agnes, I think as you say about US accents, here in the UK many regional ways of speaking have become less marked, mainly due to radio and TV.
Also since the '60's when we all became part of the egalitarian society it was suddenly fashionable to speak as though we were groupies of Liverpool/East End of London/Northern pop groups.
Add to this the 'Mid-Atlantic' voices of the DJ's that hit the air-waves from that time and it is no wonder that you cannot understand many/some of the TV progs.

The further north you travel in the UK the more 'unchanged' the accents become. So even I from England might well have trouble understanding a Geordie (from the N East) or a Glaswegian (really difficult). Of course in these areas many words are used that are not in general circulation elsewhere.

I don't know if it is the same in the States, but over here when we hear an 'old' radio/TV broadcast and the over-the-top cut-glass accents we realise how much the way we speak has changed and become more 'sloppy'.
Deep roots mentioned 'Footballer's Wives' as a prog' that is difficult to understand . . . well that is an excellent eg of a way not to learn English!

As far as I know, we in the UK don't have trouble understanding American accents. Now, why is that?

Vee, have you watched "O Brother Where Art Thou?" - the deep south accents in that aren't all that easy for those used to UK English!

One factor which you don't mention is the influence of Australian soap operas. They have given us the rising inflection, which is prevalent in the under-30s here in the South East. Of course there isn't much of a proper local accent round here anyway, just good old 'estuary'...

FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH:
Vee-I had an English prof in graduate school who taught a theory that as you move from northeast US (New England) to the west (Washington state) then back around to the Deep South, the accents change because of climate. In the northeast, the speech speed is quick and clipped-because it's cold there a lot of the year and people don't linger on the doorstep. (He insisted that I had to have been born in Boston because I enunciate so crisply-I wasn't, but my high school drama coach was.) Holds true across the northern central states, although there was a large infux of Scandanavian immigrants so the rhythm changes. The northern west coast is (he thought) dreary through the fall and winter, and their speech is sort of flat and morose-southern California is sunny and bright, so the inflection is cheery, (some would say downright giddy) and the deep south is ssllooww and languid because it is warm, and no one rushes about.
I have observed that friends who are transferred from the north to the south develop a southern accent that they hold on to even when transferred back home, but southerners who move north do not lose their accent even when surrounded by northern ones.

cece - an interesting theory...

I have an alternative reason why people from the southern states don't lose their accents in the north, and people in the north tend to "take on" the southern accent. Some accents are just more attractive than others...and I suspect that the southern accent just seems "sexier", so to speak.

It's certainly true that I never met a native French speaker who ever spoke English without a French accent, no matter how idiomatic and fluent they were. I used to know a French-Canadian guy whose French accent became distinctly stronger when he was talking to women. I'm fairly sure that it was quite unconscious - but it worked! He wasn't desperately good-looking, but the effect of his voice and accent on women was remarkable.

For a similar reason, no English person will completely lose their English accent if they move to the US...!

anyanka, I have never seen 'Oh Brother' so have just checked out the trailer on one of the movie sites. Not too difficult for me to understand as my late Mother's family come from VA so I'm familiar with the speech patterns.
The Aus rising inflextion drives me mad. My DD sounds as though all her sentences end with a question mark . . .even my optician does it, but I think he has teenage kids!
If you ever come to this neck of the woods you will find the young 'locals' sound like Vicky Pollard (a foul-mouthed West Country laddette in a very funny and rude comedy show 'Little Britain')

cece. For What it is Worth?? All your comments are always most interesting and instructive!
I wonder if your 'prof's' theories were his own pet ideas, or those held by people who study dialects?
What sort of ????ology is that' I can't think of the name?

I have often wondered about people who claim their accent changes depending on where they are living. I would always have assumed that once childhood speech patterns had been established they would become more-or-less 'set', although I'm not thinking of kids that change the way they speak just so they are more readily accepted within a peer group.
I know in the UK if you were to move to another part of the country and started speaking in the accent of that area you could very well be regarded as trying to 'take the p*ss' by the locals, in much the same way as if you were 'talking down' to them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Vicky Pollard Smoking in the Swimming Pool

Cece, that's a very interesting theory. It doesn't work when applied to the UK, but perhaps it doesn't get cold enough here. However, it does hold true for German accents - Hamburg or Berlin speech is much faster than Munich dialect, for example (wittier, too, usually, but that's a whole different kettle of ballgames).

