Accents

[Carlos]

It's actually easier to sing in American, I find, especially more slowly. Maybe because you have things like /oU/ where we'd have a schwa, and schwas are difficult to sustain without it changing to something else. I have noticed occasionally even singers who sing in English all the way through the other bits of the song still have /oU/ where you'd expect schwa + some kind of front high rounded vowel.

How we sing and how we talk are different, though. I remember watching some horribly dated video in music at school about this, with some "famous" singer explaining how you don't sing how you talk… /i/ being merged with /ɪ/ being the one that I remember.

Merging /i/ with /ɪ/? Really? That would sound really odd...

[Magb]

I believe you're supposed to centralize all vowels while singing, which obviously diminishes the /i/ vs. /I/ distinction somewhat. Dunno about merging them completely though.

[Carlos]

I'd like to hear a song (of a native speaker) where they diminish the distinction.

[Nortaneous]

I believe you're supposed to centralize all vowels while singing, which obviously diminishes the /i/ vs. /I/ distinction somewhat. Dunno about merging them completely though.

Well, that'd explain why /i/ in Finnish songs almost always sounds like [1] to me...

[Skomakar'n]

I was just browsing through Omniglot, and I spotted a guest blog post on accents (here). The author says that he knows a lot of people who speak English with no discernable accent, and the same happened to him in numberous different languages but not Dutch. However, I, and a number of the commenters there, find that difficult to believe. I know lots of people who speak English perfectly fluently, and excluding perhaps one person (I've to listen to him again, but I know he uses unusual phrases occasionally) who's lived in Ireland in the same area for 15/20 years, I know no-one who speaks so perfectly that I wouldn't pick them out as a second-language speaker after a minute. Equally in Irish, from the foreigners I know who speak Irish, pretty much none of them can imitate an Irish accent correctly. I've also asked lots of Germans about Irish people (and one French lady) who speak German fluently, and some who have lived in Germany for long periods, and they all said, that after a few minutes, they could eventually tell that the people were Irish and French, although the French lady was the closest to sounding German.

Anecdotally, or even scientifically, have ye, as people who speak lots of languages, encountered people who have managed to get native accents?

I've been told my Icelandic is pretty much perfect, and some people even asked me if I were Icelandic when I went there and told people that I live in Sweden, but Icelandic is still very close to my native Swedish, so maybe that's cheating to some extent. I think my Greek pronunciation is fairly good, though. Those who have spoken to me over Skype will have to rate my English for me.

[Magb]

I'd like to hear a song (of a native speaker) where they diminish the distinction.

James Hetfield of Metallica does it a lot. For instance the first two bars of One, where he rhymes "anything" with "dream", 1:45ish in the video. He's from California though, and many Californians do weird things with /i/ and /I/, so maybe it's not the best example.

[Declan]

I've been told my Icelandic is pretty much perfect, and some people even asked me if I were Icelandic when I went there and told people that I live in Sweden.

I got a "oh, are your parents or one of them German" today, which I suppose is a step in the right direction! Once again though, I don't know would I ever want to sound perfectly German. Many of my German friends living in Ireland still have a hint of a German accent which I sort of like!

[Carlos]

I'd like to hear a song (of a native speaker) where they diminish the distinction.

James Hetfield of Metallica does it a lot. For instance the first two bars of One, where he rhymes "anything" with "dream", 1:45ish in the video. He's from California though, and many Californians do weird things with /i/ and /I/, so maybe it's not the best example.

You're right, it's a terrible example.

[Magb]

I'd like to hear a song (of a native speaker) where they diminish the distinction.

James Hetfield of Metallica does it a lot. For instance the first two bars of One, where he rhymes "anything" with "dream", 1:45ish in the video. He's from California though, and many Californians do weird things with /i/ and /I/, so maybe it's not the best example.

You're right, it's a terrible example.

He pronounces "dream" [drI:::m] though, so no, it's not a terrible example. It's an example of exactly what you asked for.

[vampireshark]

Oh, and more accent fun:
Angela Gossow, of Arch Enemy, speaks English with a noticeable British accent but, from what I could tell from what I saw, she doesn't have that much of a German one. There's some hesitation when she's speaking, and some of the constructions can be a bit odd, but that's understandable.

Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth sings in perfect English. When he's not growling, that is. Anyways, from what I heard of him speaking English, his accent's not noticeable, if present at all.

