What's your English accent like?

Ben, sorry, the link to your recording didn't work for me.

Pete, I'm glad you enjoyed my recording :) Yours was fun to listen to as well--a couple of things are due to your Spanish-speaking backgrounds, but overall you sound very British. Great accent!

Travis, yes, your assessment of what triggers your CR in that context does seem to be relatively widespread in the Northern Midwest. It was mentioned in the book I'm reading on the Northern Cities Vowel shift.

Also, what Travis said about "conservative" and "progressive" in linguistic terms as applying to phonology is correct. "Conservative" only means retention of older features for a certain phonological process while "progressive" means a change from an older form in a certain phonological process. This has nothing to do with politics. For example, let's look at two features of my speech--my rhotacism is a conservative feature in English, as it can be traced directly back to an earlier time when all English accents were rhotic. However, the fact that I'm "cot-caught" merged is a progressive feature. All dialects have certain conservative and progressive features but what distinguishes different dialects is what is preserved or changed in any given dialect. For instance, an RP speaker is conservative when it comes to preserving the difference between "cot-caught" but is progressive when it comes to rhotacism, which was once present but has now been lost for that variety of English. It has nothing to do with politics when we're talking about phonology.

I do the same thing as Travis with Canadian Raising, though I live nowhere near Canada. It seems pretty wide-spread throughout the states as far as I can tell. I wonder why that is.

Canadian Raising has been spreading, especially in northern parts of the US. You'll hear no traces of Canadian Raising here in California, however--we must be too far away to take part in the change.

Also, it's worth noting there are definitely several different ways Canadian Raising may be manifested in accents affected by it. For example, classic Canadian Raising raises /aU/ and /aI/ to [@U] and [@I] before unvoiced stops (phonemically). Thus, "light" would have /laIt/ --> [l@It] while "lied" would have a different vowel phonetically (but not phonemically), being /laId/ --> [laI:d]. Compare this to my non-Canadian Raised [laIt] and [laI:d], which have the same vowel (save for allophonic vowel lengthening but that's to be expected as per English phonological rules). As for /aU/, a textbook Canadian Raiser would have /haUs/ --> [h@Us] for the noun "house" but /haUz/ --> [haU:z] for the verb "house." I have the same vowel for both.

However, some dialects only raise /aU/ or only /aI/ in said environment, some raise both in more phonological environments than the one I mentioned, etc. It's kind of a complicated issue.

Yo, Kirk! Thanks a lot for the encouraging words!

I wish I had a recording of myself when I started improving my spoken English; you would notice a biiiig difference (first, you wouldn't understand anything at all, hahaha!). A lady once told me, "you speak like Jean Claude van Damme." I must confess I felt extremely offended, cause I always believed his English to be terrible. But now that's part of the past! Yesssss!!

Guys!!! I have an idea!!! What about starting an audio thread of us doing stuff like commercials? It would be really cool to listen to each other speaking with different styles: thriller type, romantic, funny, cowboy, let's-get-ready-to-rumble type, and things like that!

Another one would be something like imitating certain voices (with all and the accent). People start laughing when I imitate Agent Smith, "As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time now, Mr. Anderson;" others get freaked out, though... Hahaha!!

I'm pretty sure we're going to have a really good time with either one... or both, for a good while. So, what do you think??

I'll see if I can do the Smith's thing tonight to post it tomorrow (hummm... I could change the script a bit as well, hehehe).


Cheers!

Recording: http://s11.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=3GHYRH0RJX12L1CBDDZM4KL52V
Accent I learned: Standard American English (or whatever accents used in Hollywood movies)
Country of origin: Japan
Age: 19
Native language: Japanese
How I learned English? By myself, through watching Hollywood movies and imitating their accents and through reading a book on English pronunciation.

I uploaded this recording on a different thread as well but I just found that this thread is better for my purpose... How does it sound to you?

Sho,

Taking into account that your native language is Japanese, you've done a very good job, my friend.

You might need to work on some little details, like the pronunciation of the word "party" and your intonation (but it's good, bro, believe me).

Keep it up!!

Sho, as César says, excellent job! I wouldn't have known you were Japanese just from listening to the recording!

Ben.

<<On the other hand, Lazar is "cot-caught" merged but not "father-bother" merged (which is a pretty rare combination, but one prevalent in many parts of New England apparently)>>

I guess. I merge "cot-caught" but never "father- bother." I can't imagine calling my father "fother" or saying "bah-ther" for "bother."

<"Mary-marry-merry" merged > I pronounce them all differently, Kirk. All of these mergers fascinate me. I really must start listening more closely to people's accents. It sounds af if you pronounce father, "fother."

César,

You’ve started interesting thread here on the Antimoon Forum with your ‘What's your English accent like?’ You don’t need to be too quick with the recording. These Charles Dickens’ lines, I find slightly more difficult to read than your Daisy Hamilton story.

Also, your idea of reading a passage by starting with one’s own native language and then switching to English sounds fine, as well. In this way, we, antimooners may get a bit closer to each other.

Take care

Paul N.

<<Then I was able to go to England and applied for a short (and bloody expensive) course at St. Giles language school in London. Now I live in Spain working as a tour guide, getting strange looks because of my accent.>>

LOL, Pete. I'm sorry I couldn't get your link to work so I can't comment on your accent. :(

My accent... hmm.

Definately British English, *a bit* like RP I guess.