Vee, different people adapt differently - a Sheffield-born friend of mine moved to California in his mid-twenties, and now speaks a very strange blend of the two regions. I also knew a Scottish girl who had lived in New Jersey for three years - hilarious mix.

I produce faint echoes of wherever I am fairly quickly, but that's probably because English is not my first language, which has meant always listening & adapting as I go along. I now speak German with an English inflection, apparently.

Martin, same as you I've never met a French person who is accent-free in English, but I've known one or two English people with no trace of an accent when speaking German. Also Dutch nationals with perfect-sounding English.

vee-thank you for the kind words. I don't remember if it was his theory or one he agreed with-that grad school class was 22 years ago!
Martin...hehehe...no northern girl will ever admit that a southern girl sounds sexier! In mixed (read competitive) company, young women are apt to look with narrowed eyes upon their southern sisters. And the northern boys just better keep their opinions to themselves! Now a french accent...
I think some people have an "ear" for accents-I can usually pick one up and replicate it if I am with a "native speaker" of the accent. I have to be careful not to do it unconsciously and cause offense. Again, it may be the training I had in high school-my high school coach's normal voice was the New England clip, but she could change accents mid-sentence. We had houseguests from England a few years ago for two weeks, and DD and I were both driftng into that accent occassionally by the time they headed home.
Heard a woman on a call-in radio show last week-she had emigrated from Australia to Great Britian to Seattle. Her speaking voice was lovely-not quite Aussie, not quite English.

My cousin's husband was transferred up north, and her middle-school-aged children changed accents quite quickly so that the other children wouldn't tease them. But those local children would come to their house, ring the doorbell, and stand on the steps, waiting. My cousin would finally say, "Do you all want to come in?" and she discovered that is what they were waiting for--the "you all."

I told Anyanka and Martin last fall when we met that on the way over to London, on the plane I sat beside a Scottish woman who had lived in Canada for the past 40 years. She sounded Scottish to my (untrained) ear. We had chatted briefly, and she asked me if I were going home. Puzzled, I said that I was going to London for a week and then returning home to Kentucky. She said, "Oh, I thought you were English." You should have seen the incredulous looks on Anyanka's and Martin's faces.

Having lived in both North and South, and having both sorts of friends, I tend to imitate whichever I'm with. With my Carolina friends, I lapse into the "y'all." With friends from New England, I tend to adopt the "you guys". It seems to be an unconscious thing.

Most of the Germans I have met who speak English I have found to have a decidedly British pronunciation, as opposed to American or Canadian.

Vee, there are a number of regional differences in the various southern accents. I bet you I could take you to a part of Carolina where you would not be able to decipher more than a few words. e.g. my cousins in the Piedmont area---quite different from the Tidewater, VA accent.

Once in the dim, dark past, I took college French. Everyone that spoke the words to suit the professor, who was French, seemed to sound differently to me even when they were speaking their natural southern "drawl". I simply could not handle the french words. I decided then and there, it was a sound that was made easy or hard by the shape of the roof of the mouth.

The French speak that way because it was a genetic thing developed through generations. The shape of the mouth and jaw passed down. They never seem to lose the accent.

Martin is certainly right about the French accent. I would bet every female at RP goes weak at the knees when they are spoken to by a Frenchman. Admit it girls.

Are English accents still regarded with amusement in the US? I remember when I last visited some years ago my Aunt introduced me to several of her friends and they all said "Oh gee, from England, say something." For one who is not usually slow in coming forward it was a great speech-stopper, so when I did say something these women rolled about with laughter. I sounded just too funny . . . it certainly shut me up!

Mary I think it depends in which country a non-English speaking person has learnt the language. I was listening to an eminent scientist on the radio yesterday who sounded American but said he was, in fact, Danish and had learnt his English in the US.
How can I get to hear a Piedmont accent?