And, as for the people I deal with on a day-to-day basis... I went to the Bad Dürkheim Wurstfest with some Germans and other assorted BASF interns. One of the people I spoke with had a perfect English accent: I couldn't even tell he was foreign from his English! Reminded me of Cathbad in a way... Another guy spoke English extremely well with a minimal accent (but at a bit of a higher pitch), but there were a few things that I noticed like the v/w hypercorrection and some odd pronunciations. And there's the Frenchman who speaks English extremely well, but his French accent is thicker than béarnaise.

[Ossicone]

Those who have spoken to me over Skype will have to rate my English for me.

You get 4 Starrs for your English because you still sound like Ringo to me.

[Cathbad]

Here in Denmark, most of the Danes I've heard speak English speak it with a very good accent, almost indistinguishable from many native speakers. Same in Sweden (but I didn't notice it as much, probably because I was there only for a few hours!). Likewise, though to a different degree, with the Slovenes I dealt with last Spring (hi, Cathbad!).

Huh, thanks! (Just saw you referring to me in a later post and fished through the thread for the earlier mention )

I've had people who didn't hear me speaking a lot think I was from England, which is super weird. I think I do a pretty good job of sounding, well, not actually native, but also not discernably non-native... which is how I think most non-native speakers of English who are good with languages and communicate a lot with English-speaking people end up sounding, at least in my experience from my friends and colleagues at uni. (Also, international classes/schools may have something to do with it.)

One thing I've found is that a lot of non-native speakers tend to start out a flow of discourse almost indistinguishably from native speakers, but then tend to "slip back" into their native speaking patterns - maybe not "accent" as normally understood, but definitely prosody, and pragmatic stuff like "discourse-prolonging" particles, etc. (That's what I do, at the very least - weird tag questions like no?, blatantly a calque from Slovene (a) ne?; random vowel lengthening; etc.)

[spats]

Regarding singing English/American, there are two fundamental schools of thought.

One is the classical approach, that you should basically try to create the nicest tone you can, which means all vowels are effectively semi-tense, with the soft palate retracted as much as possible to create a resonant cavity, and often using RP pronunciation (even in America). Much care is taken to prevent r- or l- coloring of vowels and the ends of diphhtongs are held off until the last possible moment to get a purer sound. Vowel reduction is avoided when possible. Some consonants might be altered as well, like tapping Rs in extreme cases or using a light L where the speaker would normally have a dark L.

The other school is the pop school, which says, basically, "sing it how you'd speak it". You can still do things to make the sound more resonant and avoid too much nasality or coloring, but otherwise all the vowels are as-is.

There is an in-between compromise which is favored in some more modern choral approaches, where you try to make the vowels as pure and clear as possible, but still use the normal consonants and vowel reduction. I prefer this for choral singing because it feels more natural and less affected to me, and I think it makes the words easier to understand for the listener.

[Skomakar'n]

My uncle speaks Swedish perfectly. He's lived here for, idk 25 years. But I've heard himself say that sometimes he makes grammatical mistakes with prepositions.

My friend's Hungarian mother also speaks pretty much perfect Swedish. She must have lived here for at least 20-25 years too, and she works with people, so no oddities there.

[blank stare II]

Hugh Laurie speaks perfect American English on the sitcom House. He has a thick British accent in real life. I thought he was American.

[Astraios]

"a thick British accent" sounds really wrong to me, especially for describing Hugh Laurie's accent. I think "thick" only works for non-"standard" dialects, like Scouse or Geordie or something.

[sirdanilot]

I believe you're supposed to centralize all vowels while singing, which obviously diminishes the /i/ vs. /I/ distinction somewhat. Dunno about merging them completely though.

I am not a professional singer, but I do know that when I sing I don't centralize my vowels. If I'm singing in Dutch and I would also start centralizing everything, while most vowels are already schwas and lax, short vowels, I don't think there would be anything left but a string of harsh /X/s, schwas and consonant clusters..

At the most, something might be happening with rounded vowels when singing. Rounded vowels also seem easier to sing more loudly, perhaps because of some sort of resonance.

I wouldn't be sure what Arab singers do when singing pharyngeal vowels (or vowels that get pharyngealized due to neighbouring pharyngealized consonants, at least). Perhaps it's a reason why Middle-Eastern signing is different? This way of singing also works perfectly fine in Portuguese fado, with the plethora of nasalized vowels.

"a thick British accent" sounds really wrong to me, especially for describing Hugh Laurie's accent. I think "thick" only works for non-"standard" dialects, like Scouse or Geordie or something.

That's funny. We call strong accents "plat"/plAt/ (="flat") here.

