English! Who talks funny?

[Fisherking]

I have a question regarding the Irish dialect being the oldest dialect of English still spoken: Would the Irish dialect of the 18th century have been essentially the same as that spoken in England and America at the time? I had always assumed the Irish, Scottish, and Welsh dialects were so different because they were more heavily influenced by the old gaellic tongues of their ancestors. Is this incorrect, or is it just that the English in England in the 18th century was just as much influenced by this as the Irish, etc.?

Not the over all Irish but one or more of the Dublin dialects.

Linguists say they go back to the 13th century.

Irish (Gaelic) was not allowed to be spoken in Dublin and it was settled by English and had a mostly Norse population to begin with.


toPhilipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
It is splitting hairs to some extent but we are talking more of accents more than dialects. Remember what was said earlier about the R sounds and how they play in words.

The West Country is certainly older in its purest form and contributes to the American accents.

English is a curious language. Any vowel sound my be mutated in almost any word to sound like almost any other by one dialect or another. For some of us it makes spelling a nightmare. For others, they simply cannot comprehend how a word may be misspelled. English and American spelling differ on some words which are still pronounced the same by both speakers. Jail and Gaol spring to mind.

I know that when I first was in Central Arkansas that it was a local joke, however true, that it was impossible to distinguish the spelling of fair, for, far, and four by the way they were pronounced, which was all the same…“far“.

The English language also only retains around 300 of the original Anglo-Saxon words. We have snatched all the others from elsewhere.

[Juvenal]

I recall watching a TV documentary series on the subject of the diaspora of English dialects. It must have been a good 10-15 years ago, but it left a strong impression on me. I don't recall the name of the presenter (who was also the writer), but I think he was American or maybe Canadian.

The series began in a community of clam fishermen on the USA eastern seaboard. They spoke with an accent very close to the Cornish accent in England today - quite a shock to my pre-conceived notions about US accents garnered from the output from Hollywood.

I learned from the series that modern English accents are substantially derived from the timing and the nature of the people who made up the bulk of the original migrants from the British Isles.

When England first established its American colonies in what is now the South, the prevalent English dialect was close to the modern West Country. The familiar Southern drawl is a development of this, while the clam fishermen speak a less altered form.

The New England colonisation came to a large extent from people living in the East Midlands and East Anglia (religious non-conformists). Even today, this area has a very different accent to West Country, and the distinctive New England accent is a development of it.

The "Hill-Billy" accent was also examined, and this is closely related to the modern Ulster accent, thanks to the great numbers of "Scotch-Irish" who settled that region.

Moving on to the New Commonwealth, the Australian accent seems to stem from Irish and (Cockney) London roots (thanks to the great numbers of transportees). New Zealand and South African English also seem to be London-accent based, although from a later wave of immigration (South African being strongly influenced by the Dutch of the Voortrekkers).

Meanwhile English accents in Britain have changed, as described earlier, we seem to be emerging now from the strait-jacket of Received Pronunciation (BBC English), and there is a flowering of different dialects appearing on TV these days.

...The Scotts once claimed there version as Scottish and forbade the speaking of the Irish-Language (Gaelic) in public places.

The original language of the Scots was Gallic (a derivative of Gaelic, since the Scotti tribes originated in Ulster). But this was later supplanted by an English dialect called "Lowland Scots", which is what is mainly spoken today.

This change was due to the internal power-struggle between the Gallic Magnates and the Stewart dynasty in the 15/16th Century, nothing to do with the English.

[Fisherking]

The original language of the Scots was Gallic (a derivative of Gaelic, since the Scotti tribes originated in Ulster). But this was later supplanted by an English dialect called "Lowland Scots", which is what is mainly spoken today.

This change was due to the internal power-struggle between the Gallic Magnates and the Stewart dynasty in the 15/16th Century, nothing to do with the English.

Some of what I have read on the subject of the Scotts dialect place it far far back in time. The people of the Lowlands are not necessarily the Dál Riata of the Highlands. The are a mixture of the old Britton tribes and North Umbrians. It is at least as old as the rest of the English spoken and many of its oddities are due to its development in other ways and not to the Gaelic influences to the north. The farther back you go, the greater the differences.

It is true the Stuarts banned Gaelic and the TV program was presented by a Canadian, though the origin may have be American.

[lars573]

All I have to say on funny accents is this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m-y-qAbpL0

[Fisherking]

A New Foundland dialect?

There are some strange elements in there!

[lars573]

That's about the thickest form of Newfoundlander you could possibly find. Canada like anyother country has regional accents. What most people would think of as Canadian accent. Is really Ontario.

[Don Esteban]

That's about the thickest form of Newfoundlander you could possibly find. Canada like anyother country has regional accents. What most people would think of as Canadian accent. Is really Ontario.

Maybe it's just my perception but it seems to have lots in common with some really strong Irish accents. I've certainly never met any Canadian who actually sounds like that :)

[King Jan III Sobieski]

I thought American and British were different languages!

[Dodge_272]

Humm, could be.

You want to test it?

Do you pronounce settlers as:

a. set’lahs

b.set-tel-ers

c. some other way

If you are dropping your R’s then the accent may have modified.

However, I doubt your Viking ancestors would understand the language as it is spoken today.

