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Do accents disappear?

32 Comments
By Chris C Palmer and Michelle Devereaux

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Regional accents have their local sub-accents and dialects too. The 'US Southern' accents vary from state to state and even city to city. What you hear in Raliegh isn't the same as Atlanta or Orlando. The Boston accent isn't just in Beantown itself, but New England dialects have similarities.

Quebecois French has its peculiarities not known anywhere else French is spoken. The UK has its Woking, Mancunian, Cornwall dialects.

Accents and languages do change but it takes centuries.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Twice in my life on visits to Europe I have had Europeans identify not just as an American, but specifically as a Californian because of my accent. Like, totally bitchen man :)

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Shanghai has practically its own language, a bastardization of Mandarin that someone from elsewhere in China cannot begin to understand, plus their own slang to go with it.

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Howay man. Although it is a concern that 'Authentic Frontier Gibberish' may be rarer than it used to be, language is fluid and in a state of continual flux. There is nothing to stop people talking with a strong local accent amongst their family and neighbours and a more standardised accent at work. So you can keep your local accent alive but upgrade to RP to get ahead in your career, as people have been doing for a long time.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Wow is this really a concern to write an article about?

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Wow is this really a concern to write an article about?

Yes, it is apparently so, Jennie:

Linguists argue that dialect death should be taken seriously.

Use of particular accents and dialects have already entered the wacky world of IDpol and grievance studies.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

GBR48

Why aye mun , the beautiful sound of the North East , I can hear it from a thoosan yards . Whilst I have been away for aboot 25 years , I have been hyem 3 times and the minute I'm off the jet , the switch in the back of my head switches to pure geordie , and when I get to wa local , I am greeted as soon as I waak through the door of " Wor Pub " with a " where you been mun ? " like I've only been gone for a month . When I'm back at work the switch turns back to my kinda BBC sound , it's nivver posh mind ! Nowhere else can you ask for a " pint o' Scotch , canny lad ", and not be looked at like you're a martian or a super drinker . I always look forward to one of Brian Johnson's doco's and just sit there and listen to english taalked proper like .

That should confuse 'em Bonny Lad , he can't even spell proper like . Aal the best , mun .

5 ( +5 / -0 )

@Anonymous

Didn’t mean to be offensive, I grew up in three different states but don’t carry any accents so I actually just read the title and thought it was a peculiar topic to be discussed. I respect all the dialects and actually admire their differences, just didn’t thought it was an arguable debate that the boundaries are disappearing. Thanks for the feedback though :)

0 ( +1 / -1 )

I remember as a child being sent by the school to a class to learn how to speak English with less of an accent. Today I sometimes speak with any of three different accents, depending on the situation I am in, but I never learned to control it. It just happens on its own. I don't care, as I and those around me are used to it.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Even though I'm from Ohio, some of my cohorts in the military and afterward swear that I have a NYC accent. I've been all over the Empire State except NYC to date, however.

New England accents are very much alike. When I vacationed in Minuteman Hist. Park in Concord/Lexington, Massachusetts - I heard it loud and clear. 'Jeremy, get in the cah'.

After enjoying the historical birthplace of my nation and enjoying a delicious meal of clam chowdah (with oystah crackahs!), bread and jam and buttah (appetizah) and an ice cream dessert, I drove thruout Boston itself - navigating on the crazy roads and sightseeing out the yinyang. Enjoying the splendah of it all. Saw the famous Chee-yahs bah on Beacon Street. Played my CD of the Cars' classic 'Heartbeat City' (new edition, w/ B-sides, demos, bonus trax!). My car CD player 'said' the song title and the 'artist(s)' - 'Cars'. Should've said 'Cahs' or maybe 'Kahs' beings where I was at the time.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Coming back to the US after 20 something years pretty well immersed in Japanese and speaking English to non-native speakers, I was repeatedly complimented by random people - "your English is very good!" That faded within a year.

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@Jennie

Sorry but of course you have an accent, everybody does. There is no such thing as standard English. If nothing else, you will have an American accent.

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So long as the other party understands you, do you subconsciously change how you speak?

I don't think so, it's not a game of emulating everyone around you. If it is, we'd all sound the same.

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Actually a fascinating subject. To give a literal response, sometimes accents change completely, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they change a little bit, and sometimes they change to fit the circumstance.

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@Daiki Ishikawa.

The internet lists both Why aye mun and Howay man as established. Maybe within Newcastle there are regional variants.

Most people with the surname Ishikawa would find public announcements in a Newcastle accent impossible to fathom, which is why it makes sense to us RP for them.

@Hello Kitty 321. 'There is no such thing as standard English'

There is. It is called Received Pronunciation (RP) and has been around for a long time, changing over time.

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Being from two cultures, and traveling back and forth between Europe and the States I don't really have an accent, when I speak German or Dutch, they both sound natural and within their respective region where I grew up half of my life, and in Germany you have a lot of dialects and even how you say "Good Morning" will vary depending on the region. As far as Cali is concerned, I have a very typical Inland Empire-Southern Cali West Coast accent.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

There is no such thing as standard English. If nothing else, you will have an American accent.

