A/ vs. /O@/ with heavy rounding)

/Ol/, ending up as something like [O@5], is <all>
/aIl/, ending up as something like [A:5], is <I'll>

/A/ never occurs before /l/, but [A] does in some instances.

[Amuere]

Here I am in German (I'm attempting to mimic my grandma's Hessisch dielect, I'm sure I didn't sound like it): http://host-a.net/Amuere/My%20attempt%20in%20german.wma

Where in Hesse is she from? Be careful of what you're labelling "Hessian", since there is no such dialect strictly speaking (look at examples from the Upland, Kassel, Fulda, Frankfurt, the Odenwald, and Gießen maybe... if you can find recordings on the web). You sound very much English-speaking in your recording however, and it was rather staccato-like.

My grandma is from Kassel, and I often hear her speaking German, either on the phone with family or when she's giving me lessons. Since her dialect is the one I've been hearing since birth, I pretty much naturally try to speak German the way she does. I'll look more into the dialects around Kassel, because I want to speak her dialect.

Yea I figured I sounded Englishy, I'm not used to saying whole sentences. I normally only use phases and greeting. Did I pronounce the rhotic correctly?

[TaylorS]

Wow, that's wierd I've never heard /O/ in "I'll", mine is also almost always /ai/.

For me, "I'll" tends toward [A5] or [AL\] in casual speech (the same, I think, as "all") but otherwise I have [aI ~ AI] for /ai/.

Do you have the cot-caught merger? /A/ never occurs before /l/ for me. And "I'll" and "all" always sound the same for me.

My Cought-Cot merger is incomplete, I keep /O/ when it comes before /5/, possibly the velarized aspect of /5/ prevent the merger.

[Cweorth]

My dialect is, for the most part, boring GA, centered on California (my parents' origin) and the Pacific Northwest (my current home). I have some weird vocabulary and pronunciations that pop up from time to time, given that I grew up in the Southeast. I used to drawl when I was tired and drunk, but people pointing it out caused me to eventually get over it. I also had a short stint in the Intermountain West region, which has its own strangenesses, like <sale> [seI5] and <sell> [sE5] merging to [sE5] (resulting in some amusing signs).

The problem with me is that I'll switch registers all the time, even within the same conversation for emphasis. I don't think you could pin down a single pronunciation for certain words. I honestly don't know whether I pronounce <leg> as [5Eg] or [5eIg], I try to pronounce <your/you're> as [jOr\] rather than [j@`]. I would guess that when I get Southern-y, I retroflex my Rs and post-alveolars, vocalize my Ls, pronounce verbal ending -ing as -in, and break my lax front vowels (though being that the latter feature is the most identifiably Southern, I've largely gotten over it). My biggest Southernism is possibly /"pi:.k{n/ for <pecan> (vs. /p(I)"kAn/) (and is thankfully rare in my day-to-day vocabulary).

Vocabulary-wise, I use soda to the exclusion of all other words, and hearing other words makes me do a double-take. I picked up the Intermountain West use of "show" as a general term covering near all visual entertainment that occurs in discrete amounts (though this might have generalized across other dialects? I'm not sure. It was a novelty back in 2000). I'll use "anymore" in a positive phrase with a similar meaning as "these days", like "I use Chrome instead of Firefox anymore." I can't think of any other vocabulary oddities at the moment.

[finlay]

By the way, I have a cot-caught merger (well, caught is sometimes longer but probably only because I'm aware of it – they're certainly the same quality) and it doesn't come anywhere near [A] or /a/, so all is [O5] or [Q5] and I'll is [a5] or [aj@5]. or something along them lines.

Y'know... it's not just you americans that have the merger, is the point. (it's just mine merge as [O] or [Q], something rounded in that region)

[Jipí]

http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~Bec ... nglish.mp3
http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~Bec ... french.mp3
http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~Bec ... colloq.mp3
http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~Bec ... andard.mp3

[Boşkoventi]

Wow, that's wierd I've never heard /O/ in "I'll", mine is also almost always /ai/.

For me, "I'll" tends toward [A5] or [AL\] in casual speech (the same, I think, as "all") but otherwise I have [aI ~ AI] for /ai/.

