Can you distinguish a white from a black speaker by accent?

Damian in Edinburgh   Wed Oct 15, 2008 9:08 pm GMT
I hope I'm "reader friendly" otherwise my career is set to go down the plug hole! I'm hoping to finally leave home soon, much to my stepdad's delirious delight, and move into a place of my own at last. I need my career to pay all the blills, and things are just a wee bit dodgy globally right now are they not? ;-) Hey ho!


Rene - there's no reason to suppose that the clip featuring that scroat of a chav in Manchester was anything other than real. The coppers shown really were genuine coppers of the Greater Manchester Police, I can tell by various means, and they were out on a genuine call seeing to this scroat of a chav. I know how the UK Police operate anyway as I have met quite a few coppers both through my job and also socially. The British Police have enough on their plate already without getting involved in fake situations simply to end up on YouTube! And that ned - sorry, I mean chav seeing as this happened in England - is typical of many like him.

The copper who mainly dealt with this mouthy yobbo had a very distinct Mancunian accent, as did the lad himself plus his racial undertones - at least I think he had those.
Uriel   Thu Oct 16, 2008 2:23 am GMT
<<∆ I see, Uriel. Forensics is absolutely absorbing topic, isn't it? Almost as absorbing as linguistics.... >>

Oh, I love the triangle, too!

Personally, I find biology way more fun than linguistics, but that's just me. I was working toward a master's in forensic anthro when they said the magic words, though: You'll never get a job in this field. There are maybe five openings a year across the country. And I said, Wait, why am I wasting my money again? I already have one worthless degree ... and that was the end of that. ;)

Now-- what is a "scroat", Damian? Love to hear the etymology on that! Yobbo sounds fun, too.
Damian in Edinburgh   Thu Oct 16, 2008 8:00 am GMT
A scroat and a yob (or yobbo) are the same kind of individual really - like that gobby yobby lad in the clip with the coppers down in Manchester.

Scroat - also spelt "scrote" but the former is the usual spelling - it may well be linked to the word "scrotum" ....which can explain something. It appears to be used exclusively in Britain, especially in England. Here in Scotland we just use "ned" - non employable delinquent (or as most people say - drop-out or even drunkard). Chav is the English equivalent - which can have several acronyminal definitions, such as "Council House adolescent vermin" but that can offend the many decent law abiding people who live in council houses (local authority owned properties).

http://www.definition-of.com/scroat

Yob or yobbo - also used in Aussieland and Kiwiland.

http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/yobbo

Backslang for boy, but we also have the female equivalent of yobs albeit in much smaller numbers, but due to pronunciation difficulties they are not referred to a "lrigs".
boz   Mon Oct 20, 2008 1:39 pm GMT
The ned who's supposed to have a "black voice" isn't even black.
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Oct 20, 2008 2:17 pm GMT
Alright - if you want clarification then I will give you the official UK Police racial group identity code (IC) most probably appertaining to this particular individual being in investigated by those coppers in that YT clip. The ned is most likely of mixed race - I think that is fairly obvious, in which case those police officers would classify him as being IC2 - Identity Code 2.

The IC codes are:

IC1 – White European*
IC2 – Dark European or mixed race - part white part ethnic
IC3 – Afro-Caribbean
IC4 – Asian (in the British sense - ie Indian or Pakistani)
IC5 – Oriental
IC6 – Arab/North African
IC0 – Unknown ethnicity

Some UK Police forces use IC7 as unknown ethnicity, especially the Metropolitan Police Force (Greater London).

IC stands for Identity Code and not Immigration Code as is often assumed to be the case.

I don't know about you, but if you close your eyes and listen to that yappy ned very carefully you would, I believe, come to the conclusion that he has traces of a "black voice", or if you prefer - a "non white voice". Anyway, as he is English he is not a ned - he is a chav. Same meaning but different "countries" - if he was up here then he would be described as a ned. ;-)

*Some societies prefer to use Caucasian - we never do in the UK. We are White European Occidentals in our book.
Rene   Mon Oct 20, 2008 3:47 pm GMT
Why do they even need an IC code? I'm having a hard time figuring how or why it would be used.
Damian in Edinburgh   Mon Oct 20, 2008 4:11 pm GMT
You will have to ask Jacquie Smith, the current British Home Secretary, if you want to know why....my guess is quicker and easier identification of people involved in whatever emergency is in hand - along with gender, age and personal description other than racial group.

This is where her Direct Communications acolytes hang out vis a vis enquiries from the public. She herself is in the Home Office proper - not too many hops, skips and jumps away in Whitehall. She controls the Police, among others...or she purports to do just that.