[Astraios]

I wouldn't be sure what Arab singers do when singing pharyngeal vowels (or vowels that get pharyngealized due to neighbouring pharyngealized consonants, at least). Perhaps it's a reason why Middle-Eastern signing is different? This way of singing also works perfectly fine in Portuguese fado, with the plethora of nasalized vowels.

They... pharyngealize them? xD Listen to her (it's Hebrew, not Arabic, but it's the first song I thought of where you hear really strong pharyngealization).

[CaesarVincens]

He's from California though, and many Californians do weird things with /i/ and /I/, so maybe it's not the best example.

It's interesting what one can and can't hear. I pronounce <-ing> words as /iŋ/ but my Ling prof and adviser pronounces them /ɪŋ/. But when he speaks, I hear the /i/ and when I speak he hears the /ɪ/.

This is also true for /a/~/ɔ/ he hears the difference when I can't say the difference.

I just thought it was an interesting example of how interdialectal accents may not be heard (as compared with say Southern drawl). That is, if you are a /ɪŋ/-dialect, it may be hard to hear it as /iŋ/.

[Aurora Rossa]

It's interesting what one can and can't hear. I pronounce <-ing> words as /iŋ/ but my Ling prof and adviser pronounces them /ɪŋ/. But when he speaks, I hear the /i/ and when I speak he hears the /ɪ/.

Yes, I always pronounced it [iN] rather than [IN] as well, although others on the ZBB have told me I sound kind of strange for that. On the other hand I have [TeN] rather than [TiN] or [TIN] for "thing".

[finlay]

He's from California though, and many Californians do weird things with /i/ and /I/, so maybe it's not the best example.

It's interesting what one can and can't hear. I pronounce <-ing> words as /iŋ/ but my Ling prof and adviser pronounces them /ɪŋ/. But when he speaks, I hear the /i/ and when I speak he hears the /ɪ/.

Hold on, I think this needs to be phrased better.

You say [iŋ] (with phonetic brackets), and your prof says [ɪŋ] – but since the distinction between /i/ and /ɪ/ is neutralised in this position, neither of you hears it any differently. I mean I understand you but it's not a theoretically accurate enough way of putting it.

[Bob Johnson]

So why can't I hear it when normal Californians say ~ing but I can hear Speedy Gonzales type parodies of it? Kicking over into [iːŋ]?

[Timmytiptoe]

"a thick British accent" sounds really wrong to me, especially for describing Hugh Laurie's accent. I think "thick" only works for non-"standard" dialects, like Scouse or Geordie or something.

That's funny. We call strong accents "plat"/plAt/ (="flat") here.

I think that has more to do with the heavily accented areas being agrarian, or plattelands (flatlandish, litterally).

I am very sure that litterally is spelled like that, but for some reason it looks wrong. On the other hand, literally does so too. littera is Latin for letter, so it should be with two t's. But isn't literal 1-L'd? Is it literaly then? Or litteraly?

NOTHING LOOKS RIGHT ANYMORE

[CaesarVincens]

He's from California though, and many Californians do weird things with /i/ and /I/, so maybe it's not the best example.

It's interesting what one can and can't hear. I pronounce <-ing> words as /iŋ/ but my Ling prof and adviser pronounces them /ɪŋ/. But when he speaks, I hear the /i/ and when I speak he hears the /ɪ/.

Hold on, I think this needs to be phrased better.

You say [iŋ] (with phonetic brackets), and your prof says [ɪŋ] – but since the distinction between /i/ and /ɪ/ is neutralised in this position, neither of you hears it any differently. I mean I understand you but it's not a theoretically accurate enough way of putting it.

Sorry, yes, square brackets. Though of course for me, I think I (and he) am saying /i/ (truly with //), and he truly thinks he (and I) is saying /ɪ/. Compared with say, [p^h] and [p] both allophones of /p/ where I think I'm saying /p/ both times.

Eddy,
[θeŋ] seems to be not too uncommon a pronunciation. What do you have for <think> and <thank>?

[finlay]

"a thick British accent" sounds really wrong to me, especially for describing Hugh Laurie's accent. I think "thick" only works for non-"standard" dialects, like Scouse or Geordie or something.

That's funny. We call strong accents "plat"/plAt/ (="flat") here.

I think that has more to do with the heavily accented areas being agrarian, or plattelands (flatlandish, litterally).

I am very sure that litterally is spelled like that, but for some reason it looks wrong. On the other hand, literally does so too. littera is Latin for letter, so it should be with two t's. But isn't literal 1-L'd? Is it literaly then? Or litteraly?

NOTHING LOOKS RIGHT ANYMORE

it's 'literal(ly)'