Do you have the cot-caught merger? /A/ never occurs before /l/ for me. And "I'll" and "all" always sound the same for me.

I do (and Father-bother). So /A/ can correspond to any of RP /A Q O:/. [O5] shows up, but as the realization of underlying /oUl/, as in "roll" or "goal" (where RP has [@U5]). Sometimes I start to think words like "tock" and "talk" are somehow different, but it's probably just overthinking.

[Cadeshadow]

My dialect is American English, with a good amount of east coast mixing.

I have "y'all".

In the present, every subject (except you) is conjugated with is (you remains as "are").

In the negative, everything is ain't. In the past positive, everything is were and the past negative is weren't. "is" and "are" always contract (ain't does too with the pronouns, more or less, but I haven't caught it yet with a noun.)

If a noun is being possessed and one of either the possessor or the possessed is singular, I say "is", otherwise, I'd say "ain't".

I allow double contractions.

I use "whom"

the past tense form of the verb is nearly always the participle or the perfect. Have has either been reduced to /@/, or to /v/, when contracted. I'ven't (pronounced either /av.Ent/ or /aIv.Ent/)

Thanks to that thread a while back, I have "severalteen".

I have a "why come" in free distribution with "why", meaning more or less the same thing.

People got things, they don't tend to have them. (I feel like there's a deeper rule here I'm not thinking of... but I'm not thinking of it)

[D] tends to become [d], but never [T] and [t]. (with the exception of something, which becomes something between (pardon my XSAMPA) / s\7mm1n / and /s\7mp1n/

I've borrowed penser from French class, pronounced like /pEnz:/

going has been reduced to /gIn/, with a small bit of syllabic-ness about the g.

I share a good number of TaylorS's developments, but use over instead of "by"

sorry is an entirely sympathetic word, only used for apologies when my only fault is a small impoliteness, like bumping into someone.

If your skill level vastly exceeds someone else's, you're skilling on him, if your style level vastly exceeds, styling on, etc, etc. In general Scalable Traits=Clothes. (as in, not male vs female, but smart vs dumb)

[Viktor77]

I hope this isn't improper, and since I already asked about my Swedish, I wondered if any Swedes (or better yet Danes) could tell me how my Danish is. I've been trying to improve it. At the least I aim to sound Danish to Swedish ears. To Danish ears I'd like to be at least somewhat intelligible.

I apologise for the stupid static and low volume. My laptop is annoyingly humming away and I can't talk loud as everyone is asleep.

http://host-a.net/Viktor77/danish.wma

[Skomakar'n]

I hope this isn't improper, and since I already asked about my Swedish, I wondered if any Swedes (or better yet Danes) could tell me how my Danish is. I've been trying to improve it. At the least I aim to sound Danish to Swedish ears. To Danish ears I'd like to be at least somewhat intelligible.

I apologise for the stupid static and low volume. My laptop is annoyingly humming away and I can't talk loud as everyone is asleep.

http://host-a.net/Viktor77/danish.wma

You don't sound native at all, but I understand what you're saying.
Your god morgen sounds like you're saying good morning in English.

---

Seems this y -> øy thing mostly goes for foreign words when I use them (which I try to do as rarely as possible). <hyper> is [h2y)pIr] or [h9y)pIr] or something like that, for example.

[äreo]

Had some extra time, so I decided to do a more thorough analysis of my idiolects in English and French.

English:
[t] is /4/ intervocalically, and a glottal stop finally.
Final [ts] is /?s/ or sometimes just /s/ when I'm speaking fast.
I don't have the cot-caught merger.
I make frequent use of "y'all".
/AI/ often monophtongizes to /A/ before liquids and nasals.
I merge Mary and merry as /mEr\i/, but marry is /m{r\i/.
The vowel in borrow, morrow, and sorrow is /O/.
I have "intrusive" linking R - idea of /AIdi3r\Vv/.
/{/ doesn't diphthongize before nasals.
I say "for serious" a lot, in lieu of "seriously".
I have whom.
I use quite a few double contractions - I'd've, I'll've, I'dn't, you'dn't, etc.
In fast or informal speech, I use "ain't" for all negative contractions of be and have and "don't" instead of doesn't.
And even in more formal contexts, I still use "ain't" for am not.
I sometimes front objects for emphasis (though I'm pretty sure a lot of English speakers, at least Americans, do as well - at least in some cases), e.g. "that I'll do" or "a bitch she is!"
I leave out pronouns pretty often when context makes the meaning clear, like mere "going" for I'm going.