Set'laz. You'd have to hear someone say it as in talking directly to you though. As we all know, the Geordie accent should be banned from being broadcast on television.

[Don Esteban]

Set'laz. You'd have to hear someone say it as in talking directly to you though. As we all know, the Geordie accent should be banned from being broadcast on television.

I still remember the day I arrived in Durham to be greeted by the question (I later realised) Sucaplaya?

Took about 5 repeats before I realised I was being asked if I was a soccer player....

[Megas Methuselah]

That's about the thickest form of Newfoundlander you could possibly find. Canada like anyother country has regional accents. What most people would think of as Canadian accent. Is really Ontario.

Yeah. A lot of Native Americans I know who live on the reserves have some really great accents. Even those who don't live on the reserves have it. I suppose they vary from band (tribe) to band.

Speaking of which, there's still some elders in the northern parts of Saskatchewan who still speak Cree as their first and only language...

[A Very Super Market]

Ontario? I think its generally central Canadian small town people that sound like .. that.

Obviously, Quebec speakers have a strong accent, but it isn't snooty French. More like, haphazard French. Kinda Cajun

Newfies are just.... so weird. They kinda sound like pirates. Except they're Newfie pirates. They sound weird. Rick Mercer

I live mostly in a city, but its Vancouver, so there are tons. But us BC people sound just like Amuhricans. 'Cept we say abowt.

[TenkiSoratoti_]

There is English -spoken by residents within the UK and English speaking Commonwealth respectively- and U.S English -spoken by residents of the U.S. This is my opinion of course and thats probably about as far as I'll take the debate. The underlying argument being that the English language originated in the British Isles and as such should not be classed as 'British English' but rather 'English'.

Then again, I seldom refer to people in the UK as speaking English. They either speak Jock, Geordie, Brummie, West Country, Scouse, etc.

Can anyone name another country with so many distinct variations in accent spread over so little an area? Genuine question, not rhetorical.

[InsaneApache]

Can anyone name another country with so many distinct variations in accent spread over so little an area? Genuine question, not rhetorical.

No.

I was born about 35 miles away from where I currently live and the accent is totally different. In fact the Leeds accent is totally different from where I live and it's only 6 miles away. I was born in north Manchester and the accents around there can change from mile to mile. The Middleton accent is nothing like the Oldham accent and yet they are right next to each other.

My grandmother used to say that you could tell those who used to work in the mills because everything they said was with exaggeration. This was because the noise in the mills was so great that they couldn't actually hear each other and so they effectively lip read.

On the case of the south west (and to some degree Norfolk and Suffolk) it's reckoned that they people talk with that drawl as it was soothing for the animals to hear. I heard this a long time ago and it does make some sense.

Here's a helpful jock....

http://video.google.com/videosearch?...um=4&ct=title#

Enjoy.

[A Very Super Market]

You could feasibly say, China. I suppose most old nations would have a large amount of different dialects, including France, Italy, Germany, China, India, and so on. Both of you are Brits, so it might be a matter of perspective, since natives of different countries would know more about thier respective homelands.

[Rufus]

But us BC people sound just like Amuhricans. 'Cept we say abowt.

Don't you mean "aboot"?

[TenkiSoratoti_]

We had some American friends from Denver over recently and they said they couldn't believe the amount of accents they got through while travelling from Canterbury to Lincoln.

[CBR]

Unless there is a way to actually quantify how different dialects are it is gonna be a bit subjective.

If I go 35 miles to the west the dialect changes from the standard two grammatical genders to just one and the definite article also switches to be similar to English or German whereas standard Danish is a suffix. If I go to Bornholm they manage to use three genders and that island has five main dialects with a population of 45,000 and less than 600 km2

Of course these days dialects are dying out or merging but it is still possible to hear differences from town to town.


CBR

[Louis VI the Fat]

Can anyone name another country with so many distinct variations in accent spread over so little an area? Genuine question, not rhetorical.

(British) English has a lovely set of local and cultural variants. However, as a rather modern language in an easily traversable and centralised country, its local variants pale in comparison with some other languages.

One of the coolest in Europe is Romansh. A form of vulgar Latin. It is spoken by less than 50.000 people, confined to one single canton. Spoken in the most mountainous regions of Switzerland, it varies considerably from one isolated valley to the next.

And Romansh is but one of the languages of Rhaeto-Romance. The others can be found in equally isolated Alpine regions in Italy and Austria. Each one a different language, split in turn into even more local dialects that are nearly mutually unintelligable.
The Alps are full of Latin languages that differ as much from one another as Spanish from Portuguese, and that are spoken by only a handful of people.

[lars573]

Ontario? I think its generally central Canadian small town people that sound like .. that.

Obviously, Quebec speakers have a strong accent, but it isn't snooty French. More like, haphazard French. Kinda Cajun

Newfies are just.... so weird. They kinda sound like pirates. Except they're Newfie pirates. They sound weird. Rick Mercer

I live mostly in a city, but its Vancouver, so there are tons. But us BC people sound just like Amuhricans. 'Cept we say abowt.

Well you know there are two dialects of Canadian. Quebequois and Acadian. I was taught Acadian in school (French inmersion). Quebequois is nearly undesipherable to anyone not from Quebec. I can almost manage Metropolitan French. But Quebequois, not a chance.