I'm wondering why people in New England, with the exception of Connecticut, seem to be the only ones in this country who say 'can't" pretty much the same way as the English do. Why doesn't the rest of the country?

I spent a whole summer once trying to say "can't" the "American" way. I had a midwestern boyfriend at the time, who kept telling me I had a snobby accent. I did pretty well for awhile. I kept repeating "cannot" because I say "can" the way Americans do. Then I tried to skip the "not" part and add the "t." It worked alright for awhile but then I lapsed back, probably about the time I found another boyfriend. :) Accents aren't easy to change.

<<Guys!!! I have an idea!!! What about starting an audio thread of us doing stuff like commercials? It would be really cool to listen to each other speaking with different styles: thriller type, romantic, funny, cowboy, let's-get-ready-to-rumble type, and things like that! >>

Sounds like fun! But I doubt we could organize ourselves that well.

Go to http://www.langcafe.net they have a special forum for such things.

<<Yo, Kirk! Thanks a lot for the encouraging words!>>

Sure :)

Sho, you also have a good accent! One of my jobs is being a conversation leader for English learners at an English program here in the US, and there happen to be a lot of Japanese people in the program. You don't really have a typical thick Japanese accent when you speak English; you've obviously worked hard.

<<I guess. I merge "cot-caught" but never "father- bother." I can't imagine calling my father "fother" or saying "bah-ther" for "bother." >>

Then you're a good New Englander :)

That doesn't happen in the rest of the US and Canada where everyone is "father-bother" merged, and most/all of Canada is "cot-caught" merged while 40-50% of the US is "cot-caught" merged).

<<<"Mary-marry-merry" merged > I pronounce them all differently, Kirk.>>

Another Eastern US/New England feature :) I pronounce those all with the vowel in "bet" (which is /E/ in X-SAMPA). My dialect, like some other North American dialects, has pre-rhotic vowel mergers of tense vowels to lax vowels. Those are kind of technical terms but basically for those words it entails that I have /E/ for them, never /e/ (the one in "bate"). In contrast, Travis is "Mary-marry-merry" merged, but he merges them to tense /e/.

<<All of these mergers fascinate me. I really must start listening more closely to people's accents. It sounds af if you pronounce father, "fother.">>

Yeah it is fascinating stuff, isn't it? Well, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "fother" but I'll use X-SAMPA. /A/ is the vowel in "father," or "ah," if you will. This is what I have for the following words. If you're not familiar with the consonantal symbols, don't worry, just pay attention to the vowels:

"father" ["fAD@`]
"bother ["bAD@`]
"cot/caught" [k_hAt]
"card" [k_hAr\d]

"Mary-merry-marry" ["mEr\i]
"mate" [met]
"mat" [m{t]
"met" [mEt]

I assume if you pronounce "Mary-merry-marry" all differently, you probably have something approaching the "mate" /e/ vowel for "Mary," the /{/ vowel (the one in "mat" and "cat"), and /E/ (as in "met") for "merry."

<<I'm wondering why people in New England, with the exception of Connecticut, seem to be the only ones in this country who say 'can't" pretty much the same way as the English do. Why doesn't the rest of the country?>>

The US uses a vowel /{/ (which I used above--it's the one in "cat" and "mat") for this word, which was the old S. British vowel (it still can be found in N. Britain) used in this word. It was the vowel used in Britain at the time America was colonized and it stuck here. However, in the 18-19th centuries the British vowel changed and most of America did not have consistent enough contact with Britain to experience the change (since language change requires consistent speaker-to-speaker contact). Most of America, that is, except for coastal New England, which apparently had enough contact with Britain to go thru some of the changes it was going thru at the time. However, the rest of the US retained the older vowel for this word (which really represents a much larger class of words that this change happened to). What vowel exactly do you use in "can't?" For me, it's the same one as the one in "cat," so /{/ in X-SAMPA.

Yes, this is the same vowel that is used at least formally in "can" but I easily maintain the difference between the words because the one in "can" is usually reduced for most conversation. Also, there's a rule in my dialect that turns:

vowel + nasal stop + /t/ --> nasalized vowel + glottal stop (which is represented by /?/ in X-SAMPA)

So that naturally applies to "can't" while it doesn't apply to "can." So, in normal speech I say:

"can" [k_hn=]
"can't" [k_h{~?]

If you have questions about the notation let me know, but basically I just wanted to show that there's little chance for confusion between them.

<<I spent a whole summer once trying to say "can't" the "American" way. I had a midwestern boyfriend at the time, who kept telling me I had a snobby accent. I did pretty well for awhile. I kept repeating "cannot" because I say "can" the way Americans do. Then I tried to skip the "not" part and add the "t." It worked alright for awhile but then I lapsed back, probably about the time I found another boyfriend. :) Accents aren't easy to change.>>

Hehe, I agree. It's easy to imitate or caricaturize a few features but to actually pull off a different accent that's fully convincing to natives of the region is very hard. Even people who are familiar with phonological processes for a certain dialect on paper still typically need a lot of practice. For instance, one person who posts here occasionally, Rom, is Canadian and is familiar with some of the vowel changes that affect Californian English. He once made a recording of himself trying to pull off a Californian accent, and while he got some of the vowels right, it still sounded unequivocally Canadian to my ears. I then tried to imitate a Canadian one and had trouble remembering to Canadian Raise, which is completely unnatural for me, as it's not a feature of my dialect. I had to record the damn thing 20 times because I kept on forgetting to do it. Accents are hard to shake ;)