French:
I learned Metropolitan French (so my prononciation is pretty close to that), however I have been exposed to a great deal of, and enjoy some of the sounds of, Quebec French, and this has had some effect on my prononciation - [t] and [d] become [ts dz] before the high front vowels, and in closed syllables /y i u/ can become /Y I U/.
I tend to say /{/ (or something close to it) for /E:/ for some reason, though this doesn't seem to be related to Quebec French influence - ton père /to~p{R/.

[sirdanilot]

This is an interesting thread. My native language is Dutch and I was born and bred in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, however my parents weren't. My mother wasn't a native speaker of Dutch (though she spoke it quite well) and was Brazilian, and my father came from the Noordoostpolder, which was quite recently (1950s?) turned from sea into land (and with it perhaps one of the greatest human-built structures on earth!), meaning that area has absolutely no cultural or linguistic history (which I guess is quite special). His heritage lies in another region in Zeeland though, yet he spoke almost perfectly standard Dutch.

My Dutch is mostly standard. Many Dutch people have turned their /r/ into [ɹ] which is an absolute abomination. My /r/ is more or less perfectly [r] and I can roll it too!

When I say 'denk' (think) it comes out like [dɪŋk] rather than [dɛŋk]. There are some other influences from my environment as well such as 'meewind' instead of 'wind mee' (which means the wind is blowing in the right direction, for example when cycling... stupid English lacking words) etc...
Sometimes I incorrectly forget the word 'er' (some kind of grammatical placeholder particle...thingie. what does it really mean?), a mistake I copied from my non-native mother I suppose.

I can speak the real Zeeuws-Vlaanderen accent too (perhaps not perfectly but I do a fairly good job), but mostly for lols. It's very much different from standard Dutch, and unlike the accent spoke in the western and eastern parts of the region, it's not really like Flemish accents at all. A very small overview of differences, from standard to Zeeuws-Vlaams, as well as my proposed orthography (much more interesting than how I speak myself due to the plethora of differences):

Code: Select all

[ɛi] -> [i] .. kijken - kie' (the entire second syllable seems reduced to just a glottal stop.... perhaps [ki'@?] ?)
[ɛy] -> [y] uien -> juun (a [j] pops up out of nowhere)
[a:] -> [Oa] or perhaps [O:] gaan -> ghoan [hOan]
[e:] -> [I:E] zeveren zêvern or zjêvern (the /z/ is palatalized)
[y:] -> sometimes seems to go to [u] nu [ny] -> noe [nu]

[h]: often dissappears
[x, X] -> [h]

though the phonetical differences may not look like much, they certainly produce a very distinct accent. However it's the other parts that make Zeeuws-Vlaams quite different. It has an entire set of different personal pronouns for example:
ik ben -> ik ben
jij/u bent -> jie ben
hij is -> ei is
wij zijn -> wuddr zin
jullie zijn -> zudder zin
zij zijn -> I don't really remember this one, I though something like:
hulder/hudder/hun zin

Zeeuws Vlaams also attaches /@] at the end of some words. I remember reading this has to do with the difference between female, neuter and male genders in words, which in Standard Dutch has mostly merged to neuter and not-neuter. There is actually still a difference between male and female, for example:

male: (de man) hij lacht (the man, he laughs)
female: (de zon) zij straalt (the sun, she shines)

However in practice this difference is more and more eliding away.
In Zeeuws-Vlaams, you would say 'een boerinne' (a female farmer) vs. 'een boer (a male farmer)'. This can be seen in other parts of Zeeland as well. We see this even by looking just at the topographic names: Koudekerke, Zoutelande, Wissekerke Ovezande, Zonnemaire, Schoondijke, Wemeldinge, Stavenisse... All these final <e>s are pronounced [@]. This may look like cherrypicking, but it is really striking. Even names that don't have this, will be pronounced this way: 'Sluiskil'-> 'Sluuskille' [slEyskIl] -> [slyskIl@]

