What's your accent (in your native language)?

[Pangur Bán]

I have a Scotistani accent. There's lots of different Scotistani accents, and in fact the idea of one Scotistani accent is a bit strange, but mine is one of the western types, based on a Lennox accent (rather than the increasingly nasal and duck-like Glaswegian accent) with extra twist due to my biographic details. Lots of people think I am Irish (since accents in western Scotland do sound Irish), but only people with a Edinburgh accent as their model of a Scottish accent.

I speak what I'd call "standard Moravian Czech" ..."standard Bohemian Czech" .

How do you guys manage to pull that off ideologically? I mean, since Czech means Bohemian.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Speaking of homophones, some people for some reason pronounce "bald" and "bold" the same. So when they say that Picard has "boldly" gone where no man has gone before, I'm not sure whether they're making fun of his shiny head or not.

Many of you guys from southern England say "bowl", "bull" and "ball" in the same way, which can be terribly confusing.

 

[cardgame]

Neutral (Midwestern).

Might be a tinge of southern in there though :L

 

[Save_Ferris]

My least favorite American accent is either Bostonian or Jersey. Maybe it's because of that goddam show my mom watches.

 

[Arwon]

I started off with a thick and pure West Country accent, but I've slightly drifted towards the 'squaddie accent' which encompasses a lot of Geordie (I say 'youse' for you-plural if I don't watch myself), a fair bit of most regional accents as well as the Queen's English, not to mention the various words and phrases that only soldiers use. People back home that I knew before I joined up always think I talk 'posh', so perhaps there's something in Duckstab's friend's idea.

Youse is a very sensible innovation and you should not be ashamed of it! (I use it regularly, screw the haters)

 

[emzie]

Youse is a very sensible innovation and you should not be ashamed of it! (I use it regularly, screw the haters)

Y'all is far better.

 

[IdiotsOpposite]

Y'all is far better.

Agreed.

 

[Arwon]

Naw. Apostorphe in the middle makes it messy.

 

[Dachs]

Naw. Apostorphe in the middle makes it messy.

The apostrophe isn't a sine qua non; plenty of people spell the word without it.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

The accept I speak depends on the language, for I speak two languages.

In English, I speak with a New York accent that varies in intensity depending on what I'm saying and who I'm talking to. When I visit New York, I will begin to revert to the New York accent after a couple of days of hearing others. But once I've left, I tend to tone it down to a weaker sort of generic American accent with only hints of New Yorker coming through. Only if I'm angry and/or cursing will the New Yorker come out otherwise.

In Russian, I speak in an Odessa accent mixed as if an American is trying to speak Russian. That's what I get for speaking little else but English for 30 years.

 

[Takhisis]

I speak a dialect known as "Traitorfish", a bizarre hybrid of South Yorkshire, Weirside and South-Western Scots. But mostly it sounds like a guy from mebbe Leeds using a bunch of Scottish grammar and colloquialisms for no apparent reason.

I get a mix of mainstream English, Scottish English, and words of RP mixed in. Blatsed Phonetics! And blasted different people's accents rubbing off on me! Totally non-nasal and un-American though.

In Spanish I speak a totally natural Buenos Aires dialect as it's the only people I regularly speak with.

I don't know enough Gaelic to notice differences between dialects except for a few words.

 

[Pangur Bán]

I don't know enough Gaelic to notice differences between dialects except for a few words.

Listen to the Cat Gaelic in this documentary on East Sutherland Gaelic, it's very different to the language Hebrideans speak and hard to understand, but closer to what many 19th century Scots spoke than modern Hebridean standard.

 

[Winner]

Obligatory reference to GMU's accent database.

Thanks, I didn't know about it!

On the idea of "accentless" thing, I used to believe that a few years ago. Just ignorance I guess ;p

I remember when my dad found out that House was actually British, he asked me how hard it would have been to lose the accent for the roll. The thing is, he wasn't a stupid man, just a sheltered American.

My sister once watched an episode of Blackadder Goes Forth and asked me why Hugh Laurie's fake English accent was so bad.

1) Blackadder Goes Forth is just great
2) Hugh Laurie managed the American accent admirably.
3) A proper British accent (R.P.) sounds so much better than Standard American.

How do you guys manage to pull that off ideologically? I mean, since Czech means Bohemian.

What do you mean, exactly?

 

[Pangur Bán]

What do you mean, exactly?

