02-10-2004 15:25									#61
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How does Dauphin know my accent? :hmm:

	02-10-2004 16:07									#62
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I've met you you fool.

At least I was told that 'funny sounding person over there' was you.

	02-10-2004 16:10									#63
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dude, im hella tired cause i hella walked up a hella big hill. it had a hella good view from the top though.

	02-10-2004 23:03									#64
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quote: Originally posted by Buck Birdseed quote: krossmakronur, yoktetakk ???

Kokosmakroner, hjortetakk? Typical Christmas biscuit-thingies.

	02-10-2004 23:27									#65
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quote: Originally posted by Starchild I think my ten years spent in the States plus my four years in Canada plus my four years in the UK gives me some insider brownie points.

Well then what can I say, you must just be dialectally deaf

Seriously though, there are alot of people like that. My girlfriends father has a thick Newfoundland accent and to him, he sounds just like a Southerner.

But come on, the UK certainly has alot of accents, especially considering its size, but to say North America doesn't have at least as many, if not more, is just blatantly false.

	02-10-2004 23:32									#66
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To an impartial observer they're nowhere near as differentiated. The english have had, like, a thousand more years to grow appart than you have...

	02-10-2004 23:43									#67
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umm... The US and Canada have also had far more foreign immigrants influencing the language than England had... the US and Canada have far more territory over which people spread and lost contact with speakers in other parts of the country. we no doubt have more dialect variety than england.

	02-10-2004 23:48									#68
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Doubt it. But then I haven't heard a broader range of US accents than we get off TV, and I can guarantee you've certainly not heard some of the more extreme accents of the british isles. The only solution is for someone to dredge up a dialect archive with sound samples.

	02-10-2004 23:53									#69
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you're wrong... dialects form due to population movements. a group of people from one region travel to another region and with time and minimal contact with the old region, they develop an entirely new dialect. foreign language also greatly influences the formation of new dialects. America, by being several times larger than england (and thus, having more space between dialects) and having a huge immigration influence, is no doubt more diverse linquistically than england. i dont see why the hell it would be the other way around. a 19th century man from York could take a train and be in London the very next day... a 19th century man from NYC couldn't do the same to get to San Fran. the immense size of america alone causes us to have more disparity between dialects. most americans will never be exposed (in person) to dialects across the country. all a londoner has to do is take a short drive north and he'll get exposed to other peoples.

	02-10-2004 23:57									#70
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Oh, dialects in very close proximity to each other can be very different. In sweden some dialects with a couple of dozen miles appart are barely similar at all, due to geographical/class/regional reasons. People hardly move at all in some places, you know - the movement thing only makes things smoother as it has continued and the exchange has continued. The US is less culturally stratified with fewer tiny islands of population, and its accents are way more similar, believe me.

	03-10-2004 00:08									#71
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I dare to say that the difference between my dialect and the dialect of people living only an hour's drive north is greater than the difference between any dialects of American English, or even English in general

Mobility doesn't necessarily mean squat.

	03-10-2004 00:12									#72
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I was gonna say - there are some recordings I've heard out of dialect archives here in Sweden that are almost completely unintelligible to me. I mean, there are several dialects that, like scots to english, used to be a separate language before being reformed in...

	03-10-2004 00:23									#73
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I heard a sample of Ôsterbotten-Swedish (in Finland). It didn't sound like "normal" Finland-Swedish. It was just... weird. And almost unintelligible.

The differences between some German dialects are pretty extreme too. Might as well be separate languages.

	03-10-2004 00:31									#74
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Oh they are. High German and Low German are totally, totally different, they're only the same language for political reasons.

	03-10-2004 04:18									#75
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Well, I guess I'm not very good at this, so the answer is that I live in Northern California and the only parts of my heritage that should show in my samples should be Rogaland county in Norway, and possibly Utah, and having formerly lived in Texas. Kinda embarassing how badly I spelled hjortetakk.

	03-10-2004 04:53									#76
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what the hell? accents form due to prolonged seperation... how the hell are people living mere miles from each other and having constant contact going to have more distinct accents than people living hundreds of miles from each other and having no contact?

there's a dozen different dialects in American Southern alone... Plantation Southern, one of the many dialects, itself can be broken down into different versions depending on where you are (georgia vs. s. carolina, etc.)

	03-10-2004 05:07									#77
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Buck Birdseed, you most certainly have not been exposed to the wide variety of accents we have here as you most likely only hear whats on TV. On TV you hear basically a neuterd midwestern accent, the equivalent of BBC English in North America. No other accents really make the cut on TV and alot of people with other accents will change them before going on TV. A good example are Canadians who want to make it in Hollywood (ie, Michael J Fox, etc...).