A link below for anyone from VA.

Here is a link that might be useful: Virginia Speak

Vee, interesting article, above. The sort of Carolina Piedmont accent I was thinking of is perfectly exemplified by the artist in the recent film "Junebug." He speaks like my cousins and I need a translator when I visit that part of Carolina (the "old North" state). It's also the "tarheel" state, but I forget where that originated.

Vee, that rising inflexion drives me nutty too, although it is a little less common here in SA than it is in the Eastern states. What annoys me locally is more the content ('and she was like really like wack) rather than the way it is said.

I will put my hand up to say I find a French accent irresistable, and I am partial to a Scots accent too. I also like a particular form of English accent - I suppose it is RP (that is, received pronunciation, not Reader's Paradise LOL) - sort of well educated but not quite 'upper class' like the Queen.

Most foreigners can't pick Aussie from Kiwi, but to us the difference is quite obvious. I can also tell eastern states from SA and WA, less in the accent than in how particular words are said. We have a couple of place names that are excellent for picking locals. Pirie St in the city and Pt Pirie, a regional town, catch out most (we use a very short 'i', most incomers say Peerie) and then there is our suburb of Thebarton. Not The Barton, as Victorians and NSW people say, but Theb-arton.

Finally, with the fast-slow idea, certainly in Australia the difference is more city-bush. People from the bush tend to talk much more slowly, although you would think with all those flies, they'd try to get it out quickly! It might account for the mumbling though *g*

This makes me think of the British Series, Last of The Summer Wine. The three elderly old men have three different speech patterns. It's the same with that oldie, Are You Being Served?. The two women are quite different. The men are also more varied than you might find on an American show.

I doubt if any TV sit-com here would have a cast of people having a wide collection of very different (and therefore interesting) accents.

agnes, Last of the Summer Wine is set in Yorkshire so they are talking in the accent of that part of the North. Are You Being Served? is set in a London store. The older woman has a 'northern' accent while the younger woman, Wendy Richards, talks 'Cockney' as the East End of London accent is known. WR has been in the BBC 'soap' East Enders for years.

Vee, I have never known anyone who thought an English accent was funny. Any of my bosses who ever spoke on the phone with an English secretary thought she was wonderful, and the only thing they had to judge by was the accent which was always considered top drawer. Not something someone from rural KY could compete with!

Vee, I have to be the exception to the French accent rule. I don't find it attractive at all. However, introduce me to a gentleman with a British, Scots, Irish or Aussie accent ... a completely different matter! I once took a college course just because the prof had a classic BBC accent (of course, this was over 20 years ago when I was young and foolish ...). Now I just watch BBC America for my accent fix.

One of my sisters has lived in North Carolina for over a decade and she now has an accent, much more pronounced when she's talking to locals vs. to me. When we were down there visiting, I once complained to her that I was unable to get a local businessperson to understand me on the phone. She gave me a long suffering look and told me she wasn't surprised since I talked way too fast and had an accent. On top of this, of course, I was also a d*mn Yankee, LOL. I'm from Connecticut, and we don't have much of an accent compared to folks in NY, Boston or Maine. I think I sound like the majority of people on TV, and am perfectly understandable. Evidently not :).

On another occasion in NC, the guy from the boat rental place said to my 7 yr-old son, "Oh, so you're a Yankee, huh?" He looked at the man in complete horror and replied, "No way! Red Sox!"

When I visited the US back in the 80s, everyone was really enthusiastic about our accents (British accents; nobody noticed the German thing). It made me feel bad about the many Londoners who are rude to Americans.

Sheri, you're not the only exception. I find the French accent funny, but not attractive. - Recently a French friend told me repeatedly that her husband was a 'frissole'. It sounded like a culinary term to me, until I eventually figured out that she meant 'free soul', as in 'free spirit'...

I also find most Irish and Scottish accents (not Glasgow or Stirling) very sexy.

Growing in England in the southeast, I have/had a BBC accent, but it's mixed a little bit with Texan (Y'all and the like). Still, it's English enough that I get asked by Texans where I am from in England all the time, and yet when I go to England, I think I sound (and I know I dress) American.

