Could it be that the english pronounce some vowels differently?

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

Yes, because everyone in England pronounces things the same and there is no regional variation.

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by Lazarus and the Gimp
Yes, because everyone in England pronounces things the same and there is no regional variation.

We all speak like the queen and live in thatched cottages.

Do people realise there are acually 60 million people in the UK

[Dauphin]

The north south test.

Laugh: Is it larf or laff?

[Asher]

Originally posted by TheStinger


We all speak like the queen and live in thatched cottages.

Do people realise there are acually 60 million people in the UK

So what, there are at least 60 million Americans that sound the same.

Hell, with some exceptions for whackjobs on the far east coast, Canada has the same accent and we've got 30 million people over a LOT larger area.

You've no excuse!

[Alinestra Covelia]

This question is impossible to answer except in very general terms. :/

I read a study on American accents, and they said there were about six major accents that permeated the continent from different directions, each deriving from Britain but changing in its own regional variation.

Compare that to England, where almost every major city has at least a slight regional variation. What you know as "Queen's English" is not the same as "BBC English" and is itself slightly different from "Prep School English" (which is what I ended up speaking after a fashion, though my US accent screwed that up and started to mix into a weird Scottish style accent).

Just off the top of my head I can recall:

The London Cockney accent, which had fairly broad vowel sounds, and which changed "th" sounds into "v" or "f" sounds. It's a derivative of the accent that Dick van **** was (unsuccessfully) trying to mimick in Mary Poppins. This is the accent that American films usually associate with chimney sweeps and possibly gangsters.

The Brummy accent (Birmingham) which sits rather low in the mouth and where vowels are extremely warped. ("Bloitch moi' aa" for "bleach my hair")

Liverpool's accent is of a higher tonality and faster. Most of the vowel sounds there are very clipped, as the dialect tends to be rapidly spoken and has a constant upwards inflection.

Then you've got the rural accents like the famous Yorkshire accent (present throughout the film "Brassed Off", itself set in a Yorkshire colliery), and another whose name currently escapes my mind but which I remember being told actually is linguistically closest to the US accent. (It's that one where people always stereotype by saying "Oo-arrrr! Get orf moi laaaaaaaaand!" and then mimicking a shotgun blast... so in other words it resembles the US behavior too )

Edit: It was the Dorset accent. It came back to me.

The city where I grew up, Derby, had an accent that wasn't too different from other urban areas except they tended to voice the final "g" sound at the end of a word. So "King" would sound a little like "King-uh". It lay close by to Nottingham, Loughborough, and Leicester, and I was told that residents could tell the difference between those accents, but I never developed a keen enough ear to do so myself.

Durham, where I went to college, has a northern accent that I initially took to be Scottish. After about a year there, I was able to distinguish between the northern accent (especially of Durham's nearby neighbor, Newcastle-upon-Tyne) and the standard Scottish accent, which are not the same. Additionally, I also learned that the Scots themselves have at least two main accents - one that's predominant in Edinburgh, and one that's predominant in Glasgow.

I had a French teacher who was Irish, and for a while I couldn't tell the difference between his accent and a Scottish accent. After a few years I could, but to an outsider American like me it takes time to develop that mental differentiation.

I've been back in America for about 6 years now and people say my English accent is gone, except when it occasionally creeps back in - usually when I'm concentrating on something like giving a speech or making an important phone call. I personally haven't noticed any change whatsoever.

[Adalbertus]

Originally posted by Asher

So what, there are at least 60 million Americans that sound the same.

Hell, with some exceptions for whackjobs on the far east coast, Canada has the same accent and we've got 30 million people over a LOT larger area.

You've no excuse!

Total lack of history and individuality.

Some years ago, there was a person in a TV show who claimed to tell to about 10 km where a person is from, solely based on their local German dialect and accent. She won. I'm sure this is possible in Italy and possibly in England.

Until 1945, in bigger German cities people knew by the accent which part of the city someone was from - I specifically know this of Cologne and Munich.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by Dauphin
The north south test.

Laugh: Is it larf or laff?

Laff, obviously...

[C0ckney]

you're 'aving a larf reds.

