old english accent was closer to American southern accent

[USS Excelsior]

A regional British accent from over 80 years ago.

[TorontoTrekker]

Squiggy wrote:

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It's becoming fairly evident in the south, especially compared to 30 years ago. These days, native Texans and Georigians are more likely to hail from large cities and their accents reflect growing up around many people.

I've always found accents interesting - I used to be regularly mistaken for being English, and a roommate who actually was born in England once said to me, "I don't know what your accent is, but it's not from Southern Ontario" (which is where I've lived all my life).

OTOH, I managed to date someone born and raised in Tennessee, and who has lived in Atlanta for the past several years, and who doesn't have what I would call a Southern accent. And yet many of my friends who also live in Atlanta have a drawl so thick I could pour it on my pancakes and call it maple syrup. (Admittedly, I don't know exactly where they're from, only that they're Southerners who live in Atlanta and the surrounding area.)

Mr. Laser Beam wrote:

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The only part of the Canadian accent that I always recognize is when they say the word "sorry" and it comes out "sore-ey." Apart from that, I usually can't tell the difference.

Well, that's the way it's spelled - not "sarry".

I have never heard a Canadian actually talk like the old cliché about "I'm going oot of the hoose, eh?"

There are some, but they tend to be from the east coast or northern Ontario (listen closely to Michael Hogan from Battlestar Galactica some time - he's from Kirkland Lake, Ontario, which is about 350-400 miles north of Toronto. (Alan Thicke is from Kirkland Lake as well, but his accent is less pronounced.) Hogan's accent is more noticeable in earlier episodes (I read somewhere recently that he was actually rather self-conscious about it).

Hogan's son Gabriel (who plays Peter Morris on Heartland - I'm not sure if that airs outside Canada, but he also played Ian Farnham on Traders) was born in Toronto, and doesn't have much of an accent at all, that I can remember.

Hockey commentator Don Cherry also has a very pronounced accent along the lines of what you describe.

[Deckerd]

USS Excelsior wrote:

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A regional British accent from over 80 years ago.

This dialect isn't all that different from rural Cornish now, as I'm sure the Cornish dwellers here will attest. There is bleed in rural dialects in the south west so you'll hear similar in Somerset, Devon and even into Wiltshire. This is the closest to the language of Shakespeare still extant, since at the time he was writing the GVS was still shifting.

There may be levelling out of accents on TV but on the ground, in the UK, they are alive and kicking. The most amazing thing about the UK is that for such a small island, there is a huge variety in the way English is spoken and the vocabularies used.

[macloudt]

I'm quite certain the Mendip dialect has changed slightly changed since this was recorded. My father-in-law's family has lived in northern Somerset for donkey's years, and while I recognise some of the local vocab and there are lots of Z's and R's it sounds a bit flatter than what I was used to hearing from the older generation when I lived there (though I'm sure my FIL went out of his way to make sure he sounded like a Wurzel).

[Alidar Jarok]

TorontoTrekker wrote:

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There are some, but they tend to be from the east coast or northern Ontario (listen closely to Michael Hogan from Battlestar Galactica some time - he's from Kirkland Lake, Ontario, which is about 350-400 miles north of Toronto. (Alan Thicke is from Kirkland Lake as well, but his accent is less pronounced.) Hogan's accent is more noticeable in earlier episodes (I read somewhere recently that he was actually rather self-conscious about it).

The pronunciation in question is called the Canadian Rising. Interestingly, while more subtle for some than others, it is a uniquely Canadian phenomenon. Normally accents reflect the people who settled the area. However, British Columbia, which was settled by many people from the western United States, has it as well. It's the only accent (that I'm aware of) that stops at a political border. Although, I think in the East coast, the line is a bit more blurry.

There's also a similar, but different phenomenon called the Northern Cities Vowel Shift (I'm using wikipedia's name, I usually just call it the Northern Vowel Shift), which is that accent you hear in Fargo (or Sarah Palin or the mother from Bobby's World). Linguists apparently think it's the most significant change in the English language since the Great Vowel Shift in Middle English.

ETA: Blog Post Discussing the Two Accents. He points out the political boundary thing is most significant when comparing Detroit to Windsor. They're literally right next door, but have completely different accents.

[Deckerd]

The Australians have taken rising to another plane. Stephen Fry did a brilliant pisstake of it. I'll see if it's on You Tube.

Here we go. A bit blurry but perfectly audible.

[ITL]

The Wiltshire accent has a rising inflection, too. Or at least it did have 20 years ago in the part of Wiltshire that I lived in. Probably still does, for all I know.

[CorporalCaptain]

So, what's it called when Canadians pronounce "about" like "a boat"? When I visit Canada, which is fairly frequently, I have to keep going, "Ow, ow, ow," in the mirror to keep my accent from diminishing!

ETA: OK, I see that that must be the Canadian raising.

[USS Excelsior]

As for Shakespearean English there are these re-enactments as to how it would actually sound at the time that Shakespeare was listening to it.



Romeo & Juliet: https://soundcloud.com/evie-jeffreys...juliet-extract

MacBeth: https://soundcloud.com/evie-jeffreys/macbeth-from-act-2

Sonnet 116: http://soundcloud.com/evie-jeffreys/sonnet-116

[Squiggy]

Born and raised in Tennessee, but I couldn't hear anything until I was 4...so I never developed the accent (thank God...my accent is Al Gore's).

[cooleddie74]

And coincidentally, you helped invent the Internet (Hitler threadbomb).

[thestrangequark]

Squiggy wrote:

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Born and raised in Tennessee, but I couldn't hear anything until I was 4...so I never developed the accent (thank God...my accent is Al Gore's).

Wait, you too? I was deaf until age 4 as well! Sorry, that's completely unrelated to the thread, I just found it interesting.

[Relayer1]

Deckerd wrote:

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This dialect isn't all that different from rural Cornish now, as I'm sure the Cornish dwellers here will attest. There is bleed in rural dialects in the south west so you'll hear similar in Somerset, Devon and even into Wiltshire. This is the closest to the language of Shakespeare still extant, since at the time he was writing the GVS was still shifting.

There may be levelling out of accents on TV but on the ground, in the UK, they are alive and kicking. The most amazing thing about the UK is that for such a small island, there is a huge variety in the way English is spoken and the vocabularies used.

Yo bay arf roit are kid...

[thestrangequark]

USS Excelsior wrote:

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A regional British accent from over 80 years ago.

Woah...it's like Cornwall and Fargo had a baby, and raised it in Mississippi.

[USS Excelsior]

This is another one from down the road from there from the same time period.