People over here think I am very English and people over there think I am sort of American. It's a Mid-Atlantic conundrum.

I'm with Jamie Lee Curtis in "A Fish Called Wanda." I melt at all accents.

Old Baltimore has its own distinct accent. Bawlmer, with its PO-leese and kitchen zinks. You might have heard it if you ever saw any early John Waters movies.

My niece was born in the Panama Canal Zone, lived in Louisiana briefly as a baby, spent 2 years in Colorado and came back to Tennessee at 4 with the deepest southern accent you ever heard. I'd bet that even military bases in New England come with a southern accent.

Me, I have no accent, none at all. ;D

The English accent taught in Swedish schools is the British RP version, as in most other countries I think. But because of all American films and TV shows young people speak more and more with homemade American accents. My son can speak both New York hiphop talk and Jamaican reggae creole. At university level English all regional dialects are taught, at least briefly, including Anglo-Indian and Black English.

I wrote in another thread that I got my English accent from the writer Malcolm Macdonald who used to teach English as a foreign language in my hometown in the 60ies. But I think I may have lost this pronunciation because of all the different English accents used by the non-Swedes in my university department with some 200 employees. There are 47 foreigners from 20 countries. Only 7 of them are native speakers of English, the British, Americans, Canadians and Australians. Many have learnt Swedish, of course, but some refuse to learn because broken English puts us all on the same level of incompetence. I can understand their point but it is awkward when you don't want to talk shop and the cultural differences suddenly show up. A Russian researcher with a perfect academic vocabulary left for Manchester University and I made some silly small talk about England, English beer, English pubs, when I found out that he had never heard of English pubs.

I used to be taken for English when I was young. When I was 20 I went by boat from Genoa in Italy to Alexandria in Egypt (no boats now, only planes) and an elderly couple from Yorkshire looked after me for the three days of the trip, made me sit with them on deck, etc. I suppose we hadn't talked much before because I remember the shock of the old lady when she found out: "But aren't you British my dear!" She lost interest in me after that.

When I first studied Swedish I had to remove all traces of my dialect and so had the other students with offensive dialects. We could never understand why some dialects were considered bad and others delightful. When I returned to this department nearly 10 years later the situation had changed completely and we were told that we should do all we could to preserve our charming old dialects. Too late for me, though.

The comment about the French lady whose husband was a "frissole" reminds me of a wonderful story - I hope it's true. The story goes that Charles de Gaulle and his wife were at a posh dinner party, and someone asked Madame de Gaulle what she was looking for in the future. "A penis", said Mme. de Gaulle, into a stunned silence. M. de Gaulle then said, "My dear, I think the Enlish do not pronounce it like that. It is not 'a penis', but 'appiness".

HA!

I love Brit and Aussie accents, tho I have to admit I have trouble understanding them in some situations (movies, tv interviews can be problematic for me) But I am more willing to listen and try then I am for a German or French accent. Just doesn't seem right to my ears.

It does bug me that some accents are used to put down people. Inevitably when someone uses an American Southern accent in a tv show or movie, that person is a dumb redneck.

Slightly dif topic - do people think some languages are spoken faster than others? I had a conversation with a lady in my Spanish group who is convinced that Hispanics talk way too fast (as if its their fault or something, it sounded like). I say that we all hear other languages as faster because we don't understand them, nor do we don't catch the breaks between words we do naturally in English. Once I started getting better at Spanish, it didn't seem fast to me at all

That reminds me of a story told by Alan Titchmarsh in Gardener's World. He was guiding a Serbian biologist among a group of pines, Pinus omorika, when the Serbian remarked that English pinuses were very small.

To appreciate this you must be aware that the English pronunciation of Latin is very different from that of the rest of the world.

So.....who else likes an Aussie accent? I saw an Australian actor on TV the other day being interviewed about his latest US made movie. In the film, his accent was American, but in the interview he sounded quite Aussie. I find it interesting that actors can turn accents on and off, seemingly easily (Hugh Laurie in House and Blackadder for instance).

