How Are Accents Caused?

Bre   Sat Sep 24, 2005 9:06 am GMT
It has always puzzled me how accents are caused. If anybody has any information or knows where i can find the information please reply.
JJM   Sat Sep 24, 2005 10:01 am GMT
"Accents" are caused by a number of factors.

Take the Irish English accent. Originally of course, the Irish were Gaelic speakers. In simple terms, the first Irish to speak English (which would have been their second language), would have spoken it heavily influenced by Gaelic pronunciation.* Even though the first language for succeeding generations of Irishmen was increasingly English, the initial Gaelic phonetic influence was retained in the accent.

Now, bring together a variety of English accents (Irish, Scottish, English) with immigrants from various European countries and you get the makings of the American English accent(s).

Native peoples in North America are sometimes characterized as somehow "slow" because they seem to speak English with a certain monotone. This again is the influence of the intonation and cadence of their original native tongues.**

Accents also vary because the phonetics of any language changes over time*** and not uniformly across an entire population group (some AE pronunciation echoes older BE accents that have died out or evolved further).

* Think of a silly stereotypical Frenchman-speaking-English routine with all that "I tink zee 'ouse ees vairee nice" overdone accent. If the community of French speakers who spoke English this way was large enough, their descendants, even if only English speakers, would develop a particular English accent. You can also see this in the traditional Jewish accent, heavily influenced by the phonetics of Yiddish and the Slavic languages.

** Language seems to remain the one socially acceptable prejudice. Those who speak in a certain accent and dialect may often be stigmatized as "slow" or "stupid" or "intellectually challenged." African-American English (especially "Ebonics") is commonly disparaged in this way.

*** Listen to the way they speak English in old films. It's quite different.
Kirk   Sat Sep 24, 2005 10:55 am GMT
<<** Language seems to remain the one socially acceptable prejudice. Those who speak in a certain accent and dialect may often be stigmatized as "slow" or "stupid" or "intellectually challenged." African-American English (especially "Ebonics") is commonly disparaged in this way.>>

Yes! Few seem to have noticed this point specifically but even in the most PC of environments, accent is almost always a socially acceptable prejudice. While if I went to a formal cocktail party and started poking fun at a certain ethnicity (which isn't something I'd do anyway) it would be very socially unacceptable and probably untolerated, if I somewhat mean-spiritedly poked fun at certain accents or dialects, even the most polite of company would probably find it humorous and more likely than not unquestioningly agree with me. For example, if I mockingly imitated a Southern US accent in such a context, no one would question me as an ignorant, uncouth person with bad manners and most would probably agree with whatever I was saying. I've noticed that linguistic discrimination (which is on most levels relatively unconscious) is truly one of the final domains where discrimination is nearly always socially acceptable.
Brennus   Sat Sep 24, 2005 9:16 pm GMT
Every language has a certain cadence or rythm to it. It is this difference in the cadence that we call an "accent". Even within languages the cadences or rythms can vary a little bit giving American and British English a different sound, Platdeutsch and Saxon German a different sound, Mexican and Argentine Spanish a different sound and so forth right on down the line.

There are a number of theories about how accents originate. All of which are probably true to a greater or lesser extent. One is that an accent is shaped by the morphology or structure of the language itself. Another theory is that people hear differently and that two people often hear the same word diferently. For example, English 'Christmas' was borrowed into Japanese as "karisimasu" and Hawaiian as "kalikimaka" because that is pretty much the way it sounded to these people when they first heard it.

Differences in hearing may partially explain why Americans and British speak with different accents. Keep in mind, that colonization is a selective process and that the English who settled in North America did not have genes representing the entire English population just as the Scandinavians who settled in Iceland came from certain parts of Norway and Sweden (maybe even Finland and Russia) and didn't have genes representing the entire populations of those countries either.
Travis   Sat Sep 24, 2005 10:36 pm GMT
>>Every language has a certain cadence or rythm to it. It is this difference in the cadence that we call an "accent". Even within languages the cadences or rythms can vary a little bit giving American and British English a different sound, Platdeutsch and Saxon German a different sound, Mexican and Argentine Spanish a different sound and so forth right on down the line.<<

Just to be a pedant, but sorry, Plattdeutsch (Plattdüütsch in itself), that is, Low Saxon (Neddersassisch in itself and Niedersächsisch in German) is a distinctly different language from German, with Saxon German being a East Middle German dialect spoken in present-day Saxony (whereas Low Saxon is named after what is now Lower Saxony, even though it is spoken outside of there, both in eastern Netherlands and other parts of Germany, as well).
Travis   Sat Sep 24, 2005 10:56 pm GMT
The thing is that one should not view native speakers' speech forms as being accents *away from* some kind of ideal form, but rather view them as associated different dialects which a "standard" form just happens to have been at some point in time or another based off of, to some degree or another. So hence accents are not really "caused" at all, as they are simply preexisting variation within a dialect continuum.

