Voice Post:

[mirella]

Comments

[k425.livejournal.com]

Ah, you've saved me doing it then. Well, the first one, anyway. Although I suspect these days I've got a touch more Yorkshire than I imagine.

[helenangel.livejournal.com]

The encore rules as well! -lol- How very cute. =)

[webhill.livejournal.com]

Love it.
Inspiring.
See webhill.livejournal.com :)

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Um..? Nice Oxfordshire accent, especially in Pop goes the weasel. Some experiment on dialects, presumably?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

The piece was written by an American poster on alt.usage.english, where the differences between merry/marry/Mary, cot/caught, and other vowel sounds are often discussed. I provide both versions because I used to use both equally; the first is nearer how I sound in polite company. :)

If I had been talking to the mums at the school gates beforehand, the second version and PGTW would be even broader...

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Ah right... did the discussion show up much difference on the merry/marry/Mary thing in UK regional accents I wonder, they're usually quite distinct I'd think, with other words being the catch. Had fun reading the thing out to Forest with a broad Wigan accent - I lived there till I was 18 though never picked up the accent except to mimic it, he winced a lot, its not too pleasant to listen to (except when spoken by old folks maybe).

Hee, wonderful. Remind me not to be "polite company" if we ever end up meeting :) Which is more normal for you then, somewhere in between?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Yeah, a little less posh than the first, with some of the vowel sounds of the second creeping in from time to time depending on how tired/drunk I am. ;-) The words to keep an ear out for include 'mum', 'my', and 'about', which give away the Oxfordshire 'er', 'oi', and 'i' (that last features in the Oxford voice too, which is why people like Prince Charles say 'hice' instead of 'house'). I'm gently trying to persuade imc to record a (southernized) Bolton version now. :)

Yes, marry/merry/Mary is splitting the recordings nicely, as well as some 'father/bother' stuff in the American voices. (I didn't pull 'faaaartherrrr' out in this one, although there's a hint of it the second time I say it in the Oxfordshire one.)

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

:-) Funny how its just a few sounds that are dead giveaways (Forest grew up in London and then moved to Dorset and has a few odd vowels in from the latter, and can't pronounce three as anyhting other than free thanks to the former. Not that I tease him about it, oh no... ::innocent look:).

Can't imagine hearing father/bother as the same word, somehow!

My accent is general educated Northern but Americans used to have *such* trouble with it, myself and a friend with a strong Preston accent used to have to slow down and flatten our speech and repeat things a lot for the American students at university in our first year, so if imc has quite a distinctive accent I bet he'll cause no end of head-scratching. Mind you, never mind the US folk, I can't order stuff from local Chinese or Indian takeaways over the phone because they're so attuned to Liverpool tones they just can't work out what I'm saying ::sigh::

[clarkger.livejournal.com]

Your voice is uncannily similar to that of the preschool secretary at Peter's school. I *just* spoke to her for about ten minutes and came home and listened to you speak and...wow. You sound just like Linda. (Yes, you have the same accent, but the *voice* is so close...)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Coo. Where is she from, then?

I think I have a fairly typical 'southern England RP' voice when speaking normally, but I'm always surprised by how high my voice sounds when recorded - it feels deeper.

[k425.livejournal.com]

Ah, you should have got someone else to transcribe, just to prove to Tony that the Brits heard the 'a'!

[offensive-mango.livejournal.com]

hahaha, that is superb :)

[gloriap.livejournal.com]

You have a very pretty voice.

FWIW, we spent a few days this summer with people from Yorkshire and their accent was SO broad and hard to understand, particularly for DH, who is NOT a language person to begin with. I quite enjoyed it, much like trying to understand another language.

[thidwick.livejournal.com]

I listened to this at home, and now I am at work, so I can't re-listen to confirm, but you do say merry/marry/Mary differently, don't you? Or at least a couple of them?

I'll have to do this tonight -- I say all of them exactly the same way, which is apparently less common than I used to think!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Definitely different. Meh-ry, Ma-ry, Mair-ry. (Like head, hat, hair.)

I'd love to hear yours!

[radams.livejournal.com]

I love it! Your "polite" voice is definitely higher than your "broader accent" voice. It is very neat to hear the difference between marry/merry/Mary since I've always been on the end of those conversations that wonders what the heck you Brits are talking about.

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

interesting that in 'coffee' in Oxfordshire accent you can perhaps hear the beginings of what became the New Yorker's 'caw-fee'.

A UK -moved-to-USA friend of a friend reported that her child came home from school one day having leant the two 'o's - the long 'o' as in 'coffee' and the short 'o' as in 'hot', i.e. 'hat cawfee'. Which freaked them out a bit.

I think you do sound bit deeper in person, from what I can remember.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

There are some strong 'American' traits in rhotic/rural English accents, much to some people's surprise. The Penns (as in Pennsylvania) were a Buckinghamshire family, and apparently Wm. had a strong accent when he went over to the Colonies. My childhood accent was a little closer to Bucks, as I lived in South Oxon; it's gained West Oxon (Pam Ayres & The Archers!) influence over time.

LOL@'hat cawfee'.

Yes, I think I probably am deeper in everyday conversation. The phone does funny things to one's manner of speaking...

[jackfirecat.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's my understanding too. People talked more rural than modern RP at the time of the pilgrims, so the American accents have things in common with rural English accents. Like pronouncing the 'r'. Which towny English Brits then lost.

I was v. impressed by Stephen Fry's Burnley accent on QI a few weeks ago. Spot on. His (Rochdale) Andy Kershaw was impressive too.

[thidwick.livejournal.com]

I read somewhere that current American accent (not sure whether they were talking about a specific one (like, say, Boston) or just a generic "non-accented" American accent) sounds more like 16th-17th century English than current British accents do. I can't remember where I read that, let alone whether or not it was a reputable source, but it was interesting to consider the linguistic implications of the evolution of accents. :-)