North American English Dialects

nielsbot 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

These are fun relevant videos:

Accent Expert Gives a Tour of U.S. Accents - (Part One) | WIRED https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1KP4ztKK0A&t=271s

shevy-java an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Goose language? Or yankee doodels?

I was taught British English. I think America English is in many ways simpler, but my brain is wired to british spelling as well as pronounciation for the most part. Now it depends who has good spoken british english. One of my all-time favourites is Rowan Atkinson, but his english is kind of more theater-trained really; if you compare it to the Monty Python guys for instance. War criminal Tony Blair also has a good spoken english - not that I like the guy or find anything useful he said or did, but british english wins. Or we could go scottish - I don't quite like it as much as british english (Patrick Stewart also has a good intonation, but it's also more theater-trained than "real", per se), but one of the coolest thing ever is Gerard Butler teaching people scottish. What keeps scots apart from English is the language really. (Though, I also have to say, Sean Connery's dialect was nowhere near as funny or entertaining as Gerard's dialect. Guess even in Scotland there are diffferences.)

Irish english sounds more melodic - no wonder they kept on winning Eurovision. Paul David Hewson's voice in his prime is a great example.

I've also found African American english very interesting. One thing that keeps on tripping me up is "asking" versus "axsking". To me only the british pronounciation works, but I hear sooooo many axxing examples on youtube that I concluded that this must be widespread in the USA. I always have to think of an axe when I hear it though.

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gtr 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Patrick Stewart is from Yorkshire not Scotland, by the way.

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DeathArrow 37 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

>Now it depends who has good spoken british english.

My favorites are David Attenborough and BBC in general.

	▲	zabzonk 5 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The BBC actually has an official "Pronunciation Unit", which tells people like newsreaders the "proper" way to pronounce words and placenames. Unfortunately, particularly in the latter case they often get it wrong. For example, my late Dad was born in a small West Yorkshire town called Sowerby Bridge, which the unit insists should be said Sourbee Bridge. Everyone, without exception, who lives there knows it is Sorebee Bridge. Writing in to the BBC complaining about this and many other similar errors is a popular hobby. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Pronunciation_Unit

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walrus01 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This has missed the Atlantic Canadian Cape Breton dialect, which if you listen to some age 70+ people who've lived their whole lives in the Sydney, NS area is significantly distinct from Halifax or other areas in the south/southwest of Nova Scotia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Cape_Breton

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paganel 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This page/project itself is another proof of the cultural significance of YT, one of the very few positive things brought by the Internet post-2010.

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nephihaha 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I feel that the Maritimes are somewhat simplified here, especially Newfoundland and Labrador which has some of the most distinctive accents on the continent, at least among older people.

	▲	walrus01 44 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It's absolutely oversimplified, someone from a small coastal town in Newfoundland does not sound at all like a person from much of the same area labeled "atlantic canadian" in Nova Scotia, or in larger cities like Fredericton or Moncton in NB. Putting basically all of NB, NS and NF as one large pink blob on the map is a drastic oversimplifiaction. It also seems that whoever created this kind of gave up when figuring out Canadian speech patterns spanning longitude from east to west. Somebody from Kenora or Dryden or Timmins Ontario does not speak like a person from North Vancouver, BC. Vancouver region English is much closer to general west coast as it's spoken in a big city in WA, OR or California.
	▲	suddenlybananas an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I'd agree completely but this could just be due to logistical constraints of the ANAE, I took a course with Charles Boberg (one of the authors of the ANAE) and he was definitely aware of that, I vaguely recall learning from him that the Newfoundlander accent traditionally doesn't have t/d flapping which is totally unique in North America. Great class, he definitely has an incredible knack for precisely imitating accents.