Much of this I just discovered as I typed but I just wanted to give you guys a small introduction of this interesting dialect. In Holland, there are some main dialects. Zeeuws-Vlaams, or any dialect from Zeeland, is not heard often, but is very very different from any other dialect. It is however common to hear the other dialects, especially Hollands and Brabants.
Standard/Hollands, in the region of Holland (western Netherlands) (often with the horrible [ɹ] for /r/ which I forgot to mention I loathe)
Brabants (Southern Netherlands, Brabant region) (with a velar or uvular trill for /r/, a [G] instead of [x] etc. Quite similar to some Flemish dialects
Limburgs (Limburg region, the southeeastern tip) (very much like German, for example with the german /r/ which I don't know the IPA for)
Gronings/Twents/Achterhoeks etc. (northeasternmost province for Gronings, and generally the east of the country for the rest. There are surely difference between them all, but I am not familiar enough. It sounds oddly nasal. I don't know of any specific differences I could pinpoint though)
Fries (Spoken in Frisia, in the north of the country. Frisian is a recognized minority language, but the folks who speak this will also speak Dutch with a Frisian accent)

And of course the city dialects.
Amsterdams: This is a very funny one, since it's very different from standard dutch and not too hard to describe. It devoices all fricatifes ent palatjalishes shome conshonantjsh or uh, devoices and palatalises. I don't know of any dialect that does this... The dialects spoken north of Amsterdam somewhat resemble it, but still Amsterdams sounds quite different from anything I've heard.
Haags: it does weird things with vowels. It is typical of an original Hollands accent (not the standard one spoken all over the country). Dialects similar to these are spoken all over the country.
Rotterdams: slightly similar to what is spoken in Den Haag (yes they speak Haags in the city of The Hague (Den Haag), it also does some weird things and has a weird /r/.
't Gooi: This is not a city, but a small region southeast of Amsterdam. This is where the diabolical, abysmal [ɹ] originated. Since this is an urban and popular region, close to Amsterdam, and also home to most of the country's TV and radio stations, and an attractive place-to-be for rich people and celebrities, I think this is the reason why many people (especially in the West, but spreading to urban regions in the rest of the country too) now say [ɹ] rather than [r]. It certainly became more popular since I was young.


EDIT: Also, to eradicate a common misconception. Holland =/= The Netherlands! Holland refers exclusively to the modern provinces of North and South Holland, located in the west of the country, along the entire North Sea shore (except Zeeland, the delta shore region). It is home to many great historical cities such as Amsterdam, Zaandam, The Hague/Den Haag, Leiden, Rotterdam, Delft, Haarlem... Historically even the very central city of Utrecht isn't part of it. Half of the 17 million inhabitants of the Netherlands live in this part of the country. It is a very urban region. there are still large cities outside of it though.
It's abit of a weird situation, much similar to Bohemia =/= Czech Republic (though it occupies most of the country). Any other examples?

[Skomakar'n]

We have medvind in Swedish.

[sirdanilot]

We have medvind in Swedish.

Perhaps this is the older word then? It would be interesting to see this in other Germanic languages (preferably Western, since that is what Dutch is).

[Skomakar'n]

Älskade ängel by Lill-Babs is fucking awesome, so I had to make my idiolectal interpretation of it. I did change some words that I never use, and changed the word order a bit to fit better. I don't ever use the word stjärt/stjert either, though, but I had to keep it in, as it was in the original lyrics, just because it's such an awesome word.

Eg hà aldrei trúð á guða inna eg sá dig.
Hvor feil eg hatt innsá eg fyrst, nær dú stóð fram fyr me.
Dini spilandi musklar feng' mig á sukta, av trá, og av tyrst,
og deð ókjenda som brann í díni øygu, drabbà hjerta mí fyrst

Deð má hà veri dig Guð tenkti á, nær han skapà mann'n sin,
fyr deð finnst ekki noku ting, som dú ekki kann.

