On networks like Univision, anchors like to speak neutral Spanish, or otherwise "pan-Latino" is this possible in English? I started wondering this after reading the profile on Jorge Ramos in the New Yorker http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/10/05/the-man-who-wouldnt-sit-down
Ask HN: Is there a pan-English accent?
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Re: Ask HN: Is there a pan-English accent?
#2"His English is fluent, if strongly accented. His Spanish, particularly on-air, is carefully neutral—pan-Latino, not noticeably Mexican."
Yes. From a migrant country like Australia, if you flick on SBS TV News, you get the same phenomena. Fluent English, accented but neutral foreign tongue. You can hear the English equivalent on BBC World News with the announcers speaking RP. [0]
Re: Ask HN: Is there a pan-English accent?
#3As a Brit, I'd say "General American" would be regarded by most English speakers as the most neutral accent, being the most widely spoken and most influential in media.
Us Brits might have conceived the idea of "received pronunciation" as a location-free English accent and exported it via international schools (though South Africa is the only place I can think of with non-trivial numbers of people whose accent is defined more by RP-norms than local norms), but in practice, very few people speak anything resembling the traditional RP, an accent most Britons would see as glaringly indicative of some combination of the speaker's private-schooling, age and pretentiousness. The southern (or subtly southern-ised) English accents that are most predominant in British run media are quite starkly different from traditional "RP" or "Oxford English" in terms of pronunciation and perceived social prestige.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a pan-English accent?
#4I would say there are two, and they are not too far apart: BBC English and Hollywood/US network news English. (That is, I would say that notahacker and bootload are both right.)
Re: Ask HN: Is there a pan-English accent?
#5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American
Is not pan english in that it is mostly attached to the US. But given the vast scope of the US media penetration its probably as close as you get.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a pan-English accent?
#6https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent was once considered that but its usage declined after WWII.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a pan-English accent?
#7"I have a very standard accent" said a new colleague, as I and also new Australian and New England colleagues looked on in disbelief at these overly extrudely nasal West Coast tones. "At least Keanu Reeves sounds cool" I thought to myself.
There is no pan-English accent. There are plenty of projects to document this. Perhaps try something like Forvo: Type your word, and hear the different pronunciation via via speakers from different places in the world: http://forvo.com/languages/en/ for example the word 'English' http://forvo.com/word/english/#en
Re: Ask HN: Is there a pan-English accent?
#8It's worth noting that the concept of "all accents being equally valid" is not true in informational terms. Google "vowel degeneration" if you want to know why some people speak in what appears to be an over formal, over enunciated accent. Rather than showing off education or age, often they are simply distinguishing key sounds in the language.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a pan-English accent?
#9https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent was once considered that but its usage declined after WWII.
Yeah, there are a lot of elderly folks in NYC who use something like the Mid-Atlantic accent. Today it sounds made up, as if they learned English from old movies.
Re: Ask HN: Is there a pan-English accent?
#10https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent was once considered that but its usage declined after WWII.
Yeah, there are a lot of elderly folks in NYC who use something like the Mid-Atlantic accent. Today it sounds made up, as if they learned English from old movies.
I imagine it sounds impossibly plummy to younger Americans, much like the 1930's aristo RP English spoken by, for instance, Deborah Devonshire (see youtube interview) sounds to younger British people. I like the sound of that mid-Atlantic though. It was always a pleasure to hear Gore Vidal interviewed - so articulate, insightful and witty, all the time in those rolling candences...