As an Englishman living in a foreign land I have often had people talk about my accent, to which my normal retort is “I am not the person with the accent here“, which usually generates a chuckle from others in the room. The truth is we all have accents irrespective of where we hail from. We develop accents based upon where we are born and our journey through life.

My security friend has developed quite a repertoire of English accents, based largely upon television programs that he has seen over the years. My family and I never view the repeats of ancient BBC and ITV programmes that have been repeated to death during our lifetime in the UK. Having moved country of course we avoid such repeats, but they are the source for many quality quotes. Perspective here contributes a lot, what to us is old and boring, is interesting to someone who is experiencing these contributions for the first time. That of-course works both ways as we have had opportunity to view many Canadian and American contributions to the entertainment world with a fresh eye.

Ironically there are probably more regional English accents to be heard within a radius of 100 miles from London than there are in the whole of the United States and Canada put together. Thus discerning a London accent is not always easy as someone from Chiswick in West London will have a different accent than someone from Hackney in the North-East. Outside London cities like Slough, Luton, Southampton, or Chelmsford each have very distinct local accents.

Accents are one of the things we take from television, but that are also such a key part of our everyday life. I have worked with people all over this wide world and that makes life very interesting indeed. This is also a key part of the complexity and distinctions available across the English language.

It is doubtful that any person who speaks English does so without an accent, even the Queen of England. In the same way that we all commit faux pas when speaking and writing all the time. Those of us interested in learning and improving ourselves always seek to do better and the first part of this is recognising when we individually make mistakes and doing better next time.

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Do accents matter? Not really, what matters is that we are able to avoid bloopers and errors and communicate openly and effectively with others. The complications arise when we have difficulty in understanding what others are saying. Pronunciation to verbal communications is as important as spelling and grammar is to written language. This is where each us has to be honest with ourselves and question whether other people understand the things that we speak. I try to keep my English language as accent free as possible in order to be understood, yet I always question whether or not I have been well understood.

Understanding has much to do with the technical language that we use within our jobs as well. It is all too easy to assume that others know what we are talking about, yet in-fact the things we are saying may mean nothing to others. Technical language should only be used with others sharing the same profession.

Overall accents add colour to our language, as does technical language used within and profession or trade, yet they are not always understood by others. They are a part of the identity of who we are across the English speaking world. Yet overall care is required with this language of ours.

Before moving to the land of koalas and kangaroos, I have been hearing that the English is quite different to the one that I have been used to. It did not bother me at first. It was just a matter of changing the Z to S in some words like organization and analyse or pronouncing “ay” as “i” in some words like day and say die. But being there, living and breathing the Aussie language, takes a lot of more effort than I thought I would need.

It was not simply greeting the people  “Good Die Mite” (translation: Good day mate) or saying words ending with “er” with “ah” like watah for water. To engage in a decent conversation with an Aussie local, you need to open your eyes (to lip-read) and ears (to hear every word). Your mind also needs to be in a super alert mode to be able to analyse the accent and the sentence to make sense. 

However, in some instances, an alert mind and open ears may not do the trick. A background on some common Aussie slang may be your saving grace. I have tried to compile some of the common Aussie slang that I have learned.

If a work mate did not come to work because he is “crook”, don’t think that he got in trouble with the police. He is simply sick. If your boss would like you to set a meeting for Friday “arvo”, don’t just stare but set the meeting for Friday afternoon. 

When you have done something nice and the person says “ta”, he/she is not being ungrateful. It is actually a short cut for thanks.

At home, if your children say they need texter (textah) and rubber (rubbah) for school, give them pentel pen and eraser. Don’t get tensed if they ask for some morning tea or afternoon tea during the weekend. They are not really after some tea but give them some morning or afternoon snacks. 

For your car, the word petrol is used instead of gas. A cell phone is more commonly known as a mobile phone. You need to buy “credit” instead of load, if you have to make a phone call.

Australians also love to cut a word short and give it sort of a nickname like barbie for barbeque, chrissy for Christmas and footy for football. If somebody asks you to go for a cuppa, it is simply to go for a cup of tea or coffee. 

It can also be a bit tricky when you are in a public dining place. Where you would ordinarily ask for fries, it is more common to ask for chips. Asking for a pitcher of coke may involve a few pardons going back and forth but saying a jug of coke may be simpler. If they say the meat in the dish that you are ordering is a “chook”, you can rest easy that it is not some exotic meat that you have not tasted before. It is just your ordinary chicken. Finally, you say “eat in” instead of dine in and “take away” instead of take out.

With English being Pakistan’s de facto official language, its prevalence amongst the masses was only but inevitable. However, despite British Raj lasting for about two hundred years, the areas that lie within the realm of Pakistan now, were amongst the last to be annexed. Consequently, English and its phonetics have gotten less time to blossom in the country. In addition, multilingualism has deeply influenced the way English is spoken in Pakistan, with only a nominal percentage speaking the language devoid of vernacular accents and pronunciation.

