"I am shocked by these American accents"!

 

 

Proper British English by a master (mistress?).

 

2 hours ago, Fielder said:

Proper British English by a master (mistress?).

Ugh... this AI stuff is really getting out of hand... what were the bigwigs at the BBC thinking?

Edited June 12, 2025Jun 12 by tymk

The following is old but I have no clue what the sheep herder is saying...

 

 

Edited June 13, 2025Jun 13 by Fielder

When I got married, my wife flew to live with me in Germany.  She was from Texas and had the heavy Texas accent common at the time.  When she flew through New York, she couldn't understand anything they said. 😄 

That accent has since mellowed a lot in Texas.  I only hear remnants of it in older people occasionally.  It was even worse in older people when I was very young.

I lost my own Texas accent after a while, only hearing it in my own voice when I was really tired.  I played one of my wife's audio tapes from before she joined me in Germany several years later and she was horrified at her accent! 😄

Hook

It was the industrial revolution in the UK that brought about so many different Dialect`s in Lancashire, Manchester people had difficulty understanding people from Darwin.

I could always understand my wife's French more than I could understand Gerald on Clarkson's Farm. Apparently Gerald is recovered / recovering from cancer. The final episode of Season 4 came out last week on US Amazon Prime. It's fun to hear Gerald speak 🙂

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Cooper

OK I get the concept of 'Reaction Videos' but that was a reaction video of a reaction video 🤣

I've been following this girl on YouTube as she promotes Appalachia, in this she demonstrates the historical link back to Shakespeare as most of the region were migrants from that era, and the Appalachian Accent kind of just evolved from there:

 

2 hours ago, Matthew Kane said:

I've been following this girl on YouTube as she promotes Appalachia, in this she demonstrates the historical link back to Shakespeare as most of the region were migrants from that era, and the Appalachian Accent kind of just evolved from there:

 

Wha?🤣

Lets hope she doesn't give up the day job!

Shakespeare had been dead for nearly one hundred and fifty years before any sort of large scale migration to Appalachia started. The Cumberland Gap wasn't discovered until 1750!

Settlement of Appalachia was primarily by Ulster Scots and Lowland Scots. That's where the North American lilt developed from. I had a good friend who emigrated from Edinburgh to Toronto in his early twenties. He spent the rest of his life in Canada. In normal conversation he could go from lowland Scots to southern Ontario seamlessly and unconsciously.  It was a real eye opener.

We don't actually know a great deal about Shakespeare as a person. He was born in Stratford on Avon (in the southern part of the English midlands) and died there too. We do know he spent the majority of his life in London. 

It seems unlikely he would have had any sort of Scots-Irish accent or inflection. He also lived before the industrial revolution. The England of Shakespeare's era was an agrarian society with very limited mass migration either externally or internally.  It's unlikely he would have encountered many Scots (it was another country) and the plantation of Ulster by the people who would become the Ulster-Scots did not start until after his death.

It's a lovely idea though!😀

 

Edited June 15, 2025Jun 15 by DD_Arthur

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

Wha?🤣

It's a lovely idea though!😀

She's not the only one with this idea, considering the American Shakespeare Center is located in Staunton, Virginia, I guess people from that part of the USA have a strong connection to it. They would have brought over English Culture with them centuries ago and therefore it is part of their roots as well

Well...yes. They certainly would have brought English culture over with them.  The American Shakespeare Centre has a long history going back to...1988.

The oldest literary society in the world is the German Shakespeare Society in Weimar, founded in 1864. Geothe and Schiller; the founders of modern German language and literature were obsessed by Shakespeare. German immigrants to the United States in the mid nineteenth century would have brought a huge interest in Shakespeare with them too.

Shakespeare and his works are simply universal. You can find links going back to the early seventeenth century throughout the world. You can make a case for him influencing writing and literature nearly everywhere. 

I remember learning in my American Literature course some 40 yrs ago that the Appalachia accent in the remote areas is most similar to the early English settlers who first came to America.  It makes sense.  Parts of Appalachia remain very isolated from outside influences.  I've taken over a dozen motorcycle trips through Appalachia, probably heard the Appalachia accent a few times.  BTW, beautiful area to ride a motorcycle.   

 

On 6/13/2025 at 4:26 PM, LHookins said:

That accent has since mellowed a lot in Texas.  I only hear remnants of it in older people occasionally.

The same thing, the accents mellowing, has happened in Tennessee.

I think a big part of the reason is that so many people from northern States have moved to Texas and Tennessee over the past 30 years or so, and a mixing of accents has occurred where even the "natives'" accents begin to gradually change over time.  I even hear people from up north that live here now use "y'all" and talk a bit more "country" after they've lived here for a while.

I used to have a pretty strong southern accent, not Georgia or Alabama strong, but certainly noticeable.  After being in the Air Force for 5 years and then living in other parts of the country for 20 years, my southern accent, while still there, has definitely weakened.

Dave 

Edited June 15, 2025Jun 15 by dave2013

7 hours ago, tdflightsim said:

I remember learning in my American Literature course some 40 yrs ago that the Appalachia accent in the remote areas is most similar to the early English settlers who first came to America.  It makes sense.  Parts of Appalachia remain very isolated from outside influences.  I've taken over a dozen motorcycle trips through Appalachia, probably heard the Appalachia accent a few times.  BTW, beautiful area to ride a motorcycle.   

My first journey through Appalachia was when I was 18. I went to High School in Toronto and on our last day of school my then Girlfriend and I jumped in my car and drove all the way to Mirtle Beach for the summer, but we spent a lot of time through those mountains on the way and back. West Virginia is probably one of the most beautiful places I've seen, and I really enjoyed Shenandoah National Park. People are very friendly so that summer was one of the best I've ever spent.

I love living in New Zealand but to be honest we are not much different here too, Kiwi's have funny accents, we mostly live up hills or in valleys, we have a lot of dogs and beautiful views, similar to Appalachia only they call it living 'up the holler' 🤣