American perceptions of British accents

[gmalivuk]

Ah right, West Country. And indeed, I initially thought Hagrid's accent must be from a part of England near Scotland, on account of rhoticity.

[linguoboy]

Ah right, West Country. And indeed, I initially thought Hagrid's accent must be from a part of England near Scotland, on account of rhoticity.

Ironically, the actor playing him is Scottish (from near Glasgow).

Musical comedian Bill Bailey has a great bit about getting turned down for the part of Gimli in LotR after being asked if he could do any regional accents and trotting out his native West Country. (He sounds pure London now.) The punchline, of course, is that in the final film, all the Hobbits speak with generically Mummerset accents.

[zompist]

That rang a bell, so I checked my LOTR movie book. The speech coach for the movie picked Gloucestershire for the hobbits, "because it's not difficult to speak and it's easy to understand."

[linguoboy]

That rang a bell, so I checked my LOTR movie book. The speech coach for the movie picked Gloucestershire for the hobbits, "because it's not difficult to speak and it's easy to understand."

Also, of the four main Hobbit characters, three out of four were rhotic already. (All except Monaghan, who's Irish by heritage but British by nationality and lived his early life in Germany. No idea what his native accent would be.)

[sangi39]

That rang a bell, so I checked my LOTR movie book. The speech coach for the movie picked Gloucestershire for the hobbits, "because it's not difficult to speak and it's easy to understand."

Also, of the four main Hobbit characters, three out of four were rhotic already. (All except Monaghan, who's Irish by heritage but British by nationality and lived his early life in Germany. No idea what his native accent would be.)

IIRC, he's got a kind of weak Manc accent.

[ol bofosh]

That rang a bell, so I checked my LOTR movie book. The speech coach for the movie picked Gloucestershire for the hobbits, "because it's not difficult to speak and it's easy to understand."

Also, of the four main Hobbit characters, three out of four were rhotic already. (All except Monaghan, who's Irish by heritage but British by nationality and lived his early life in Germany. No idea what his native accent would be.)

IIRC, he's got a kind of weak Manc accent.

Yeah.

I have a feeling he didn't iron out all his STRUT vowels, so at first I assumed he was talking a rhotic lancastrian accent, untill I heard [V]. I'll have to listen to it again, cos I have a feeling that sometimes he says and sometimes [V].

Edit: anyone heard of Sound Familiar?

[Astraios]

Cev/Rhetorica: scouse is the easiest one to learn to recognise, because it turns coda (sometimes even non-coda) /k/ into an affricate or fricative (sometimes lightly, sometimes very strongly). Also, it fronts /A/, /U/, and /u/ quite strongly, and I think the first element in /oU/ as well.

Having just talked about it with an actual person from Liverpool, and having grown up in the area: nope. This is Scouse.

[Drydic]

Cev/Rhetorica: scouse is the easiest one to learn to recognise, because it turns coda (sometimes even non-coda) /k/ into an affricate or fricative (sometimes lightly, sometimes very strongly). Also, it fronts /A/, /U/, and /u/ quite strongly, and I think the first element in /oU/ as well.

Having just talked about it with an actual person from Liverpool, and having grown up in the area: nope. This is Scouse.

I could understand a few words every couple sentences...why do people insist that I speak the same language as those people, I couldn't carry on a conversation with them.

[ol bofosh]

My uncle went with my auntie and cousins to Liverpool (I think my auntie's a Liverpuddlian) and the youngest came back with a scouse accent thick as (he sounds more like a Cockney now)!

There's a pub restaurant and he cook is a scouser through and through. She comes out and says hello to us (we're regulars) and when she goes away I have to translate.

Eh, eh, it's a great achcent, chuck.

[Salmoneus]

Cev/Rhetorica: scouse is the easiest one to learn to recognise, because it turns coda (sometimes even non-coda) /k/ into an affricate or fricative (sometimes lightly, sometimes very strongly). Also, it fronts /A/, /U/, and /u/ quite strongly, and I think the first element in /oU/ as well.

