Accents

[missy]

I usually don't have a huge problem understanding someone who is "English as a second language". My grandfather spoke with a heavy German accent (although born in Cincinnati, he didn't learn English until after 6th grade). I've worked with many from other countries, so have become accustomed to listening well.
I'm also fairly well with southern accents and those from Nawlins. I also find my "I"s getting longer the further south I get from the Ohio River! I grew up with many "misplaced Appalachians" so I tend to adapt that pretty easy (and have been told I have a Southern accent, while I don't think I do!).
I also think being musically inclined helps when listening to other accents. We are used to hearing tones, and speech inflections are really just different tones.

Unfortunately, I cannot speak or read but the little bit of French I took in high school. I think it's sad how we in the US don't learn other languages from grade school. I'm always impressed when working with people from other countries, and they are fluent in 3, 4, or more languages.

[SteveShaw]

As for understanding others I have trouble just understanding other Scottish accents. Well one in particular. Thankfully Glaswegians never say anything worth hearing anyway.

Heheh. Spoken like a true Aberdonian eh? We Lancastrians think exactly the same about Yorkshire people.

Steve

[Innocent Bystander]

Years ago as a student I was hitch-hiking down to Durham from Edinburgh. (I'm a Belfastian.) I was dropped off in Newcastle. I asked for directions. I was told them. I did not understand a b*ggering word that was said to me. Not even "the". They might have been taking the mickey, as Geordies have no great love for Irish Accents. They could have been insulting me or reciting Shakespeare - I just couldn't make out one word. I ended up walking overnight from Newcastle to Durham. A long walk, but I made it.
Now I work for a software company that writes software for Housing Associations. The IT departments of Housing Associations seemed to be stocked entirely by people from what once were Empire Colonies. And I can now tell the difference between a Northern Nigerian (a Hill-man) and a Southern Nigerian (a plains-man) from the way they speak English. And make out different regions of India. If I came accross any Geordies I might even be able to understand them now.

[flanum]

Not just the accents, but also the local phrases thrown in with them are great craic.

eg.

"that was an ojis sessiun last nite!" Cavan
"hes a wild tight man to kick a ball" Donegal
"your an absolute langer by!" Cork
"goin for scoops with the mott!" Dublin
"did ya get into a wee bit of a handling?" Fermanagh

etc.

[BillChin]

When some relatives of mine moved to the United States, I could not understand them. My language skills were not great, but I could converse with my parents. These other relatives were from the next village over--20 miles plus 20 years made for a dialect that I could not parse.

Even today, the vast majority of the people in the world, never travel more than 50 miles from where they are born. If you are person that enjoys travel, it is an incredible age to live in. Travel is less expensive and more readily available than ever. Very few places are off limits.

The leveling of language and accents is one thing I can thank television and the mobility of modern society for. There remain a few isolated pockets with near incomprehensible dialects, and there are subcultures with slang that no outsider can parse. However, television is the great leveler, virtually guaranteeing that the people can understand each other.

[dubhlinn]

They might have been taking the mickey, as Geordies have no great love for Irish Accents. They could have been insulting me or reciting Shakespeare - I just couldn't make out one word

My ex-father in law - or my ex-wifes father - was an out and out Geordie.
We used to go for a drink on Sunday morning. Half of the time would be spent with me asking him, or him asking me, to say that again..slowly.
Once we kinda got over our accent problems we got on like a house on fire..took a while but we got there.

Just as we came to a point where we understood each other, he went and died.

His last words to me were"You Irish guys talk far to fast"

mine to him were "You English guys think far to slow"

I miss him a lot more than his daughter

Slan,
D.

[djm]

I miss him a lot more than his daughter

I'm starting to wonder if this is more than just a coincidence. I know several guys who still get on great with their ex's family. Pity the poor family stuck with such a daughter, when the son-ex-law is someone they enjoy so much.

djm

[Jack]

I have an aquaintance from somewhere in Southeast Asia. It's either Cambodia or Laos or Vietnam, I get them all mixed up. At any rate, I can never understand a word he says. I feel so bad for it, but I gave up long ago on asking him to repeat himself. We eat dinner together sometimes, and I simply smile and nod my head to everything he says, like a good trophy bride of sorts.

I also have a friend from Ethiopia and one from Japan, and even though they also have accents, I understand each of them perfectly.

[BrassBlower]

To me, even Christy Moore's and Luka Bloom's accents don't sound the same.

Also, I can understand every word Maire Brennan says, but very little of Paddy Moloney.

[burnsbyrne]

My wife isn't a native English speaker, but had studied English in school from a very early age.

When we first met, her written English was very good (better than most US high school graduates - in college, they put her in the advance writing class). But unless you spoke slowly, she couldn't follow spoken English very well. And her own accent when speaking was pretty thick.

