Accents

[bewolf]

Listen to your favourite English Speaker's accent...

http://web.ku.edu/idea/index.htm

OK, it is just a bit of fun... but it DOES show that you Americans DO have an accent.

Enjoy,

wolfie.

[linniec]

Thank you,
Despite what some say("I don't have an accent"), It's always been my contention that everybody has one. My mother once said that accents lent a uniqueness to a place, and lamented the fact that people were racing to discard them.


Linnie,
Atlanta, Ga (Southern US) via South Louisiana(Southern US-not Southern Accent)
who sounds like she's from Cassville, Missouri (Missouri 14-Central Mid-West US)
(even though she is from nowhere near there) odd, huh?

[Lara]

My mother once said that accents lent a uniqueness to a place, and lamented the fact that people were racing to discard them.

Good for her, linnie.
I'm in absolutely no hurry to lose my accent.
I'm going to continue to spell the way I spell as well, although technology is taking over fast in that area.

I've not listened to the url you posted yet, bewolf, I'll go do that now.

take care linniec and bewolf,
Lara

[winnie]

;) Thanks Be!
Accents are like eyes, as they are the soul manifest for me...a wonderful window to a persons world/culture & the hallmark of individuality!
Great 'idea'!
Luv n light,
Winnie:D

[noong]

Oi darn't hav an aksent Sir Wolf.....You Doo tho'
Sarnds sorta pommie????

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

[linniec]

This should be required reading for everyone who purports to speak English.

Linnie
Atlanta, Georgia
!(Who has a North American-Cassville,Missouri accent (Missouri 14))

[BEM]

Linnie, I agree with your mother, accents - and dialects make people more interesting. There certainly are accents in the US, and they are slowly turning into dialects. New dialects are fascinating because they are created as private languages by groups who live isolated from the main language, either by geography or by society's refusal to accept their group, or by their own wish to isolate themselves from society.
Language snobbery is certainly present in the US, but not as pronounced as it is in older countries. We all know the language divisions of England thanks to BBC and PBS. And a tiny country like Denmark has a dialect for every island, and for every little parish, many of them so different that people can't understand each other. People in Copenhagen still think they speak the only real Danish, and until recently, the rest of the country had an inferiority complex about their horrible and embarrassing provincial, peasant accent. But pride in local dialects has become popular lately, and now people are proud to speak their parents' Danish. Accents are in.
Americans are much more polite and much kinder about accents than Europeans. I have never been corrected here, when I've said a blooper, but in France and Germany I have been lectured on pronunciation, and in my own Denmark they enjoy telling me that I no longer speak proper Danish. Language snobs!

birte

[lor]

Bewolf, As I began to read that I came across a word that the -- the word is "artist". If many Americans say just the word, they are proper, but put it in a sentence & many say "ardist". Just a little example of accent.