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I find when I go to East LA (ees el ay) it takes about two hours for me to start speaking very convincing barrio-nese. That's the generalized, Hispanic language accent influenced English of my ancestors.
It comes from the hours I spent as a kid, sitting in my Tio's (Tio = uncle) kitchen eating tortillas heated on the open gas burner of the stove, while the grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and all chatted, and teased each other in Spanglish. I remember Tio Jevi asking "Mas tortillas Mijito?"
Ah, the good old days. When happiness was buttering a slightly charred tortilla with your fingers on a formica tabletop.
Daniel
It's my opinion - highly regarded (and sometimes not) by me. Peace y'all.
Name some movie/TV actors that have tried to affect an accent to do a role but end up sounding bizarre. Examples:
Tom Bosley in "Murder She Wrote"--attempt at sounding like a down east Maine cop was awful
Rob Morrow in "Quiz Show"--tries to sound like a Kennedy (which is an accent unto itself) or Boston accent, but still sounded very strange to this New Englander.
Brewster wrote:Let me take this thread on a slight tangent.
Name some movie/TV actors that have tried to affect an accent to do a role but end up sounding bizarre. Examples:
Tom Bosley in "Murder She Wrote"--attempt at sounding like a down east Maine cop was awful
Rob Morrow in "Quiz Show"--tries to sound like a Kennedy (which is an accent unto itself) or Boston accent, but still sounded very strange to this New Englander.
Any others?
Kevin Costner in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Blech.
Giles: "We few, we happy few."
Spike: "We band of buggered."
Tell us something.: A long time chatty Chiffer but have been absent for almost two decades. Returned in 2022 and still recognize some names! I also play anglo concertina now.
By G*d!
Do yez remember Angel's awful Irish accent in the flashbacks in Buffy and Angel?
It took me ages to work out what was wrong. His consonants were fine. His vowels were almost acceptable.
It was the rhythm. He was speaking Irish-style words in a Yddisher rhythm slowed down to a Californian drawl. Lots of Irish people speak slow, but yer man had terrible trouble with the rhythm.
It was one of those hypnotic things. Like the chorus says in Oedipus:
"I am fascinated, yet repelled!"
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Tell us something.: So, please write a little about why you are interested. We're just looking for something that will make it clear to us, when we read it, why you are registering and that you know what this forum is all about.
The chap who played Lt. Winters in Band of Brothers was amazing - I had no idea at all he was an Englishman until I looked him up on the IMDB.
An Irish friend of mine imitated an old Boston Jewish friend of ours - and came out sounding like a 90-year old black guy! How does that work?
yet another tangent:
picking up an accent via immersion is, I believe, analagous to picking up ornamentation, phrasing, etc. from listening to musicians. ITM is an aural tradition.
We learn to speak a language (and dialects) by hearing and working to reproduce similar sounds. The handing down of tunes works the same way.
I suspect I'm merely stating the obvious, but couldn't help but be put in mind of learning the tunes by ear as basically the same process of learning language.