Now, after spending half her life in the US, she can understand most American accents of English as fast as they can be spoken, but she still has a hard time dealing with other accents and dialects. When we were visiting Britain and Ireland last summer she occasionally had to ask people to repeat themselves.

Her own accent has reduced quite a bit, too. Still there - nobody would mistake her for a native speaker - but our kids don't even notice it; to them, rather than an accent it's just "how Mom speaks". It *has* affected me, too - though my own Cantonese is nearly nonexistant, I have a lot less trouble understanding English with a strong Cantonese accent than most of my coworkers.

If you replace Cantonese with Italian, your story above matches my wife's experience almost exactly. Once when she had been here about 6-9 months she asked me discretely if a certain man we had encountered had a speech defect. I chuckled and said that no, he didn't have a speech defect, that was just the way people talk in West Virginia. (Nothing personal, Cranberry.)

[peteinmn]

When my family immigrated to the US in the mid 50’s I was a boy of 11. I made a fairly easy transition to English largely because I attended a Lutheran Church school where some of the older teachers spoke my native German and provided some tutoring. Our first home in the US was in a largely Jewish neighborhood in Chicago. Many of the older folks still spoke Yiddish in public. The younger folks and kids all at least understood Yiddish and spoke to their elders in a kind of “Yiddlish” mixture of Yiddish and English. I found that Yiddish was closely related to German and easily adopted a Yiddlish dialect whenever it was convenient.

Some years later, during high school, I had a summer job working as a laborer for a company that was building tract homes by the hundreds. There were some guys on the job who were the “drywallers” who put up the sheetrock interior walls and did the “mudding” and sanding of the joints. One day I was listening to them talk among themselves and could not understand them. Since I could catch a word here and there, I assumed they were speaking a kind of Yiddlish but with a different primary language. I asked one of the other guys working there where the drywallers were from and he said Alabama.

[Jack]

My wife isn't a native English speaker, but had studied English in school from a very early age.

When we first met, her written English was very good (better than most US high school graduates - in college, they put her in the advance writing class). But unless you spoke slowly, she couldn't follow spoken English very well. And her own accent when speaking was pretty thick.

Now, after spending half her life in the US, she can understand most American accents of English as fast as they can be spoken, but she still has a hard time dealing with other accents and dialects. When we were visiting Britain and Ireland last summer she occasionally had to ask people to repeat themselves.

Her own accent has reduced quite a bit, too. Still there - nobody would mistake her for a native speaker - but our kids don't even notice it; to them, rather than an accent it's just "how Mom speaks". It *has* affected me, too - though my own Cantonese is nearly nonexistant, I have a lot less trouble understanding English with a strong Cantonese accent than most of my coworkers.

If you replace Cantonese with Italian, your story above matches my wife's experience almost exactly. Once when she had been here about 6-9 months she asked me discretely if a certain man we had encountered had a speech defect. I chuckled and said that no, he didn't have a speech defect, that was just the way people talk in West Virginia. (Nothing personal, Cranberry.)

It's true. People in West Virginia (especially as you get farther back into the hills) have a distinct way of speaking, even compared to neighboring states like Kentucky, Virginia, and Ohio. I don't live in West Virginia, at any rate.

[OnTheMoor]

I was travelling through Kerry once with some Aussies and a couple school girls asked them what language they spoke in Australia, it was cute.

My girlfriend was born in Halifax and her mother was from Cape Breton. She lived for years in Cornwall, GB, before coming back to settle here in Ottawa. She had an English accent when I met her, but it's gone now. However, whenever we travel in areas with alot of people from the British Isles, she slips back into it within a couple hours. Sometimes I think she's putting me on.

Then, when she speaks with her Grandmother, Mother, Aunt or Uncle from Glace Bay in Cape Breton she'll immediately start talking with their inquisitive whine of an accent. Strange girl.

[DCrom]

A fellow I used to know was from Yorkshire (the city of York itself, I believe). Every couple of years, he'd travel back there to visit family.

His accent followed an interesting cycle - very strong Yorkshire accent when he first returned, modulating over time to West Coast US accent with only a touch of Yorkshire. Then he'd head home again . . . We told him we reckoned the *real* reason he'd return home was for accent refurbishment.

[SteveShaw]

My girlfriend was born in Halifax and her mother was from Cape Breton. She lived for years in Cornwall, GB, before coming back to settle here in Ottawa. She had an English accent when I met her, but it's gone now. However, whenever we travel in areas with alot of people from the British Isles, she slips back into it within a couple hours. Sometimes I think she's putting me on.

Well, any time she feels like a sentimental visit to Cornwall - the Doom Bar's on me!

Cheers

Steve