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North American English Dialects

aschmann.net

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Re: North American English Dialects

#21

Post by walthamstow »

unsupp0rted wrote: post #18
walthamstow wrote: post #16

A recent series of Alone was won by a guy from Goose Bay, Labrador. To my ear, as a Brit, it just sounds Irish, right down to saying 'tree' for 'three'. I can only imagine that's where the initial settlers were from and the isolation meant it never changed much.

Spoilers! That season/series was a really fun watch. In previous seasons/series they didn't have the formula down yet, so 2/3rds of the episode were one literally starving person after another, just sighing into a camera about how hungry they are, how cold it is, and how nothing is changing. Whereas in this one some people did incredibly well, others tapped out after setbacks, illness, or made thinly-veiled excuses a…

Great show. There were some series which were a bit sad and just became about who was the poorest and most desperate to stick it out for 500k.

Re: North American English Dialects

#22

Post by roxolotl »

999900000999 wrote: post #19

Is anyone archiving these accents ? As much as I’m happy that kids now have access to YouTube, and thus can use the neutral influencer dialect, something about our culture is being erased. I grew up speaking both a neutral California accent and bits of AAVE. AAVE itself is drastically different depending on the part of the US you’re in. I can barely understand southern AAVE. NYC AAVE is much faster, but I think NYC p…

They have audio samples if that’s what you mean. The ones from where I grew up were spot on but rare even when I was growing up in the 90s.

https://aschmann.net/AmEng/#AudioFilesOfLocalDialects

Re: North American English Dialects

#23

Post by bitwize »

zabzonk wrote: post #11
DeathArrow wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Now it depends who has good spoken british english. My favorites are David Attenborough and BBC in general.

The BBC actually has an official "Pronunciation Unit", which tells people like newsreaders the "proper" way to pronounce words and placenames. Unfortunately, particularly in the latter case they often get it wrong. For example, my late Dad was born in a small West Yorkshire town called Sowerby Bridge, which the unit insists should be said Sourbee Bridge. Everyone, without exception, who lives there knows it is Sorebe…

Local pronunciations of place names are often different from what's expected, and whether intended to be such or not, are often used as shibboleths to distinguish locals from outsiders. The examples of Couch Street (/ˈkutʃ/) in Portland, Oregon and Tchoupitoulas Street (/ˌtʃɑp.ə.ˈtuː.ləs/) in New Orleans, Louisiana come to mind in American place names.

Re: North American English Dialects

#25

Post by dave4270 »

New Orleans drops mic... I'm from River Ridge in the Jefferson Parish suburbs ( within the city area ) and if I meet a stranger somewhere else in the country they, after one or two sentences, usually think I'm from New York. But slipping into one of the many dialects we have here is never far away, depending on who you are conversing with. Only locals will understand, but my wife used to tell me that after 2 sentences my dad and I would start talking like we were "from Kenner" and she couldn't follow the conversation. To non-locals, Kenner is directly next to River Ridge.

Re: North American English Dialects

#26

Post by ghaff »

dave4270 wrote: post #25

New Orleans drops mic... I'm from River Ridge in the Jefferson Parish suburbs ( within the city area ) and if I meet a stranger somewhere else in the country they, after one or two sentences, usually think I'm from New York. But slipping into one of the many dialects we have here is never far away, depending on who you are conversing with. Only locals will understand, but my wife used to tell me that after 2 sentence…

Yeah, when I lived there, a lot of native New Orleans dialect had a lot in common with Brooklyn to my ears.

Started work there at the same time as a school classmate who grew up in Jacksonville. Spent a lot of time doing engineering work on offshore drilling rigs. Told my friend I really had trouble understanding people a lot of the time. He said he did as well :-)

Re: North American English Dialects

#28

Post by bigfishrunning »

bitwize wrote: post #23
zabzonk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BBC actually has an official "Pronunciation Unit", which tells people like newsreaders the "proper" way to pronounce words and placenames. Unfortunately, particularly in the latter case they often get it wrong. For example, my late Dad was born in a small West Yorkshire town called Sowerby Bridge, which the unit insists should be said Sourbee Bridge. Everyone, without exception, who lives there knows it is Sorebe…

Local pronunciations of place names are often different from what's expected, and whether intended to be such or not, are often used as shibboleths to distinguish locals from outsiders. The examples of Couch Street (/ˈkutʃ/) in Portland, Oregon and Tchoupitoulas Street (/ˌtʃɑp.ə.ˈtuː.ləs/) in New Orleans, Louisiana come to mind in American place names.

Lancaster PA (LANG-KISS-TER) checking in

Re: North American English Dialects

#29

Post by ghaff »

roxolotl wrote: post #22
999900000999 wrote: post #19

Is anyone archiving these accents ? As much as I’m happy that kids now have access to YouTube, and thus can use the neutral influencer dialect, something about our culture is being erased. I grew up speaking both a neutral California accent and bits of AAVE. AAVE itself is drastically different depending on the part of the US you’re in. I can barely understand southern AAVE. NYC AAVE is much faster, but I think NYC p…

They have audio samples if that’s what you mean. The ones from where I grew up were spot on but rare even when I was growing up in the 90s. https://aschmann.net/AmEng/#AudioFilesOfLocalDialects

Radio followed by television has done a lot of homogenization even if you don't have the more formalized received pronunciation you had/have in the UK. Even something stereotypical like a "Boston accent" was mostly a Southie accent on the one hand and an essentially English (Boston Brahmin) on the other. Most urbanites in particular never had others and many weren't even from Boston.

Re: North American English Dialects

#30

Post by chkaloon »

Glad to see the special mention of the Mat Su Valley in Alaska. Lived there for 10 years, originally from Wisconsin. And yes, the two are VERY similar. Not the exactly the same, I did notice a difference when I moved back to WI, more nasal. But the Mat Su Valley was populated by Midwestern farmers during the Depression, so it makes sense.
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