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Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2017 March 31

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March 31

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Are there any other accents similar to the Canadian and American accent?

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Any from other English speaking countries? 204.239.8.205 (talk) 02:41, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The stereotypical Canadian accent is rather different from any American accent outside states bordering Canada. And there are many American regional accents. So it's hard to know how you would define "similar". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:35, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I sometimes suspect that Australians sound to Britons rather like a comedian's exaggerated impression of Americans. —Tamfang (talk) 05:41, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Haha, no way. And which Americans? Southerners or Northerners? Midlanders? New Englanders? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 08:03, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely not. However, British people can't usually distinguish Australians and New Zealanders without practice. This really annoys New Zealanders. Sorry, folks. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:58, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
In my limited exposure, Aussies and New Zealanders sound kind of similar, only Aussies are "more so." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:01, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps some Caribbean nations with lots of interactions with the US and Canada ? In The Bahamas, for example, I would expect a mix of US, Canadian, and British accents. (There are also non-English accents, but we aren't concerned with those here.) StuRat (talk) 06:43, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The members of ABBA sang with American accents but when interviewed spoke with Swedish accents.[citation needed] --TrogWoolley (talk) 09:06, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Does that qualify as bilingual? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 09:23, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
See Why you put on an American accent when you sing. Alansplodge (talk) 12:06, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Why does that article think American = drawl and twang? Those words are stereotypically Southern American (slave states and a bit north in places)/Appalachian. blues genre the Telegraph mentioned was born in the Deep South. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 18:38, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
To British English speakers, all North Americans drawl their vowels compared to our short ones, but as you say, it's more pronounced in Southern US accents. See Different pronounciation of short vowels between British and American English. Alansplodge (talk) 08:37, 2 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense. Thanks. I hadn't thought about what a really un-drawly English accent would sound like before. I guess that's British (among other possibilities, there's got to be some language on Earth that has very different sounds than British except short vowels so that would likely make a rather un-British sounding short vowel ESL accent) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:54, 2 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The lead "pikey" in Snatch (film) spoke with a standard Missouri lock-jaw drawl. Apparently most people think he sounded very similar to the actual locals in the movie. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 14:56, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest any English spoken by a white native of the Commonwealth nations, and sometimes the non-white natives. So definitely Canada, Australia, South Africa, Zimbabwe (Rhodesia), Zambia (Southern Rhodesia), Namibia and associated nations. And possibly some Indian/Sri Lankan/Pakistan accents too. (The Caribbean nations were covered by StuRat) --TammyMoet (talk) 15:35, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
  • I would look at it this way. I'm American, and while I find that some Canadians sound obviously Canadian, for others I have to really pay attention to tell that they're Canadians and not Americans (the giveaway: their pronunciation of "about"). There is no other country whose speakers sound approximately American to me. Loraof (talk) 16:26, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
What do you think Sarah Palin sounds like? (from the Anchorage area but sounds like some of the Americans close to Canada) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:58, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
You aren't wrong on that. See Canadian Shift which notes that it "is structurally identical to the movement of front vowels in the California Shift of California English." California lacks the other distinct part of Canadian phonology, the Canadian raising, which is the "out and about" vowel change. --Jayron32 22:58, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Sagittarian Milky Way: Sarah Palin's enunciation sounds flatter than a Canadian's or Californian's. I would say that it sounds like neither. Akld guy (talk) 23:41, 31 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]
I've always thought Palin sounded more North-Central American English in her accent. --Jayron32 19:59, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There's something to that. The thing that stands out to me is the somewhat overemphasized "r", which can be detected in Minnesotans, but also (in my limited experience) with Pacific Northwesterners. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:12, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
English in the Philippines sounds ,American to Australians.Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:53, 2 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
That isn't too surprising. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 17:54, 2 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Not to me. I have a few Filipino friends, and they sound like Asians who are trying too hard to sound like uber-rhotic Americans, and failing in the process to sound like Americans at all. A bit like the stereotypical Australian accent, which when non-Aussies do it sounds much more like Cockney to our ears and not like Aussie-speak at all. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 22:25, 2 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Spin-off question: Bathurst, New Brunswick English, Lyse Doucet

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Volunteers familiar with varieties of Canadian English: Does anyone else in New Brunswick speak the way Lyse Doucet does? (See this clip for example). I hear all sorts of stuff in there (including Irish English, to my non-native ears) ... I searched forums, speculating on Acadian English, and I even found her own comment: "my accent has been an issue from the day i started..but as the years have gone by...it seems that listeners/viewers have got used to it, and the bbc has become a place of many accents..my accent is probably a blend of all the places I have lived in the past 30 years but I still sound like my mother.. " ... thus my question directed at people familiar with Canadian dialects. If she does sound like her mother, then there has to be more to it than the "blend of all the places" she's lived in. Thanks in advance! ---Sluzzelin talk 21:11, 1 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

If I didn't know she was from New Brunswick I would think she was Irish and trying to hide her accent. At least in this clip, she definitely doesn't sound like a typical New Brunswick (or any other type of Maritime/Atlantic Canadian) accent. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:19, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Adam! ---Sluzzelin talk 16:19, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
By the way, I just listened to her sister, Andrea Doucet, in an interview, and though Andrea's speech sounds more North American than Lyse's, to my ears, there's something there too. What do you make of it, Adam (et al)? ---Sluzzelin talk 22:54, 3 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely more North American. To me, she sounds like she's speaking "General Canadian", with a bit of an affected academic accent, if that makes sense...that's how I talk in certain circumstances too, haha. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:27, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect sense, thanks again. ---Sluzzelin talk 22:47, 4 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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