Having just talked about it with an actual person from Liverpool, and having grown up in the area: nope. This is Scouse.

I'm not sure why you're saying "no". Carragher and Gerrard are exactly who I think of as prototypical scousers - are you saying they don't fricate /k/, or that they don't front their vowels?
Right in the first ten seconds of the clip, listen to how Carragher says "couple" - he has frication even in onset position! It's even stronger in coda, though, when he says "if you like" shortly afterward. Or wait 55ish seconds for him to say "nudge in the back" for a full-phlegm version.

Then listen at 1:15ish to how he says "Liverpool" - you're not going to tell me that's not a strongly fronted /u/, surely? I think the /U/ is also fronted, though i'm not so sure about that.

So what are you saying 'no' to?

Drydic: don't worry, Carragher is also available in subtitles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDaTTVR2JXY

[Melteor]

I think, as an American, I associate rising accents like a lot of Northern England, with Northern Ireland and Scotland as well, and falling accents with Southern England and Ireland. NI is spoken so fast! I think I mistook Geordie for NI for awhile but I cleared that up. Southern Irish sounds vaguely like Southern England, until I hear a Vr and I can tell it's not Bristol by the vowels. Glaswegian and Belfast sound similar except for /au/>/oi/ in Belfast, and I have a heck of a time distinguishing Scots/Scottish accents when there are glottal stops from Cockney, except that Cockney has pretty distinct prosody and the rhotic is different. Then there's the issue of whether I can understand them at all, e.g. Scouse, and I just go by the consonants.

One difference I would point out between British and American accents, is that I notice a lot more pitch glides in multisyllable words in British than American, i.e. the falls/rises tend to express themselves fully within the syllable rather than hiding behind the consonants in the syllable boundary like in American. (That doesn't hold for monosyllabic stresssed words.) Americans also shift the pitch alignment with regards to the stressed syllable but it's the same in (most) British dialects. Together, this makes some dialects sound animated yet restrained, and vaguely theatrical.

EDIT:
Rising and falling refers to the general trend for sentences e.g. Australian is rising, American is falling (usually); but what I mean by rises/falls are pitch motions on phrase accents, especially on the nucleus or final major stress of a phrase/clause.

[Astraios]

So what are you saying 'no' to?

I'd have thought it obvious. /U/ and /oU/ are very definitely not fronted.

[ol bofosh]

Harry Potter question: do you percieve the differences between Ron, Harry and Hermione's accents? And if so, what?

[Drydic]

Um Ron might be a little different but that also might be him sounding 'weak', I'm not sure. I can't recall any great difference between Harry and Hermione tho.

[Ars Lande]

Harry Potter question: do you percieve the differences between Ron, Harry and Hermione's accents? And if so, what?

Not an American, but I hear a difference between the three, and I'd like to know if it's just me
Hermione sounds more posh - she's also the easiest to understand, usually a good sign that someone's accent is closer to RP.
Ron is harder to understand, though I couldn't tell exactly what the difference is. I think that, among other things, he glottalizes his t's a lot more than the others.

[Copperknickers]

I think most Americans are not aware of *regional* British accents.

Americans are aware, but have basically zero ability to distinguish them by their location. It's not that we can't hear different accents and their differences-- we can-- but we have next to zero real impression of where British characters on tv and film are from in Britain. So when a character who's from, say, east England (does that have a distinctive accent? I don't even know!)

What a lot of Americans don't understand, is that in a normal country when accents have had time to develop, everywhere has a distinct accent. There are still parts of Scotland and Northern England where you can tell which town someone is from in a given county by their accent. For example, you can literally drive across the bridge from Fife to Dundee and notice a different accent, and then further to Forfar and you'll find another. This is all within a 40 mile radius. There simply isn't a pan-British accent like the pan-American accent, except among the nobility, who all seem to speak RP even if they're from Ireland or the Scottish highlands. Every area has a distinctive accent, with circa 6 varieties: young working class, old middle class, young middle class, old middle class, and rural accent. Its one of the reasons why our class system is so entrenched: you can't start a conversation without betraying your entire socioeconomic background, age, and regional derivation, even over the phone.

all of England seems the same: it's an extremely tiny place, which as far as I can tell has the same geology and climate all over. It's a bit like asking someone who isn't from there to distinguish between a Northern Oregon vs. a Southern Oregon accent (i.e., it's less a matter of whether they sound different, it's more a matter of: if they did, would you even know?)