A language is a form of communication with its own set of components which consist of phonetics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and morphology. As language changes over time, generation, geography or technology there are offshoots that begin. Changes include accent, dialect, pidgin, and creole.

Anyone who has heard or read a bit of Shakespeare understands that we no longer speak like that. The few more persistent researchers of Shakespeare know that he was personally responsible for adding new words, nuances, tones and a variety of identifiable formats for speaking that sets you into a specific culture, whether you are royalty or clergy, professional mason or even an uneducated worker. Within generational changes of language, you can tell whether someone was a flower child or part of the baby boomer generation with their specific dialect or speech patterns and word usage. As each region of the world or continent holds different resources, the vocabulary would also change. An Eskimo will have many different words for the term we only know as ‘snow’, but a Navajo Indian will have many more terms for the different aspects of cacti and plants to survive the desert. American English is vastly different than England’s English. This doesn’t even touch the new terminology we have every time a new technological advance hits us. Kids get right on board with everything new that comes along while older adults get stuck with just a few of the terms that we either grew up with or learned along the way. Try to get someone over forty to understand the difference between a database and search engine and you have accomplished a lot! The latest is when an older professor tries to tell me that grammar is fairly stable and has been since they went through college. Then try to show that same professor a texting dictionary and see the confusion spread.

Even within the same language, accents vary for each region. You can tell the difference from a southern drawl or a New York accent. Going just a bit further, dialects vary from region to region or city to country when you use different words like ‘pop’ and ‘soda’ for carbonated drinks. When a new set or vocabulary are combined or words from Spanish make their way to English you get a variety of dialects. The next level of combining or generating a new language takes the form of pidgin, as Chicano has taken over in California. Looking towards Louisiana, creole has even just taken the name Creole for the adaptation of French and English combined together.

Languages become extinct and languages are born, formal language is preferred in higher education, political science and administrative arenas whereas ‘ain’t’ finally made it into the dictionary but will still get marked in a Word document spelling and grammar check. Don’t get me wrong, you probably cannot argue your way out of a bad grade for bad grammar in a paper. Part of the way language development can be assessed is by way of formal communication using not only social grammar but academic grammar as well. It is also always beneficial for us to learn another form of communication besides just what we would normally use at home. But the pulse of language is always in-flux. Can we keep up? And don’t feel bad if you get a little creative with your language, it’s how the greats like Shakespeare started and how language adapts to our current state of mind.

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English Pronunciation and Accent

The students could help themselves by exploiting the script and the related audio form and enjoy the nuances of the language.  The website could also be used to teach vocabulary, pronunciation and English accent as spoken by the native speakers. Listening the conversation will hone their English conversation skills. They could improve their language fluency by listening these conversation lessons.

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Reference:

EnglishSpeak.com http://www.englishspeak.com/

Are you compass prejudice?

Most people like to think that they are not prejudice in anyway. Prejudice comes in many shapes and sizes and colours. The United Kingdom is a relatively small island and we have one of the most diverse populations in the world! However stereotypes and prejudice is rampant even today. I will use myself as an example; I was born in north London in the 1960’s. For various valid reasons I have moved around the country for romance or career.

I have lived in Hertfordshire, Leicestershire, and Derbyshire and now I live in Yorkshire. I have basically been moving almost due north for 12 years. I first noticed prejudice towards me in Leicestershire. I did various jobs in Leicester and invariably I would get a variety of questions thrown at me some meant in harmless jest other comments are very insulting and meant to hurt me. Someone usually a man will say to me,

“What are you doing up here you cockney Sparrow?”

Now for those of my readers who don’t live in the UK a Cockney is someone who is born within the sound of the church bells of Bow, which is an area of approximately five miles. I lived 12 miles from Bow in Enfield north London I am not a Cockney! I am a Londoner it’s as simple as that. Now a Cockney sparrow is a stereotypical image of Londoners that died out years and years ago along with Pearly Kings and Queens. A Cockney is presumed to wear a cap with shiny buttons all around it and a red neckerchief and constantly says,

“Cor blimey governor! Strike a light”

I went for a job interview one day back in 1999 in Leicester. The interviewer literally said to me,

“If you want to get ahead around these parts you better lose that accent quickly!”

Now I left London after 34 years of living there, how anyone could in all honesty expect me to lose my accent after all those years? More importantly why should I ? I moved to Ashbourne in the Derbyshire dales in around 2002. Now Ashbourne is a beautiful idyllic country town, it has a strong farming community and local social scene. My wife and I tried to join the local community as much as we could, we would frequent the local pubs and restaurants, Invariably I would be asked the question,

“Where do you come from? and are you staying in a hotel?”