[reds4ever]

Originally posted by C0ckney
you're 'aving a larf reds.

"Stone the crows..."

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by Alinestra Covelia
This question is impossible to answer except in very general terms. :/

I read a study on American accents, and they said there were about six major accents that permeated the continent from different directions, each deriving from Britain but changing in its own regional variation.

Compare that to England, where almost every major city has at least a slight regional variation. What you know as "Queen's English" is not the same as "BBC English" and is itself slightly different from "Prep School English" (which is what I ended up speaking after a fashion, though my US accent screwed that up and started to mix into a weird Scottish style accent).

Just off the top of my head I can recall:


The London Cockney accent, which had fairly broad vowel sounds, and which changed "th" sounds into "v" or "f" sounds. It's a derivative of the accent that Dick van **** was (unsuccessfully) trying to mimick in Mary Poppins. This is the accent that American films usually associate with chimney sweeps and possibly gangsters.

The Brummy accent (Birmingham) which sits rather low in the mouth and where vowels are extremely warped. ("Bloitch moi' aa" for "bleach my hair")

Liverpool's accent is of a higher tonality and faster. Most of the vowel sounds there are very clipped, as the dialect tends to be rapidly spoken and has a constant upwards inflection.

Then you've got the rural accents like the famous Yorkshire accent (present throughout the film "Brassed Off", itself set in a Yorkshire colliery), and another whose name currently escapes my mind but which I remember being told actually is linguistically closest to the US accent. (It's that one where people always stereotype by saying "Oo-arrrr! Get orf moi laaaaaaaaand!" and then mimicking a shotgun blast... so in other words it resembles the US behavior too )

Edit: It was the Dorset accent. It came back to me.

The city where I grew up, Derby, had an accent that wasn't too different from other urban areas except they tended to voice the final "g" sound at the end of a word. So "King" would sound a little like "King-uh". It lay close by to Nottingham, Loughborough, and Leicester, and I was told that residents could tell the difference between those accents, but I never developed a keen enough ear to do so myself.

Durham, where I went to college, has a northern accent that I initially took to be Scottish. After about a year there, I was able to distinguish between the northern accent (especially of Durham's nearby neighbor, Newcastle-upon-Tyne) and the standard Scottish accent, which are not the same. Additionally, I also learned that the Scots themselves have at least two main accents - one that's predominant in Edinburgh, and one that's predominant in Glasgow.

I had a French teacher who was Irish, and for a while I couldn't tell the difference between his accent and a Scottish accent. After a few years I could, but to an outsider American like me it takes time to develop that mental differentiation.

I've been back in America for about 6 years now and people say my English accent is gone, except when it occasionally creeps back in - usually when I'm concentrating on something like giving a speech or making an important phone call. I personally haven't noticed any change whatsoever.

My father, who was born in Hong Kong and educated in the British school system, speaks with what I'd call a "BBC English" accent and has done so for his whole life. He's lived extensively in the US, UK, and now resides in China, but his English accent has never changed.

Good stuff,

Within yorkshire itslef there are diffferent accents. I can tell the difference between Leeds and Hull and those form South yorkshire. However there is apprently a differnecebetween Leeds and Bradford but I can't pick it and I've lived relativley near Leeds and Bradford for 30 years.

[BeBMan]

I don't like to speak the word "through". I usually have no prob getting a th out without the well known German ze-effect but thr gets my tongue in trouble somehow. I'm sure it's a plot by British aggressors

[Alinestra Covelia]

BeBro, you can mimick the effect decently by putting a little "uh" between the TH and the R sounds. Several native English speakers do that too if you listen carefully.

"Thuh-roo"

[reds4ever]

threw

[-Jrabbit]

Most variations on English are pretty easy to parse. But there are exceptions. Once I spent the afternoon and evening with the band UB40 (this was job related). 9 or 10 guys, all from the same working class neighborhood in iirc Birmingham.

It took me a good 15-20 minutes to sync in to the point where I could understand them. I was really starting to think it wasn't a form of English at all. It was a very cool and weird experience.

[Asher]

UB40. I'm so sorry.