I have lived in several countries on four continents, and ten different American states, and studied six different languages. As a result, I have a fairly bland English accent. I would expect to have an "American accent", but have had several people on different continents and different parts of the states ask where I come from. Some of them think they are good at determining a person's origin from his accent and are puzzled by my bland speech. As such, I question whether there is such a thing as an American accent. I guess the question of where I come from is significant, as I can't easily answer this question. Since retirement, I have lived in almost the geographic center of the United States, Kansas, but I don't think that has much influence on my speech.

Wow is this really a concern to write an article about?

I agree, Jennie. When I read the article, I wondered what rubes wrote it. I found it a bit shallow like the authors had cobbled together ideas from several articles, like amateur reporters. I was surprised to find that they were a professor and assistant professor of English from Kennesaw State University in Atlanta. I suppose that this is what professors of English have to do to increase the list of articles on their resumes. The article and professors don't write nearly as authoritatively or convincingly as the journalist, H. L. Menken, and the article does not hold a candle to Menken's outstanding work, The American Language, which discusses American accents.  Wikipedia says, "Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, satirist, cultural critic, and scholar of American English."

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Being from two cultures, and traveling back and forth between Europe and the States I don't really have an accent […]As far as Cali is concerned, I have a very typical Inland Empire-Southern Cali West Coast accent.

Come on, dude. Read what you write before you post it.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

 I have a very typical Inland Empire-Southern Cali West Coast accent.

Yo, dawg :/

0 ( +0 / -0 )

And Texans have long worried about losing their distinctive twang

Depends on the Texan. When I lived in Texas, I found the cooler types looking down on a ‘hick’ accent.

My old mate from Texas often laughed at Texan politicians modulating the accent depending on the audience. Some of it was bordering on parody.

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At uni, I was told I even spoke Cantonese with a Scouse accent

Sounds beautiful

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> ジョージDec. 17  10:35 pm JST

At uni, I was told I even spoke Cantonese with a Scouse accent. After uni, I just had a vaguely northern accent. Last time I went back, my friends remarked that I sounded vaguely American.

I saw and met Arnold Schwarzeneggar at a book signing aa few years ago. Without even thinking about it, I had a brief conversation with him in German. However, I was speaking in a Hamburg dialect, and he speaks the Vienna dialect. Germany German and Austrian German are almost two different animals. And there's accents locally too. However, I spoke in American inflections because the German I learned was in HS and college. And it was obvious.

And it's been the same when I've visited Canada, where French is predominant in the eastern provinces - esp. once you get eastward past Toronto. Montreal and Quebec City have their dialects as well. And every time I've visited those wonderful cities and spoke (broken) Quebecois French to people; they could tell right away that I was a foreigner (American).

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Come on, dude. Read what you write before you post it.

I do, always.

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Germany German and Austrian German are almost two different animals.

Well, not that heavily different, but it is different when it is spoken, when written there is only one standard German that both countries use

And there are accents locally too. However, I spoke in American inflections because the German I learned was in HS and college. And it was obvious.

When I speak it, I do so with a North-Westphalian dialect, Austrian or more specifically the Wiener dialect is the easiest out of all the Austrian ones. I saw Arnold back in the mid 90's when he still had his old restaurant in Venice "Schatzi's" and he can't really speak German that well anymore and his English is not perfect, so he kind of drifts between both languages which is what makes him who he is, but as with British English, there are many things that are called differently between Austria and Germany.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Australia certainly has regional accents and New Zealanders have yet another different accent.

During grad school we had several South Korean students. We all had a good laugh one day when one of them said they could not tell the difference in accents in their spoke English among people originally from UK, France, Germany or Italy. To our ears all of these groups have a distinct accent in English but the Korean students ears were not attuned to that. By comparison they could tell if an English speaking foreigner was Chinese, Taiwanese, South Korean or Japanese, while us American students were unable to do so. Vietnamese and especially Philippine accents were obvious to us but the differences between other Asian accents was lost on us.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

Germany German and Austrian German are almost two different animals. 

Castillian Spanish spoken by a Spaniard and Mexican Spanish sound like two completely different languages. The former is melodic and lovely to hear while the latter is choppy and stacco.

I have been told that Cousin Ahnold had a Bavarian accent?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Australia certainly has regional accents

Not really. Or at least, not like in the UK where accent is representational of area. Rather, in Australia, it's more like there is a bogan (hick) accent, and then the normal Australian accent. It's not like Aussies can tell what area each other are from based on their accent, whereas people in the UK (mostly) can.

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

It's not like Aussies can tell what area each other are from based on their accent, whereas people in the UK (mostly) can.

Regional accents in Australia are far more subtle than in the UK (where I can identify around 10) but are there if you listen. As an Aussie I can easily pick a Queensland or WA accent, and a Victorian one based on pronunciation of selected words. Even in this city, Sydney, there is a distinct Western Sydney accent as compared to North of the bridge.

Never having been to Canada I'd have no hope of discerning a Toronto vs Vancouver accent. If I spent a few years there I probably could.

Languages are far more interesting with accents!

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John Wayne types with a German or Italian accent don't work for me.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Dutch and German are two different languages.

Dutch is very similar to German, especially with regard to vocabulary, but the grammar is very different.

Although Dutch and German are related, it is very difficult for speakers of the two languages to understand each other.

"good morning how are you?"

Dutch. "Goedemorgen hoe gaat het".

German. "Guten Morgen, wie geht es dir".

https://blog.lingoda.com/en/can-dutch-german-understand-each-other/

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

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