EDM053I’ve been in Australia long enough now that the local accent is starting to sound normal. Of course, that’s made easier by the fact that I’ve been living with an Australian for eight years, but still a sign that I’m beginning to feel at home in my new home.

I’ve been thinking a lot about accents these days, particularly in terms of my kid(s. It is still weird to use the plural). Every time I get an e-mail from my Strange Scottish friend in Oxford she asks, “does Wee Z have an ozzie accent?” And I always reply to this question in the same way – “He only speaks in three word phrases. You daft c*nt.”

We have that kind of relationship.

Daft or no, she’s not far off. Boy Z and Not Max will most likely develop a South Australian accent as they get older and move further away from the parental sphere of influence. I’m not crazy about this, but I guess it’s better than a Sydney accent in a lesser of two evils way*.

I lay awake for a little while last night wanting to know how accents work. This is how I ended up in science – sleepless nights trying to figure out how things work. I want to know why there are so many regional dialects, even within a fairly small geographical area? There are probably a dozen fairly distinct accents in the British Isles – a land mass about the size of the state of California. Why? Where do all these accents stem from and how are they maintained? Why do children pick up the accent of their peers rather than that of their parents, who teach them to speak? Why does  a person maintain the accent of their childhood even after a lifetime away from their childhood home?

So this morning, I got up and started doing some research. I’m not a linguist, but this article seems pretty thorough to me. Apparently your accent is all about peer pressure and mimicry. According to the article, “children who grow up together are a ‘peer group’. They want to speak the same as each other to express their group identity.” But it isn’t that simple:

People do not have a single fixed accent which is determined by their experiences. We can control the way we speak, and do, both consciously and unconsciously. Most people vary their accent depending on who they are speaking with. We change our accents, often without noticing, as we have new life experiences.

mimicThis statement, I can definitely relate to. Both my parents were born and raised in Canada, but haven’t lived there since the early 70’s. If you spoke to my Mom, you would never know that she left. She still speaks with a pretty pronounced Ontario accent. My Dad, on the other hand, is a mimic. These days if you had a conversation with him, you would think he spent most of his childhood in north Florida.

Like father, like son.

My family moved around a lot until I was about 10 and we settled down south. At that point, I would guess that I was speaking with a mixture of the eastern Canadian accent of my parents with a bit of western New York that I picked up in elementary school. When we arrived in the pine hammocks of north Florida, my accent marked me as a foreigner among the slow-talking, twangy natives. I found the easiest way to fit in was to mimic the accent. So, at school I tried to speak like a native Floridian. At home, I spoke like a native Canadian. As I got older and struck out on my own, I kept up with this mimicry – picking up a Carolina lilt while living in the Piedmont, a Nordic hoot during my time in the Pacific Northwest. Down in Georgia, I stuffed my mouth with gravel and honey before flattening out my vowels for a stint in the Midwest. When we crossed the Atlantic to Oxford, I started enunciating crisply and studying the diction of BBC television presenters for cues on how to speak to the locals. Down Under, my R’s are vanishing and I’m drawing out my vowels.

I don’t know what kind of accent I have any more. These days, when people meet me for the first time they rarely guess that I’m American. This is partially out of politeness, it’s a bit risky to misidentify someone as a Yank, but I think my accent has just morphed into something that is difficult to identify. In fact, roughly half of the people that meet me for the first time guess that I’m Irish. I’ve never lived in Ireland and Dr. O’C, despite being born in County Cork, has no trace of an Irish accent. But after five years abroad in the UK and Australia, I definitely don’t sound as American as I did before emigrating.

I also found this site in my internet research. Set up by linguists at George Mason University, it has sound files of hundreds of people from all over the world reading the same passage:

Please call Stella.  Ask her to bring these things with her from the store:  Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob.  We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids.  She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.

elocutionI don’t know why they chose these words. Presumably, they have characteristic sounds that differ among different accents. Whatever the reason, it’s a pretty cool resource to compare accents from South Africa to Siberia.

I thought I’d do a little (unscientific**) experiment. If you didn’t know, where would you think I came from based on my accent. Have a listen to my version of “Please call Stella…” and tell me what you think.

Bonus question: what is your favorite and least favorite accent?

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*I find the ‘typical’ Australian accent – the one endemic to New South Wales – to be really grating. It’s the nasal pronounciation, drives me nuts. As does that really nasal northeastern U.S. accent. The South Australian accent is a little softer, more English sounding. Here you are – compare Adelaide with Sydney.

For the record, my three favorite accents are:

  1. Glasgow
  2. Southern United States (especially the Carolinas)
  3. South Africa

And my three least favorite:

  1. Texas (thanks W)
  2. Eastern Australia
  3. New Yawk

**Dr. O’C has pointed out in great detail the many flaws in my experimental design. Damn scientists.

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Johnny Cash’s cover of Tom Petty’s “Southern Accents” is from his 1996 album “Unchained”. It was the second in his ‘American Series’ that catapulted him back to fame after a couple of decades in the Wilderness. Also made him a household name again for Gen X hipsters like your underwhelming correspondent. It’s an outstanding record and if you don’t own it is definitely worth the price of purchase from Johnny Cash - Unchained.

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Image credits:

Mouths

Mimic

Elocution

 
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