Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 July 29

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July 29

What is this guy's accent?

This is a video of the opening act at Charlie Sheen's infamous tour stop in Detroit. How would you describe this guy's accent or tone of voice? It sounds like the same "accent" one hears among frat boys -- or, alternatively, what a Brit would call "chavs," except from America -- usually when talking about how drunk they were at that party or how hot that girl he just saw was. I'm not talking about his vocabulary -- I'm talking about the way he says his words.

The guy says he's from Detroit, which is not thought of as a place with an accent that different from "General American," so I don't think it's a regional thing. Apparently, the guy's name is Kirk Fox, and he speaks kind of the same way even when he's not being loud. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 01:09, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like Inland Northern American English which you hear in Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland; basically places around the Great Lakes. It's associated with working-class people in those areas. --Jayron32 04:58, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Maybe, but he doesn't sound like a typical Chicagoan or Clevelander. I'm familiar with that part of the country, and the only people who sound like that there are the kind of people I mentioned above. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 05:16, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure? Because I am pretty sure I can hear the Northern cities vowel shift, which is distinctive of the Inland North accent... --Jayron32 05:29, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Well I certainly don't talk like that. Maybe you can tell something because you're not from the area. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 09:03, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I am surprised anyone could listen to that long enough to determine anything about it. I couldn't. μηδείς (talk) 13:34, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

He does have some northern vowel shift going on there, but I think the question is actually about the way he is speaking, not his specific accent as such, right? In that case the only thing I can think of is that it is a kind of valspeak, like, as mentioned, the way drunken frat boys talk, or like Beavis and Butthead perhaps. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:50, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

My untrained ear hears shades of New York/New Jersey. Not a full-fledged Brooklyn accent or anything like that, but sounds a little similar. In particular, on the second video around 2:03 he says "this" almost as "dis." Agreed on the vowels sounding like northern cities too. I also noticed (and I have no idea the proper terminology for this) is more percussive than the fluid speech of the anchors. The rhythm is like "DAH da DAH da da DAH" compared to the anchors' "lada da dalada" (I hope that makes sense). --Ginkgo100^talk 15:49, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Like 95% of white guys his age trying to be hip he is fronting, putting on an urban act cause it's cool. See Pretty Fly (For a White Guy). This discussion dignifies him way too much. μηδείς (talk) 16:05, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

formerly of Milwaukee, now of Lansing, MI, and that's definately not what I'd call a standard regional dialect, though I do realize, unlike most people, that I do have an accent this doesn't sound like that. Of course it's a subjective thing, and I don't talk to many people from south detroit... HominidMachinae (talk) 07:38, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Singlish & American Standard English

An odd question: How mutually intelligible are American Standard English (my native tongue) and Singlish? I need to communicate (writing only) with a person in Singapore, and would like to know if I should simplify my words, or if that would be insulting. (Of course I know that it largely depends on the person, as some Singaporeans surely speak English better than most Americans, while others perhaps don't speak it well at all; I just want a general idea.) --Ginkgo100^talk 15:34, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Our article on Singlish should give you a start. From reading it I would think the answer to your question is "not very". On the other hand, if your correspondent uses Singapore English then there should be no problem as long as you both try to avoid obvious colloquialisms. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 15:55, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

It depends entirely on the person. Just because people speak Singlish to each other doesn't mean they can't speak more standard English. The internet is full of more standard English, which means Singaporeans that use the internet a lot will generally be able to understand written English very well. My dad lived in Singapore for a few years and I visited him regularly and never had any difficulty understanding or being understood by the locals. --Tango (talk) 16:31, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Wiligut Font

I was searching for a free downloadable font with the Wiligut runes (http://www.nazireich.net/forum/files/wiligut_runes_963.jpg). I already have a runic font, but it only covers the "Unicode" runes: [[1]]. (As a note, some of the Wiligut runes are the same, but some others are completely new). Thanks! --Lindwurm (talk) 16:16, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Hebrew

Hi again. I would like to know please how the Hebrew curse ימח שמו (yimakh shemo) and its alternative ימח שמו וזכרו (yimakh shemo v'zichro) are pronounced in Hebrew, any dialect/register. IPA is nice. Thanks beforehand. PS: It would be awesome if you could give me an idea of how a Jewish person whose native language is English would pronounce it, but i not that's totally OK. This is for a play I'm directing. Thanks again. ```` — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.88.206 (talk) 17:02, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

It depends on a number of things: most particularly whether the Jewish person would use Ashkenazi or Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. This is not just a matter of ethnic origin: my parents were from Ashkenazi stock, and grew up learning Ashkenazi Hebrew; but because we belonged to the Reform Synagogue we learned the Ivrit pronunciation used in Israel, which is essentially Sephardi.

I would pronounce those very much as you have written, but my father would have pronounced the final '-o' as /-aʊ/ (like "how") both times. If 'ימח' is spelt with a patach, as I suspect, the vowel will be as you have said, but if it's a kamatz, it would be 'yimokh' in Ashkenazi pronunciation. --ColinFine (talk) 22:58, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Further to ColinFine's distinction between the two alternate pronunciations,"yim'AKH sh'MO ve-zichRO" vs. "yim'OKH sh'MO ve-zichRO" (note syllabification and stress indicated here by capital letters), the latter, Ashkenazi variant (that resembles Yiddish pronunciation) would be more likely among native Anglophones born before the 1960s (as contact with Israeli Hebrew burgeoned only after the Six Day War and the Reform movement's embracing Zionism ca. 1970), probably second-generation and/or in an orthodox or Haredi environment. Likewise the use of this Hebrew-language curse indicates someone from a traditional background, otherwise why the use of Hebrew? It might be that a native Anglophone respectful of tradition but otherwise not speaking Hebrew would fervently wish aloud, "May his name [and memory] be blotted out!" if s/he wanted other Anglophones to understand the intent. Does any of this fit your context? -- Deborahjay (talk) 20:31, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the added context, Deborah. I would expect to hear"yim'OKH sh'MOW ve-zichROW" ('ow' as in 'cow') from my father's generation. --ColinFine (talk) 10:29, 31 July 2011 (UTC)

The above distinctions are correct except with respect to the second vowel of the first word, which is pronounced "Yimakh" (or more colloquially "yemakh") in all dialects, including Ashkenazi, since there is indeed a פתח there, not a קמץ (as ColinFine wrote), except in Romanian and hyper-corrected English pronunciations, which tend to pronounce all "a"s as "o"s. Note that Polish pronunciation have "Shemoy ve-zikhroy" (rhymes roughly with "toy"), some Russian pronunciations have "Shemey ve-zihkrey" (rhymes roughly with "say"), and various German dialects have Shemo/Shemow, as mentioned above. Ratzd'mishukribo (talk) 15:50, 2 August 2011 (UTC)