I would give them the street name where I lived and state that I am a resident here and they would then say,

“Where did you come from before that?”

I would reply,

“Leicester”

The man or woman would look puzzled and then ask,

“Where were you born is what I mean! because of your accent”

I like to think of myself as a friendly person however on occasion this does grate with me. Why are people so inquisitive and not in a nice way? Once I told someone I was born in London the conversation usually ground to a halt. My doctor in Ashbourne is a very nice man and a great doctor. We began to chat about a whole range of subjects and one day he happened to say to me,

“David you have been in Ashbourne for over two years now have you given any serious thought about losing the accent! You wont get very far in business around here with a London accent!”

I was devastated even my doctor wanted me to speak differently! I moved after a while to Yorkshire for a job opportunity. The prejudice here is even worse! The further north I travel the worst the prejudice against Londoner’s becomes? Surely one should judge a person on how they behave and interact with you? Rather than make a pre-judgment of someone purely by stereotype?

How do we as a nation expect to relate to other countries and live in harmony when we are prejudice against a person who comes from a part of the country that is 100 miles further south or 200 miles further south? I’m sure that other countries have the same prejudices as the UK, are we really social creatures or do we pretend to social creatures? I have my doubts.

Lord Banks

Not only can language be seen as changing but it is also becoming more diverse, and in some unpredictable ways. The UK has never been as multilingual and multidialectal as it is today, and this is the result of an increase in the merging of regional accents that occurs due to urbanization and the mobilization of the population. This is further supplemented with the languages of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers from countries around the world, further adding to the linguistic ‘salad bowl’.

Traditional rural dialects have involved into new varieties, and a large number of new urban dialects have formed. Where there was once just ‘Scouse’ (Liverpool English), there is now Caribbean Scouse and other ethnically influenced varieties. Further; as a result of social mobility, many speakers now have mixed accents, representing all the parts of the country in which they have lived.

This rich diversity in language variation is appreciated for its cultural background and its part in shaping individual’s identities. However the major problem of accents and dialect language is that people often can’t understand those from different regions. This leads to confusion, misunderstanding and isolation of those with a different accent to the local one. As well as this some accents are considered to be less educated or come from less reputable areas. As a result people are often prejudice towards those with these accents, including in employment and education, people with these accents may have their opportunities limited by the way they speak.

However Received Pronunciation (RP) is a language variation that is understood by all, and so to combat any misunderstanding that may befall those with different accents or dialects, RP may be used as a definite communicative accent.

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Is accent necessary? I think not. I believe that every accent is good, and that I can be understood by the majority of the English learners. If there is a way to learn English better, I have to go there. However, things are fine now. I learn accent day by day. I do have intensive training for my own speech habit. I practice a lot, and I have things to show - Speech Book.

I can say now that practicing makes me feel confident. I know how to express words inside me. There is no hassle because life for me in speech is so amazing. So learn English.

Pinpointing just what defines an American accent is almost as difficult as tracing its evolution. From the inception of the American colonies 400 years ago, the majority of American colonists carried a distinct London English Accent. However, four hundred years can take its toll, and as such the Americans began to speak more relaxed and differentiated. Some phonologists will often assert that there are five distinct accents within the United States: Western, Northern, North Eastern, Midland, and Southern. Mainly, however, people will group the accents into three “mega groupings”: Southern, North Eastern, and General American.

Many people believe the origins of the American accent are due in large part to the uneducated nature of Americans during the 17th through 19th centuries. Rich Americans were usually few and far between and appointed by the British King George to preside over colonial matters. As the 19th century came about, and America got its independence, a number of different institutions were brought about to bring an educated academia to the States. The progression of dialects slowed with the Upper classes, as they were taught the “proper ways” to speak American English, and instructed with a more varied vocabulary. The Lower classes, on the other hand, continued to evolve from many generations of Eastern European immigration. It is assumed that the poor Americans and new immigrants combined their accents to form many of the “un-proper” forms of American English.

It is no stranger to many people that the South was far-less educated than the North. This does not assert any sort of regional superiority based on intellect, but Universities and other institutions of enlightenment were late to bloom in the South. Even to this day, the Southern (often more Conservative) states remain the least Educated. The most educated, fast-speaking North-Easterners tend to hold on to their accents and are less likely to live in rural areas.

George Washington was once described as speaking “intellectually” but “firm”, and was one of the models (as seen by those who elected him) for the ideal, new American. He probably carried very little respect for aristocrats and maybe was one of the founders of the original North American English accent. The speaking style of his colleagues in the continental congress, half-intellectual British influence with aggressive reformist rhetoric, was also similar. Thus, our founding fathers laid a new country to be started out, with confident people who would carry one different ways of communication throughout the land.

Sources:

- State Master, Best Educated Index