He was born in Quebec and lived there all throughout his school years. So why doesn't he have a French-Canadian accent? Celine Dion is also from Quebec and her accent is very prominent. Just a thought I had.
William Shatner's lack of accent
- Thread starter Sparkle Fabulosa
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It was sabotage.
um excuse me I think you misspelled sabotaage
Quebec has had an anglophone population since the end of the Revolutionary war when anglophones fled the US to CAnada as loyalists.
The joke is when you move to montreal knowing some french, you leave knowing none.
"Tranquility," too.
Being a Canadian actor with most of his career working in the United States, he would have tried to diminish any accent he had so that he sounded as American as anyone else in Hollywood. Regional accents were often discouraged by casting agents and directors, unless for specific character types. They wanted everyone sounding plain, flat, and midwestern. But even the midwest has regional variations.
I never considered that he could have been raised in an English-speaking household. I always thought that everyone who was born in Quebec had a French accent. Now I feel stupid.
Hes directly an anglophone, fuck even people that are clearly franchophone in quebec has no accent when spealing english.
Don't worry, we've all sometimes gotten so focused on one idea, that we've failed to consider another.
There are a lot of people born in Ontario near the Quebec border who have French accents.
I'm French Canadian although I was born and raised in Toronto and the GTA area. I'm told have have next to no French accent although my parents' accent is quite apparent. And my French pronunciation is usually quite good.
^ I didn't know that. Interesting. Both my parents were born in Ontario and neither of them have accents.
If you watch any NHL hockey and watch when players are interviewed you will find quite a few players with French names who don't speak any French as well as players with English names who speak Quebec French like a native (given they probably are natives).
I don't except for the Olympics but I've never really watched the interviews. I'm so bad about sports that up until a few years ago, I didn't even know that Wayne Gretsky was Canadian!
I'm learning so much today.
I just had to look up the numbers.
Canadian NHL players: about 54 percent.
American NHL players: about 21 percent.
Sweden, Czech, Finland, Russia and Slovokia: about 20 percent.
Germany, Denmark, Belarus, Switzerland, Austria, Latvia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Slovenia, Norway and Luthuania: about 4 percent.
Of course this doesn't take into account all the coaching and suppoert staff throughout the league many of which are also Canadian.
Now back to our regular subject of discussion.
Occasionally Shatner drops his accent. When Kirk is discussing strategy with Spock, Abraham Lincoln, and Sarek. He mentions that the best defense could be a good offense. And he pronounces "offense" with a long "O".
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