And its uninformed to assume we don't have at least as much variety here in North America as in the UK, regardless of distance. I grew up in Boston and I can tell which outlying town or neighborhood of the city people come from based on their accent and they words they use. My father can even tell which part of which neighborhood someone comes from.. sometimes even narrow it down to an individual project building. I can also tell which part of New England people come from based on their accent, each region is very distinct. I can probably name about 30 or 40 different accents in New England alone, and I probably haven't even heard half of them. This is one region. North America is an immensly huge area (alot of Europeans don't have a proper concept of just how big we are) and we have a range of accents to match it.

Just because you don't hear it doesn't mean its not there. But anyways, no one is saying the UK doesn't have alot of variety (it has a ton and its very interesting) we're just saying North America has just as much.

	03-10-2004 05:13									#78
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and don't forget the huge influence foreigners have had... certain regions of the US have entirely different words and pronounce things far different due to contact with foreigners (the southwest due to contact with mexicans)... the dozens of italian accents (italian being unintelligible between north and south) have had a profound influence on the way even non-italians talk in cities like NYC and Philly... Polish Jews have influenced the way many non-Jewish New Yorkers talk... england doesn't have that foreign influence.

	03-10-2004 05:16									#79
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Yeah, I'm guessing Appalachia or rural South.

Wherever it is, he ought to get to civilization soon.

	03-10-2004 05:25									#80
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quote: Originally posted by Albert Speer and don't forget the huge influence foreigners have had... certain regions of the US have entirely different words and pronounce things far different due to contact with foreigners (the southwest due to contact with mexicans)... the dozens of italian accents (italian being unintelligible between north and south) have had a profound influence on the way even non-italians talk in cities like NYC and Philly... Polish Jews have influenced the way many non-Jewish New Yorkers talk... england doesn't have that foreign influence.

This is true.

quote: Wherever it is, he ought to get to civilization soon.

Accent or dialect is in no way an indicator of ones level of "civilization", but you know that.

	03-10-2004 05:28									#81
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I didn't say he wasn't civilized, I said he needed to get to civilization.

I managed to escape from Nashville to Northern Virginia

	03-10-2004 05:44									#82
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quote: Originally posted by Kuciwalker I didn't say he wasn't civilized, I said he needed to get to civilization. I managed to escape from Nashville to Northern Virginia

Hey, whats wrong with Nashville? Nashville's a great town...

	03-10-2004 05:50									#83
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quote: Wherever it is, he ought to get to civilization soon.

Y'all Yankees should all com'on down an' have a stay in the South. Oughta do you all some good.

	03-10-2004 14:19									#84
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quote: Originally posted by Albert Speer America, by being several times larger than england (and thus, having more space between dialects) and having a huge immigration influence, is no doubt more diverse linquistically than england. i dont see why the hell it would be the other way around. a 19th century man from York could take a train and be in London the very next day... a 19th century man from NYC couldn't do the same to get to San Fran

Britain had the Empire, which involved lots of people leaving Britain and staying in foreign lands for long periods of time. They returned and tended to bring back others from all over the world.

Its not just accent that it changed, but the words of the language. The English language has absorbed innumerable words from other languages and cultures.

	03-10-2004 21:34									#85
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more than America... not likely. we have had far more immigration.

	03-10-2004 21:38									#86
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We've had far more years.

	03-10-2004 21:40									#87
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but you also had a small amount of territory where people from Manchester would have much contact with people from London... someone from Seattle is not likely to have much contact with people from Atlanta. this seperation is what causes different dialects. people living mere miles from each other with constant contact do not develop dialects; if anything, they merge and have a single dialect.

	03-10-2004 21:42									#88
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You've obviously never heard a Mancunian, Cockney, Geordie or Scouser talk.

	03-10-2004 21:46									#89
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obviously you've never heard of the two causes of dialect variety... foreign influence and prolonged seperation (linguistic drift)...

in terms of the science of linguistics, tell me how did it come to pass that a small area like England would have more dialects than a massive area like the US?

	03-10-2004 21:51									#90
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I'd wager that until relatively recently, a person from Seattle would have had more contact with a person from Atlanta than a Mancunian would have had with a Londoner. Speer, being an American, fails to appreciate the British sense of distance.

For example, Colchester and Ipswich are about half an hour away by car. To go from one to the other is considered a long journey.

For example two, there are people who have never left their village in this country. Also, it is entirely possible for someone to have never spent significant amounts of time outside their London borough. A friend of mine who lived in Brixton did not know anything of London past her local tube stations.

Example three, only recently have broad accents like Esturay English or a common Scottish accent emerged. This is directly in line with the new flexibility in population movement seeping into the British consciousness. Though I doubt we'll ever be as mobile as the Americans due to our attachment to house buying for long term investment.