That's rather unfair. Firstly, geographical diversity is not what's important. The important thing is mobility, look at Norway and Sweden: Norway has similar geography, Sweden's is more varied, but Norwegian dialects are hugely diverse from each other whereas Sweden's are pretty dull in comparison.

Secondly, the UK certainly does not have the same geography all over. It has a large flat plain in the south, wetlands in the east, rolling moorlands in the centre and swathes of glaciated, forested hills in the north. I know several people in England who have never actually seen a forest in their lives, or a hill, or the sea. Meanwhile I don't think I've ever actually been somewhere that is completely flat on all sides like in Eastern England. I know people in northern Scotland who have never been in a built up area of more than 50,000 people. In fact, there is a surprising amount of people in the Scottish islands who have never even been to the mainland. And that's a place that has some of the highest rainfall and cloud cover in the world. London on the other hand has lower rainfall on average than Rome.

Thirdly, the USA has a perfectly good analogy of all this: New England. Boston and New York are totally different accents, Philadelphia also, and then you have West Virginia and the Mountains: almost as much accent diversity as England, not much bigger area.

[Zontas]

(doesn't Cornwall have a rhotic accent)?

You're thinking of West Country. It extends into Cornwall, but there are so many non-locals there (chiefly from SE England, but also elsewhere) that most of the speakers you'll hear will be non-rhotic.

(Actually, West Country accents seem to be declining even in the West Country. It's so stereotypically hick that more socially-mobile types try to rid themselves of it at the first opportunity.)

Much like the Netherland's Zeeuws, who talk eerily similar as far as English-Netherlandish comparison goes.

[Drydic]

I think most Americans are not aware of *regional* British accents.

Americans are aware, but have basically zero ability to distinguish them by their location. It's not that we can't hear different accents and their differences-- we can-- but we have next to zero real impression of where British characters on tv and film are from in Britain. So when a character who's from, say, east England (does that have a distinctive accent? I don't even know!)

What a lot of Americans don't understand, is that in a normal country when accents have had time to develop, everywhere has a distinct accent. There are still parts of Scotland and Northern England where you can tell which town someone is from in a given county by their accent. For example, you can literally drive across the bridge from Fife to Dundee and notice a different accent, and then further to Forfar and you'll find another. This is all within a 40 mile radius. There simply isn't a pan-British accent like the pan-American accent, except among the nobility, who all seem to speak RP even if they're from Ireland or the Scottish highlands. Every area has a distinctive accent, with circa 6 varieties: young working class, old middle class, young middle class, old middle class, and rural accent. Its one of the reasons why our class system is so entrenched: you can't start a conversation without betraying your entire socioeconomic background, age, and regional derivation, even over the phone.

There isn't a pan-American accent either. You're thinking of General American, and while that is widespread, it's also not absolute; there's several midwestern accents, California's a basket case (several, probably) all its own, the Pacific Northwest has its own quirks, you note the Appalachians and New England yourself, and there's at least 6-7 different types of Southern.

all of England seems the same: it's an extremely tiny place, which as far as I can tell has the same geology and climate all over. It's a bit like asking someone who isn't from there to distinguish between a Northern Oregon vs. a Southern Oregon accent (i.e., it's less a matter of whether they sound different, it's more a matter of: if they did, would you even know?)

That's rather unfair. Firstly, geographical diversity is not what's important.

That's not what he's saying. He's saying there's no way for an outsider to tell where/why there might be differences.

The important thing is mobility, look at Norway and Sweden: Norway has similar geography, Sweden's is more varied, but Norwegian dialects are hugely diverse from each other whereas Sweden's are pretty dull in comparison.