Martin & Marianne, thanks for the guffaws :-)

Cindy, I think Spanish is actually fast, as is Chinese. It would be interesting to try and understand why some cultures encourage rapid speech more than others.

Astrokath mentions Hugh Laurie - is his American accent convincing for the natives? It sounds completely authentic to me.

Finally let me just say that I will not be offended by any comments on German accents. I've done my best to lose mine (some people still spot it, some don't). It just isn't sexy, ever.

Anyanka, LOL, I must disagree. ;-) I am thinking the German accent can be sexy, on the right person. Oscar Werner came to mind at once, also Anton Walbrook. What would the gentlemen say re the lady in "The Blue Angel"?

Personally, I find the Scandinavian accents sexy, due to the "sing song" effect, for want of a better term. Sounds rather musical to me.

I can't say I find any accent "sexy", but I do find some easier on the ear than others. The regional accents here in the NYC area can be pretty grating. The exception might be "Larchmont lockjaw" which is exemplified by William Buckley and Thurston Howell III.

Hugh Laurie has a very good American accent. I couldn't tell he was British if didn't know already. Christian Bale is another British actor who's good at it.

Woodnymph, you have a point - Marlene Dietrich did make the German accent sound fab. Both the male actors you mention were Austrian, though, which makes for a softer, more subtle accent.

I am a Project Runway addict, and one of the final four designers, Uli, is German-and her accent is very attractive-light and musical...

Anyone remember Gone With The Wind? There was a big to-do about getting Vivian Leigh to play Scarlett O'Hara. How on earth could she ever do a Southern Belle!!! It turned out that she was perfect for the role.

Listening to her, even though she didn't have the softness, there is something about the rhythm of her speech that makes her believable as a Southerner. Olivia de Haviland, on the other hand, as Melanie, also sounded believable even though she spoke in an entirely different manner.

If that book had been filmed today, they would have had everyone speaking some sort of pseudo-southern. I cringe just thinking about it.

Kath. re the Aussie accent. I think everyone over here just 'takes it for granted' unless it is Dame Edna Everage aka Barry Humphries, of course. Do you 'get' her on US TV?
I see in the morning paper that the Australians are being asked to moderate their language towards the English in the forthcoming 'Ashes' series! ( for US RP'ers: several cricket matches played between Aus and England usually won by the Aussies . . . but not last time). It is suggested the term 'Pommy' is used without the usual additions/expletives of *^*!>!
And to think cricket used to be considered a game for gentlemen :-)
re Hugh Laurie, in everyday life he does sound like his various characters in Blackadder (more or less).
How many Americans could tell that Damian Lewis was English (in that WWII series the name of which I've forgotten), or that Elizabeth Taylor, Angela Lansbury, even Joan Collins are all English?

Vee, the series is Band of Brothers, and it is a wonderful piece of work. We have it on DVD and watched it first with our two sons (scaring the dog completely with all the shells exploding - we have a home theatre, and the noise is incredible) and at the moment son#2 is watching it again. I agree about Damien Lewis. I didn't realise he was British until I saw him in The Forsyte Saga, where, incidentally, I found it hard to believe he was a nasty bloke after watching him in Band of Brothers.

The usual addition to Pom over here is 'whinging', but it's probably not the one most used on the cricket field. And of course, Aussies believe that gentlemen stopped coming here to play for the Ashes in the 1932-33 Bodyline series *VBG*

And Gwyneth Paltrow does a superb and utterly believable English accent.

I could listen to her read from the phone book. Love her in everything she's been in. Minnie Driver is another actor who sounds like she's from England but she's not.

Speaking of accents I love - I worked with a family a while back from Jamaica. Talk about milk and honey - their accent was so smooth and warm. I could listen to them talk all day (and fortunately they liked to talk!) Some of the African accents are like that as well. We have a guy from Niger in our Spanish group and he has a lovely sounding voice in any language.

Minnie Driver is actually English!

Saw an ad with Penelope Cruz on tv today; her Spanish accent is gorgeous.