Home Office
Direct Communications Unit
2 Marsham Street
London SW1P 4DF
boz   Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:45 pm GMT
According to you there is "a common thread running through all their voices" and that has something to do with them being black, but then one of them is in fact mixed and not black so why exactly would he have a common thread with Blacks and none with Whites ?
Could it be that voices might not have a lot to do with skin colour after all ?
Uriel   Mon Oct 20, 2008 11:52 pm GMT
What is a "dark European"? A brunette?
Jasper   Tue Oct 21, 2008 6:56 pm GMT
❝According to you there is "a common thread running through all their voices" and that has something to do with them being black, but then one of them is in fact mixed and not black so why exactly would he have a common thread with Blacks and none with Whites ?
Could it be that voices might not have a lot to do with skin colour after all?❞

Did you follow the discussion about forensic anthropology? It has been determined that people of African ancestry have a different bone structure in their skulls from Caucasians.

The voice quality of a subject is related to that bone structure. In the case of bi-racial people, their voice quality would depend upon from which side they inherited that skull structure.
Damian in Edinburgh   Tue Oct 21, 2008 7:29 pm GMT
I would imagine a "dark European" would be someone native to the countries of Southern Europe...with characteristic dark hair, dark eyes and an olive skin colour from those Europa lands bordering the Mediterranean....the Latin countries in other words......Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece and maybe some of the Balkans....not forgetting the islands of Malta and Cyprus. You may also include Southern France as well...the regions of Gascogne, Languedoc, Provence, etc.....many French people have a Latin appearance.

They must constitute our "dark European" brothers and sisters.
Rhoi (Sp3ctre18)   Wed Oct 22, 2008 7:04 am GMT
>>boz Mon Oct 20, 2008 7:45 pm GMT
According to you there is "a common thread running through all their voices" and that has something to do with them being black, but then one of them is in fact mixed and not black so why exactly would he have a common thread with Blacks and none with Whites ?
Could it be that voices might not have a lot to do with skin colour after all ?

Could it be we're not using "black" to specifically mean skin color but certain peoples? There's a blue person in this world, medicating himself with this silver thing... but with these general, blanket terms, he's still "white," isn't he?

Anyway, I hardly have anything to say, since everyone's pretty much covered it, and there were many good responses. I think I know what peple mean by blacks having a different "texture" in their voice, but that's not always true. however, maybe generally it is, and i'm simply thinking about excptions since of couse, everyone's different, so there'll be people that are hard to distinguish, or whatever. Rick Astley, anyone? hehe.

Referring to accent, it does play a role though. Obama for example, speaks well, but, he's got a "black" accent in there. It's obviously picked up either from his hometown, or his father, etc., but there's a black/african accent there.

I mean, black heritage, their roots are in Africa, or poorly educated blacks from decades ago with racism still being a big thing in America. And then, sadly, there's the little sub cultre that's grown, that totally butcher english... that accent is of course noticably different, though I would find indistiguishable from a white brought up with them, and thus with the same accent.

maybe in English, in your country, it's only noticed if you're native English speaker in that country because, I can ussually tell as well if the person is black or not... but, I hear these black people on BBC? no way I would have known.

Thus, I think it always goes back to upbringing and your surroundings. Black guy, white guy. If they both were brought up in same cirumstances, hung out with same people, same parents or parent with same accents, etc etc etc.... I would expect them to be indistinguishable.

if people who've referred to this know what they're tlaking about, ok, t could be true, genetic differences. But accet is about who you hang out with, where you pick up your accent, how its influeced, not relaly a matter of race.

The only way race matters is a statistical link, but not racial link. ie, a certain accent you have in mind is the accent of street thugs in downtown. most people in your downtown are hispanic. Thus, you attribute that accent to street gang hispanics. But it's not a race thing, it's because of where they are, what they grew up with, that you make a relation with the race or skin color, but it really does not have a direct relationship with race; it's indirect.
Rhoi (Sp3ctre18)   Wed Oct 22, 2008 7:07 am GMT
so much for not having much to say.

btw, sorry, referring to the "black heritage," except for Africa, the rest was of course referring to a possible, specific accent we could be considering... not of course, that... all blacks are uneducated or come from poor roots or something.
drake88   Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:16 am GMT
This is a fascinating subject. Especially so since it's slightly taboo here in America. At least among my fellow college educated whites. Everyone is afraid they'll say something wrong and be called a racist, so they just pretend they don't notice race.

I'm an American and have lived all over the States (military kid) and spent many years in the South. I can almost always tell if someone is white or black by the tone and timbre of their voice. It's an interesting question if there is a biological component or if it's just cultural.

One note about Obama. I know he purposely adopted a more "black" accent as he rose to power in Chicago in order to appear more authentic to the local black community. I'd love to hear some audio samples of him back in high school. Ever since MLK the combination of eloquent speech and the downtrodden black accent has been some sort of mark of wisdom and is a non-trivial part of Obama's appeal.

There are a couple black Republican candidates I know of who have almost no "black" accent (Michael Steel and Lynn Swan come to mind). Both ran for governor (in Maryland and Pennsylvania) and were easily beaten (by white Democrats) and received almost none of the black vote. Both men were criticized for not being authentically black and not sounding black enough. Black protesters actually threw Oreo cookies at Michael Steele (implying he's white on the inside and not really black). Personally, I think if they had sounded more "black" they might have won.