You must have missed a hell of a lot about Sweden, because there's wildly different varieties spoken in Sweden and Finland (several of which probably count as separate languages once you take knowledge of Standard Swedish out of the equation).

Secondly, the UK certainly does not have the same geography all over. It has a large flat plain in the south, wetlands in the east, rolling moorlands in the centre and swathes of glaciated, forested hills in the north. I know several people in England who have never actually seen a forest in their lives, or a hill, or the sea. Meanwhile I don't think I've ever actually been somewhere that is completely flat on all sides like in Eastern England. I know people in northern Scotland who have never been in a built up area of more than 50,000 people. In fact, there is a surprising amount of people in the Scottish islands who have never even been to the mainland. And that's a place that has some of the highest rainfall and cloud cover in the world. London on the other hand has lower rainfall on average than Rome.

the UK has about 3 different geographies by vague US standards. Flat, forest, and low mountains (mostly in Scotland.)

[Copperknickers]

There isn't a pan-American accent either. You're thinking of General American, and while that is widespread, it's also not absolute; there's several midwestern accents, California's a basket case (several, probably) all its own, the Pacific Northwest has its own quirks, you note the Appalachians and New England yourself, and there's at least 6-7 different types of Southern.

My point is, all accents in the UK are geographically specific. RP is specific to South East England, notwithstanding a small number of socioeconomically exceptional groups such as the aforementioned landowning aristocracy. General American is not geographically specific. Regional accents in the USA are enclaves in the sea of general American, at least the Northern ones. Small towners in Oregon and in upstate New York have virtually indistinguishable accents, just small dialectal differences.

That's not what he's saying. He's saying there's no way for an outsider to tell where/why there might be differences.

And what I'm saying is, in most places in the world, especially Europe, a 100 mile distance is reason enough to be pretty certain of finding different accents.

You must have missed a hell of a lot about Sweden, because there's wildly different varieties spoken in Sweden and Finland (several of which probably count as separate languages once you take knowledge of Standard Swedish out of the equation).

I'm talking about contiguous Sweden, not the islands and extremities.

the UK has about 3 different geographies by vague US standards. Flat, forest, and low mountains (mostly in Scotland.)

Of course I'm not trying to claim that the UK is anything approaching comparable to a country with pretty much every major environment in the world short of full tropical rainforest. I'm just saying, when you factor in 1000 years when the only transport available was horses and carts on muddy dirt roads, and most people were peasants who never left the country where they were born, we have sufficient size and geographic variety to produce considerably greater linguistic diversity than anywhere in North America.

[Drydic]

There isn't a pan-American accent either. You're thinking of General American, and while that is widespread, it's also not absolute; there's several midwestern accents, California's a basket case (several, probably) all its own, the Pacific Northwest has its own quirks, you note the Appalachians and New England yourself, and there's at least 6-7 different types of Southern.

My point is, all accents in the UK are geographically specific. RP is specific to South East England, notwithstanding a small number of socioeconomically exceptional groups such as the aforementioned landowning aristocracy. General American is not geographically specific. Regional accents in the USA are enclaves in the sea of general American, at least the Northern ones. Small towners in Oregon and in upstate New York have virtually indistinguishable accents, just small dialectal differences.

You're still misinterpreting it a little. There is no sea of General American. The dialects have their territories, within which people approximate to a greater or lesser extent to the "standard", which is General American. And having grown up immediately next door to small-town Oregon (I'm from across the border in Idaho), and knowing people from upstate New York well, I can tell you it'd be pretty hard to mistake one for the other
But no, the differences here are usually not as extreme as the UK ones, I'll grant that wholeheartedly.

You must have missed a hell of a lot about Sweden, because there's wildly different varieties spoken in Sweden and Finland (several of which probably count as separate languages once you take knowledge of Standard Swedish out of the equation).

I'm talking about contiguous Sweden, not the islands and extremities.

Arbitrarily not considering varieties of a language (which, far from being in extremities, were part of the Kingdom of Sweden for around 800 years, not to mention being closer to Stockholm than northern Sweden is) because of a line on a map is rather silly.

a country with pretty much every major environment in the world short of full tropical rainforest.