"
Well, why Moravians tolerate calling their own language "Moravian Bohemian" and their neighbours "Bohemian Bohemian" (which implies that the language is not really Moravian, but a form of Bohemian), when it could just be called Moravian. I guess I find it puzzling why "Bohemian" gets to be the centre of a concentric circle of geo-ethnic classification, when the terminology is against it. It's not like other Slavic-speaking regions of Europe are averse to microclassification of their idioms.

 

[Winner]

"
Well, why Moravians tolerate calling their own language "Moravian Bohemian" and their neighbours "Bohemian Bohemian" (which implies that the language is not really Moravian, but a form of Bohemian), when it could just be called Moravian.

Well, there are people who object to this (usually the same ones who write "Moravian" in the NATIONALITY box in census forms). I have no problem calling myself "Czech" even though all my ancestors as far as I can trace my lineage were Moravian.

Historically, ever since the fall of the first Slavic state worthy of the name, Bohemia has been the political centre of the "Czech lands", so it stands to reason that their name for the language and the "nation" stuck. Under Austria-Hungary, "Czech-Moravian-Slovak" was considered one language for administrative purposes, and the speakers of the language were called "Czech".

Also, Moravia is much more diverse linguistically than Bohemia, so it is difficult to construe the concept of a "Moravian" language. When I say "standard Moravian", I don't mean it as a serious linguistic classification. It's just that you can usually easily recognize if a person is from Bohemia or Moravia from how they speak. That is true even though "common Czech" is being drilled into us through the media 24/7. When I hear what passes for "Czech" on some commercial TV stations these days, I want to weep.

 

[Pangur Bán]

Historically, ever since the fall of the first Slavic state worthy of the name, Bohemia has been the political centre of the "Czech lands", so it stands to reason that their name for the language and the "nation" stuck. Under Austria-Hungary, "Czech-Moravian-Slovak" was considered one language for administrative purposes, and the speakers of the language were called "Czech".

Informative, but is there a reason you are distinguishing "Czech" and "Bohemian"? You are confusing me a bit, since I understood that they are the same thing and I'm not sure if you are trying to make a distinction or just floating between terminology.

As far as the records go, the Bohemian "state" came to include what is now much of southern Poland perhaps as part of a pattern of shifting centres of Slavic overlodship in the region, and it is just a random fact that the king of Poland (=Greater Poland) converted when he had overlordship over certain regions and not others and got the Roman church to fossilize it.

Also, Moravia is much more diverse linguistically than Bohemia, so it is difficult to construe the concept of a "Moravian" language. When I say "standard Moravian", I don't mean it as a serious linguistic classification. It's just that you can usually easily recognize if a person is from Bohemia or Moravia from how they speak. That is true even though "common Czech" is being drilled into us through the media 24/7. When I hear what passes for "Czech" on some commercial TV stations these days, I want to weep.

Well, when you have Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and now Montenegran as separate "languages", there's a lot of room for stuff like Moravian.

 

[Winner]

Informative, but is there a reason you are distinguishing "Czech" and "Bohemian"? You are confusing me a bit, since I understood that they are the same thing and I'm not sure if you are trying to make a distinction or just floating between terminology.

Bohemia = Čechy, the western region of the Czech Rep. "Czech" is either the nationality or the language.

As far as the records go, the Bohemian "state" came to include what is now much of southern Poland perhaps as part of a pattern of shifting centres of Slavic overlodship in the region, and it is just a random fact that the king of Poland (=Greater Poland) converted when he had overlordship over certain regions and not others and got the Roman church to fossilize it.

What I referred to was "Velká Morava", or "Great(er) Moravia", the first Slavic state which was more than a tribal confederation. Its core was situated in eastern Moravia/western Slovakia, but it later expanded into Bohemia, parts of Pannonia and Poland. Then it was destroyed by the Maygars, and since then Bohemia has been the political centre of the Czech lands (I know this term must be confusing. In Czech we use "České země", plural, to refer to Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia).

Well, when you have Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and now Montenegran as separate "languages", there's a lot of room for stuff like Moravian.

Well, I wouldn't really want to get inspired by all the Balkan linguistic idiocy.

 

[Traitorfish]

I think that it's unfair to call it "idiocy". A language, as we're all well aware, is really just a dialect with an army, so it seems to me that they're following the Western European example to the letter.

 

[warpus]

Isn't Czechia just a state that contains Bohemia, Moravia, and parts of Silesia? and Sudetenland

and since Bohemia is the largest and most influential region, that's what all of Czechia is called sometimes? That's what I think my friend Czech told me once anyway

 

[Leoreth]

Well, when you have Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian and now Montenegran as separate "languages", there's a lot of room for stuff like Moravian.

To mis-misquote Bismarck "A language is a dialect with an army"