Can you speak Queen's English?
Hi, sorry I don't actually know much about this variety of English. I assume it must be some kind of ultra posh accent, but I've read that the queen doesn't use this accent anymore. What can you tell me about this.
Is it Queen's English spoken by anyone in England?
Do you English people like Queen's English?
Is it clear to understand? What does it sounds like? samples.
Have you ever heard a non-native English speaker using this accent? did you like it? What do you think of non-native speakers trying to speak Queen's English?
Can you fake Queen's English?
Can you imagine an American speaking Queen's English?
Beforehand, thanks for your answers.
Well, some Americans, as Cyndi Lauper pointed out, can speak QUEENS English.
I have a friend who I met in Argentina who's very talented in phonetics and speaks stunningly good and rather conservative RP. The Queen's English often lives on well in the accents of foreign learners who take their lessons to heart and nearly perfectly emulate the conservative RP which they're taught.
I knew another guy who I voice chatted with several times and he's from Hong Kong. He used to have a very good traditional-sounding RP accent till he went and studied abroad near London for several months. After he did that I voice chatted with him again and he sounded much more Estuary (if I had to put a label on it) as a result of his time being surrounded by modern Estuary English. So he switched over to the Princes' English :)
"Queen's English" or "King's English" (if the king is on the throne) refers to any kind of which isn't Cockney or Scots. Ocassionally the lines of demarcation are not clear. For example, Australian is basically in the Queens category but has some Cockney features like the pronunciations of /fajs'/ and /snajk/ for "face" and "snake". Jamaican started out as a Creole English among African slaves brought there to work the sugar plantations but has become increasingly more Queens-like with regular English grammar, syntax and vocabulary rather than a creole one. The fact that Jamaicans have a regional accent doesn't, by itself, exclude it from being Queens.
...refers to any kind of ENGLISH...
I know of pubs where some (not many, but some) people talk queen's English. Nothing to do with THE Queen though.
>>"Queen's English" or "King's English" (if the king is on the throne) refers to any kind of which isn't Cockney or Scots. Ocassionally the lines of demarcation are not clear. For example, Australian is basically in the Queens category but has some Cockney features like the pronunciations of /fajs'/ and /snajk/ for "face" and "snake".<<
Sorry, but no. For starters, Scots is not English, period; saying that it's English is like calling Dutch German, except that saying such is more politically acceptable, since the Netherlands is a nation-state, and Scotland is not such. Note however that Scottish English is another story, as it is just English with a Scots substratum, or in some areas, with a Scots Gaelic substratum, just like how Irish English is just English with an Irish (Gaelic) substratum.
Secondly, the primary *genetic* subdivision within English proper, excluding forms with any sort of creolization or influence from creoles, is between North American English and the rest of English, the split being significantly older and wider than that between, say English English and Australian English. One must remember that much of the features that one generally associates with Cockney postdate the split between NAE and the rest of English. One should also note that the differences between English English and Scottish English and Irish English are not genetic as much as substratal in nature, just like that between, say, various dialects in the far north of the Upper Midwest and the rest of NAE. Consequently, what you call "Queen's English" is definitely a paraphyletic taxon, considering that it includes both NAE and forms of English English like RP, yet excludes an English English form, Cockney, which arose *after* the split of NAE from English English. Furthermore, while Cockney may seem "divergent" or "nonstandard", there is little in the way of there being any sign of it having made a full clean break with the rest of English English in the way that NAE has.
Me rolls eyes thrice in Brennus' general direction. Puh-leez.
"Me rolls eyes thrice in Brennus' general direction. Puh-leez."
LOL! Fice me snikes... I mean faddle steaks!
<<"Queen's English" or "King's English" (if the king is on the throne) refers to any kind of English which isn't Cockney or Scots.>>
Brennus, as we've told you before, this is complete, imbecilic nonsense. The term "Queen's English", if employed at all, is understood unambiguously to mean *conservative RP*. And there is *no* overarching dialect group that includes all of English except Cockney and Scots. Cockney and Queens are both *subsets* of English English, and they are much closer to each other than either is to American English. The notion of assigning AAVE, for instance, into an overarching "Queens" or "Cockney" supergroup, is so absolutely, mind-numbingly stupid as to beggar the imagination. By persisting in spouting this complete bullshit, Brennus, you demonstrate an unparalleled level of linguistic ignorance.
<<For example, Australian is basically in the Queens category but has some Cockney features like the pronunciations of /fajs'/ and /snajk/ for "face" and "snake".>>
Brennus, if you don't know how to use X-SAMPA, then please don't try. No one says [faIs] and [snaIk]. What you're trying to write is [f{Is] and [sn{Ik].
The very term "Queen's English" sounds so mega old fashioned like it belongs to some long past era.....way back in the days of the Empire and colonialism when the type of English being instilled into the revolting natives with bones through their noses by gruff old Colonels from deepest darkest Devonshire was that of the Great White Queen sitting on her throne in far away England.
Nobody in the UK uses the term Queen's English now as far as I know....certainly never in Scotland and that's for sure. Maybe some ancient whiskery retired colonels down in Devonshire (do they still exist?) still use it while at the same time being grumpy by the way spoken English English is not what it was in their day.
Even the lady in question...THE Queen...no longer speaks HER titular English any more...her varls (sorry....vowels) are not what they used to be apparently. Maybe this "obsession" with Queen's English is something that still lives outside the UK....I really don't know.....but it's not a hot topic here any more. It's keeping company with the dodo somewhere.
http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Article135.html
oh yeah
me speak it very fluent!!!
"Brennus, if you don't know how to use X-SAMPA, then please don't try. No one says [faIs] and [snaIk]. What you're trying to write is [f{Is] and [sn{Ik]."
Brennus won't find too many Australians pronouncing "face" and "snake" in those ways either. He must have been listening to one of those rare voice recordings from the 1850s.
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