Elskà engil.
Dú ert sannir.
Elskà engil.
Dú ert ein mann.
Dú ert stór og sterkir og snyggir.
Hás de so er eg trygg.
Og dú ert min.

Hvor kann ei eina manneskja fá allt, og myki meira?
Allt mannlegt, musklegt er í de; er ótrúlegt, hvað mann ser,
og musklarni í dí fasti stjert, fá blóðið mitt á strøyma til
Hárið ditt er villt som í dini dagi. Eg kann ekki sitja still.

Deð má hà veri dig Guð tenkti á, nær hann skapà mann'n sin,
fyr deð finnst ekki noku ting, som dú ekki kann.

Elskà engil.
Dú ert sannir.
Elskà engil.
Dú ert ein mann.
Í hverju stigi dú gár,
vil eg at dú innser,
at dú ert min.

Og, smittandi læjandi, lengtandi leppar, og eina djúpa og mannlega røst.
Kjenslega fingra, favnandi arma, og ett dýrískt hárigt bryst.
Eit dýrískt hárigt bryst.

Elskà engil.
Dú ert sannir.
Elskà engil.
Dú ert ein mann.
Dú ert stór og sterkir og snyggir.
Hás de so er eg trygg,
fyr dú ert min.

Elskà engil.
Berri min.
Elskà engil.
Dú ert min.

Original lyrics: http://www.lyricspedia.com/lill-babs/al ... el-lyrics/

Recorded myself saying it (I can't sing, so sorry):
http://host-a.net/Skomakarn/elskaEngil.mp3

[Amuere]

http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~Bec ... nglish.mp3
http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~Bec ... french.mp3
http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~Bec ... colloq.mp3
http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~Bec ... andard.mp3

Jeez, that recording in German made me realize exactly how much I need to practice, I really do sound staccatoish in comparision to a native speaker.....

Skomakar'n you speak Swedish as your native language, correct? I like the way it sounds, I'm gonna start looking more into it.

[Skomakar'n]

http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~Bec ... nglish.mp3
http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~Bec ... french.mp3
http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~Bec ... colloq.mp3
http://www.students.uni-marburg.de/~Bec ... andard.mp3

Jeez, that recording in German made me realize exactly how much I need to practice, I really do sound staccatoish in comparision to a native speaker.....

Skomakar'n you speak Swedish as your native language, correct? I like the way it sounds, I'm gonna start looking more into it.

People tell me I sound Norwegian, so that's what you would want to look into, if it's for the sound of it.

[Nortaneous]

"isn't", "doesn't" [Idn=?], [dVdn=?]

also "of them" [Vb_dF=] or [Vbm] or something along those general lines, so this is probably representative of some sort of rule and not just random change of those two words. it seems to be limited to grammatical words, though.

[Skomakar'n]

"isn't", "doesn't" [Idn=?], [dVdn=?]

also "of them" [Vb_dF=] or [Vbm] or something along those general lines, so this is probably representative of some sort of rule and not just random change of those two words. it seems to be limited to grammatical words, though.

...

[Nortaneous]

"isn't", "doesn't" [Idn=?], [dVdn=?]

also "of them" [Vb_dF=] or [Vbm] or something along those general lines, so this is probably representative of some sort of rule and not just random change of those two words. it seems to be limited to grammatical words, though.

...

...?

also, what's interesting is how the hell did this end up in america? I've only heard of it existing in some weird british dialect, and yet most of my family (american as hell and from tennessee) has it

[Travis B.]

"isn't", "doesn't" [Idn=?], [dVdn=?]

also "of them" [Vb_dF=] or [Vbm] or something along those general lines, so this is probably representative of some sort of rule and not just random change of those two words. it seems to be limited to grammatical words, though.

...

...?

also, what's interesting is how the hell did this end up in america? I've only heard of it existing in some weird british dialect, and yet most of my family (american as hell and from tennessee) has it

At least in the case of your pronunciations of isn't and doesn't, such are normal pronunciations for more traditional Southern NAE dialects, actually.