Really? Ok, then someone gave me wrong info. I first saw her in Good Will Hunting and assumed she was American. Later saw her in The Good Husband with a friend who commented on what a good English accent she had, considering she was from NYC. OK, now Im impressed with her American accent is so good! (btw, I have never seen her in a bad movie. She is absolutely delightful in Come Back to Me)

CindyDavid's remark about Jamaicans reminded me of one I knew. When he spoke he had quite an accent, but when he sang, he didn't. He sounded just like the rest of us.

Then I remembered that when we were singing with various chorales, we could sing French, German, Russian, Italian, whatever, it didn't matter, we all sounded the same, no matter where we came from. Perhaps we imitate others more than we think we do. Or is singing different? How do the thick Cockney or Scotish sounds come out in singing?

Never tried any of the Asian languages. I don't known what would happen with those.

agnes, re singing and 'accents'.
Some years ago I listened to a talk on the radio given by a woman who, as a child in 1929 had been a member of the Manchester Children's Choir that made a recording of Hansel and Gretel and Nymphs and Shepherds.
She explained that the children (250 of them) had been chosen from the local Elementary schools and had to rehearse for several weeks in Manchester's Free Trade Hall.
Their biggest difficulty was 'losing' their strong northern/Lancashire accents as then all choirs sang in RP (received pronounciation) English . . . as I believe they still do.
The woman said they had the most trouble with the word 'brother' as in Brother come and dance with me which in 'RP' is said as 'bruther'.
The woman went on to say that the boys sang 'Gretel's part' and the girls sang that of Hansel and the best thing about the whole experience was being given a currant bun and a glass of pop before singing . . . these were, for the most part very poor children.
If you go to the site below and click on Nymphs and Shepherds you will hear a brief extract.
While you are there listen to Oh for the Wings of a Dove
and the really dreadfull Florence Foster Jenkins singing The Queen of the Night

Here is a link that might be useful: Golden Years of the Gramophone

I'm American, and enjoy hearing foreign accents of any/all kinds, but the various strong American accents grate on my ears. Just me?

Cindy, I know what you mean about the Jamaican accent. I used to work with a young woman from that Island and every sentence that came out sounded musical. I wonder where that comes from???

Nickel, I agree -- certain American accents sound extremely strident to me, to say the least....

This is a question about pronunciation rather than accents, but any help would be appreciated!

I'm reading The Hills is Lonely by Lillian Beckwith, and one of her main characters is named Morag, a name I've seen many times before but never knew how to say. How is this pronounced?

To the best of my knowledge, Maw-rag, but with the narrow British version of maw, rather than the wide open American. An alternative phonetic spelling would be More-rag, but again with a British accent, not US! The 'r' is slightly rolled if you want to get the real Scottish flavour.

[Please bear in mind that I'm German living in the South of England, advising on a Scottish name.]

Thanks Anyanka! I couldn't decide if the 'g' was pronounced or not.

I knew a Morag growing up-and she pronounced it "Mor-ag" with a little r-rolling.
She also HATED the name intensely. Shortened it to Mo.

As far as I know, the traditional nickname for a Morag is 'Toerag', which may have something to with your acquaintance's aversion to the name...

Well done anyanka, 'More-rag' seems spot on.
Sheri, the people from the 'Highlands and Islands' speak with a much gentler Scottish accent than in the South/Lowlands of that country, with much sounding of sibilants (s...z) a cross between a whistle and a hiss.
If you get the opportunity try and find the books by Finlay J Macdonald Crowdie and Cream, Crotal and White and The Corncrake and the Lysander.
He was born and brought up on the very southern tip of Harris, in the Hebrides when life was hard and simple and tweed weaving was the main occupation.
The next time you give your huband's old Harris tweed jacket a sniff remember that the wool was soaked in urine,, and all the males in the family were expected to p** in a barrel kept in the barn as part of the 'production line'.

Here is a link that might be useful: Get Away from it All

I couldn't resist adding this about Harris, and I don't know how to include an extra link into a message box.

Here is a link that might be useful: The Sabbath, Keep it Holy.

Taking all the Harris tweed to the drycleaners-back soon.

Good heavens! No Harris tweed in this house at the moment, nor, after that last post, will there be! The things one learns here .... *G*