We've actually pretty much got that too

[Salmoneus]

I think copernicus does touch on a point, which is that in addition to the scale of differences between dialects, America has aiui a default dialect to which others approximate, whereas England doesn't: RP's descendent, Standard Southern British English, is specifically southern, and while of course there are dialect continuums and register differences elsewhere, I'm not sure it makes sense to talk about a continuum specifically between the regional dialect and the standard dialect - at least as far as accent goes, though it may be true for grammar and lexicon.

However, this is quite a recent thing in the UK. Go back a generation or two and (at least urban) populations probably were in a continuum with RP. For instance, a lot of actors who are known for having RP accents actually had register-switching to strong local accents - but RP was insisted on in certain contexts regardless of background. That's not really true anymore.

I'm sure how actually important that difference is, though.

[Copperknickers]

You're still misinterpreting it a little. There is no sea of General American. The dialects have their territories, within which people approximate to a greater or lesser extent to the "standard", which is General American. And having grown up immediately next door to small-town Oregon (I'm from across the border in Idaho), and knowing people from upstate New York well, I can tell you it'd be pretty hard to mistake one for the other

Fair enough, I'll defer to your authority on that subject.

Arbitrarily not considering varieties of a language (which, far from being in extremities, were part of the Kingdom of Sweden for around 800 years, not to mention being closer to Stockholm than northern Sweden is) because of a line on a map is rather silly.

You missed my point entirely. My point was that in two similar sized areas of land with similar languages next to each other, the linguistic diversity is notably more varied in one than the other, and that is due largely to terrain. Island territories are irrelevant. And even if they were relevant, the Faroe islands have a totally different language that can't even be properly understood by Icelanders, never mind most Norwegians.

a country with pretty much every major environment in the world short of full tropical rainforest.

We've actually pretty much got that too [/quote]

Indeed. Well, in a manner of speaking. I've been there, and it seems to be mainly a collection of introduced species from other rainforests which have been given a permit to reside in the small areas of the Hawaiian islands which are not reserved for growing pineapples. It's not quite the Amazon. Still, it was certainly an awesome place to visit for a Brit.

]However, this is quite a recent thing in the UK. Go back a generation or two and (at least urban) populations probably were in a continuum with RP. For instance, a lot of actors who are known for having RP accents actually had register-switching to strong local accents - but RP was insisted on in certain contexts regardless of background. That's not really true anymore.

Not sure what you mean. Regional accents were considerably more deeply-rooted than they are now before the mid 20th century. There were identifiable Oxfordshire and Surrey accents instead of just a huge swathe of Estuary/Home counties up to Northhamptonshire and Wiltshire today.

I'm not sure how actually important that difference is, though.

Its very important in the discussion of American perception of British accents: they are at a considerable disadvantage in locating accents regionally if they approximate RP with General American, that is to say a pan-British accent that only breaks into regional accents among ethnic minorities, dwellers in large cities, and hicks at the margins of Great Britain. And that would certainly go some way towads explaining the incomprehension of the average American with regards to Britain and its constituent parts.

[gmalivuk]

if they approximate RP with General American, that is to say a pan-British accent that only breaks into regional accents among ethnic minorities, dwellers in large cities, and hicks at the margins of Great Britain.

I really don't think that's how most Americans perceive our own variety of accents, though.

[Copperknickers]

if they approximate RP with General American, that is to say a pan-British accent that only breaks into regional accents among ethnic minorities, dwellers in large cities, and hicks at the margins of Great Britain.

I really don't think that's how most Americans perceive our own variety of accents, though.

Educated Americans in this thread have already admitted that they never hear British accents in context, and its a well known fact that most of them are under the impression that there is such a thing as a 'British accent'. So I don't know why they should make the leap in logic that the British accent system is different to their own when they can barely tell the difference between English people and Australians.

[Melteor]

I doubt most Americans would confuse Aussies for Brits, or New Zealanders if they can place the accent.