However, one can speak of substratum influence on various dialects, which in a way one could speak of as "causing" an accent in cases. For example, the North Central American English dialects spoken from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to North Dakota have North Germanic and German substratums, which have been at least partly responsible for some of the classical features of such, accent included. Of course, though, this is only one factor with respect to such, and thus one cannot simply attribute "accents" to substratum influence alone. For example, in the case of North Central American English dialects, most of them have some degree or another of Canadian Raising, which is clearly not a substratum feature at all, but rather a feature which has been spreading southwards throughout North American English dialects for a while now.
Kirk   Sat Sep 24, 2005 11:02 pm GMT
<<For example, English 'Christmas' was borrowed into Japanese as "karisimasu" and Hawaiian as "kalikimaka" because that is pretty much the way it sounded to these people when they first heard it.>>

Also to be pedantic, it wasn't necessarily that that's how they heard the words, but according to each language's phonological rules that's how they reproduced the words. We do the same with loanwords into English. It's not that we can't hear the sounds in a Vietnamese or French word, for example, but if we take loanwords from them we change them to fit our native phonologies.
Brennus   Sun Sep 25, 2005 6:04 am GMT
Travis: Re: "Just to be a pedant, but sorry, Plattdeutsch (Plattdüütsch in itself), that is, Low Saxon (Neddersassisch in itself and Niedersächsisch in German) is a distinctly different language from German"

Not exactly Travis. You know, Hitler considered even the English to be Germans. That's why he wouldn't invade them during World War II. He was expecting them to voluntarily support Germany against Russia; Also, an attempt by a few Swiss in the early 1970's to get the Swiss government to officially declare 'Schweitzerdeutsch' a language separate from German was a flop.

Kirk:

I made a slight mistake. 'Christmas' in Japanese should be spelled kurisimasu. However, other nationalities often do hear sounds we take for granted in English differently. Chinese pronuciations for the name 'Brian' which I have heard include Rán (Mandarin); Buh-lai-yun and Ba-yun (Cantonese) and there are probably more. 'Steve' will be pronounced Si-tai-fu by a Chinese who hasn't had strong exposure to English or learned it as his native language.

About 15 years ago, 60 minutes had a story about a young deaf woman (very good looking as I remember) who learned to speak by reading people's lips (something which seldom happens). In the interview, she said that other people understood her but often told her that she spoke with an accent. "One person said to me 'You have Hungarian accent'," she
said. I recognized a lilt though I wouldn't liken it to a Hungarian accent. Nevertheless, the pronunciations that people have in their speech do seem to be influenced by their hearing, and in this particular case, even a lack of hearing.
Guest   Sun Sep 25, 2005 7:51 am GMT
<<That's why he wouldn't invade them during World War II.>>

That's why he bombed the crap out of London but took greater care with Paris because he "appreciated" its cultural significance? The only reason he didn't invade England is because he couldn't; he tried unsuccessfully.
Guest   Sun Sep 25, 2005 8:26 am GMT
This is what Hitler thought of London and Britain:

http://www.historyonthenet.com/WW2/blitz.htm
Guest   Sun Sep 25, 2005 8:28 am GMT
=><<That's why he wouldn't invade them during World War II.>> <=

Where did anyone say this?
Guest   Sun Sep 25, 2005 8:57 am GMT
=>Where did anyone say this?<=

Brennus' second paragraph:
"Not exactly Travis. You know, Hitler considered even the English to be Germans. That's why he wouldn't invade them during World War II."
Sander   Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:08 am GMT
Ah yes I see, Brennus that's incorrect :-)

I suggest you look up some information on "Operation Seelöwe" (or operation sealion)
Guest   Sun Sep 25, 2005 9:24 am GMT
OK don't rub it in.
Damian in Alba   Sun Sep 25, 2005 12:16 pm GMT
How are accents caused?

Environment and association.

**That's why he wouldn't invade them during World War II."**

That megalomaniac with a weird moustache Hitler had a damn good try at invading these islands in WW2!!! Not a question of "he wouldn't"!.....the best he could do was to occupy a small group of islands off the coast of already Nazi over-run France......the Channel Islands ....and only then was he successful because the British had de-militarized them, the British military had returned to England and 70% of the population had fled to England. Those islands had five years of hellish Nazi occupation July 1940 to May 1945. During those years they made the remaining locals drive on the right hand side of the road among other horrors.

The mainland UK was left entirely alone to face the onslaught of Nazi attacks as Hitler threw his entire Luftwaffe against Britain. The British army had been forced to abandon the Continent at Dunkirk in June 1940. The RAF was left to defend these islands with the help of the Commonwealth and of groups of volunteers from some other countries, including those over-run by the jackboot.

The Germans outnumbered the RAF and aforementioned allies 4 to 1 but in spite of these overwhelming odds against them and day after day after day of aerial attacks on the S and E of England trying to knock out the RAF....they failed.

The Battle of Britain was a great victory for the RAF and allies...who incidentally did not include the Americans at this stage....the British managed against these huge odds to stop an invasions and the Nazi jackboot never, ever set foot on mainland British soil.

So it is just mega stupid to say "they wouldn't invade them during WW2!" They had a f*****g good bash at it but just got kicked up the Nazi a**e in the process. Never once did Hitler even consider a link betweenthe English and the Germans.....all he had in mind was to invade and conquer these islands.

Like other maniacs before him......he just got shot up the bum.

The Americans had offered a Lend Lease program to Britain while all this was going on but no military suppoort while Britain was fighting for its life. Except for 4 American volunteers who took part in the Battle of Britain.

American military aid came later after the Japanese had taken a pot shot at them in Dec 1941 and there's no denying the great part the Americans played alongside the allies in freeing the rest of Europe from Hitler and Nazism.

In desperation during their losses in the B of B the Germans then changed to bombing British citiies and even used rockets and flying bombs. 15 months of bombing raids took place before the Americans were forced into WW2 and the rest was history....as all of it is now.

But just don't ever say Hitler "wouldn't invade them!" He would have...if he could have. He couldn't so he didn't. End of.