Which accent is really more popular in the world?

I never knew that there is a place called California in Norfolk, England. I don't suppose for a single nano second that there is any similarity in the climate between there and the American CA. The English one is on the east coast, like we are here in Edinburgh, and when you get easterlies in the winter straight of the grey and dreich North Sea here your timbers can really shiver.

All American states are sub divided into counties - hundreds of them by th look of it. I reckon they even stole the name "county" from us! We have had "counties" in Scotland, England and Wales (and also over in Ireland, north and south) since the early Middle Ages! Many of those American counties do seem to have "local" names which to us sound native American, maybe. That's fair enough - good for them. But wander aound some of the American New England states in particular and you could be forgiven for thinking you were back in Blighty (a slang term for Britain). Middlesex, Aberdeen, Suffolk, Cumberland, Yorkshire (yes, there really is an American Yorkshire!), Norfolk, Cambridge, Bedford, Lincoln, Worcester, Gloucester, Essex and so on.....oh, and also Berkshire (remember to call it "Burksheer"! - they've even named a range of hills by the same name in MA!) They made a bit of a mess with Wiltshire though - probably they were early Estuarists and decided to drop the T. Or is that just the name of a boulevard in Hollywood?

But to be fair in all of this - the names were probably endowed on all of these places by the early settlers in the wilderness that was this strange new land called America so to make themselves feel at home they gave all these new stettlements and regions names from their original homeland. Not just in America of course - but wherever the wanderlust conquering Brits of the time decided to put down roots and settle down. British place names abound in all these countries as well.

Some people think that the British Empire came about simply because of Britain's dreich climate. We got so pissed off with our weather that we ventured forth across the globe in search of warmth and sunshine. It still goes on today but the Spanish costas, the Greek Islands or French Provence (among others so much closer to our own shores to begin with) are faves nowadays, and it's not only due to the weather - homegrown taxation and loopy Government policies are suffiecient impetus to seek pastures new. :-)

Support Scotland today at Hampden Park! I love Italians but not on the football pitch! :-) Go Scotland!

Californian accent is the most popular.
Most people moving to California, end up sounding Californian.
Most people moving to NYC, don't acquire the local accent.

Californian accent is the most popular accent in the world since California is the neuralgic point of the Anglophone sphere.

« Guest » : « The Spanish invented the name "California". »

Probablement sur le modèle de « Califerne » → ancien français.

Did you just make that up?

Old French:
Morz est mis nies, ki tant me fist cunquere
Encuntre mei revelerunt li Seisne,
E Hungre e Bugre e tante gent averse,
Romain, Puillain et tuit icil de Palerne
E cil d'Affrike e cil de Califerne.

English translation:
My nephew's dead, who won for me such realms!
Against me then the Saxon will rebel,
Hungar, Bulgar, and many hostile men,
Romain, Puillain, all those are in Palerne,
And in Affrike, and those in Califerne;

(Song of Roland, Verse CCIX (i.e. 209; lines 2920–2924), 11th c.)

California was a made-up land in an old Spanish novel. Although where the author came up with it is anyone's guess.

Damian, actually all American states have counties except one: Louisiana, which subdivides itself into parishes. But they were originally French, of course. Previously Spanish states also have counties, but then, "county" in Spanish is the very similar "condado".

There's a Liverpool outside of Rochester, NY, but most of the rest of western New York State has non-English names -- Utica, Rome, Ithaca, Waterloo, Geneva, Interlaken.....

Damien - nooooooooo!! Berkshire is NOT pronounced "Burksheer" but rather "Barksheer" or "Barkshuh". I am surprised you'd miss that one mate!!Oh, unlucky with the Footie yesterday geezer, after beating the French twice you lot deserved it. Unlike our lads, who rather perversely look like they will be going through now. I bet that grates with many of the Jocks!!!!!

Blimey, I never knew California in Norfolk was 'nicked' from the US!! I stand corrected - but it's only fair!! I wonder why we took the name from you lot though???

<<They made a bit of a mess with Wiltshire though - probably they were early Estuarists and decided to drop the T. Or is that just the name of a boulevard in Hollywood?>>

Wilshire, as in Wilshire, Mid-Wilshire, and Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, CA is not named after Wiltshire, England, but after H. Gaylord Wilshire, a wealthy land developer, entrepreneur, inventor, publisher, failed politician, and socialist.

Wilshire Blvd runs 16 miles (25.744 km) through the cities and communities of Downtown Los Angeles, Westlake, Koreatown, Larchmont, Country Club Park, Wilshire Park, Hancock Park, Miracle Mile, Carthay, Beverly Hills, Holmby Hills, Westwood, Sawtelle, Brentwood, West Los Angeles, and Santa Monica. At no point does it ever reach Hollywood.

« Ami Rollant, prozdoem, juvente bele,
Cum jo serai a Eis, em ma chapele,
Vendrunt li hume, demanderunt noveles ;
Jes lur dirrai, merveilluses e pesmes :
« Morz est mis nies, ki tant me fist cunquere. »
Encuntre mei revelerunt li Seisne,
E Hungre e Bugre e tante gent averse,
Romain, Puillain e tuit icil de Palerne
E cil d'Affrike e cil de Califerne ;
Puis entrerunt mes peines e mes suffraites. »

« Ami Roland, preux et beau jeune homme,
Quand je serai à Aix, en ma chapelle,
L'on viendra demander des nouvelles ;
J'en donnerai de terribles et cruelles :
« Il est mort mon neveu, qui me fit tant conquérir. »
Contre moi se révolteront Saxons,
Hongrois, Bulgares et tant de peuples hostiles,
Romains¹, Apuliens et tous ceux de Palerme,
D'Afrique et de Califerne. »
Alors commenceront mes peines et souffrances.

¹ = Byzance ?

Le toponyme <Califerne> *serait* un téléscopage de <kalaa> & <(beni) Iferne> : la "forteresse (capitale) des Ifrenes" (une tribu berbère d'Afrique du Nord) et non pas le "califat". Le lien entre <Califerne> et Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo est *plausible* dès lors qu'on se réfère à la matière de sa littérature.

<<Damien - nooooooooo!! Berkshire is NOT pronounced "Burksheer" but rather "Barksheer" or "Barkshuh". I am surprised you'd miss that one mate!!>>

No, he's saying that that is how you have to pronounce the US version when you're talking about those mountains in western Massachusetts -- The "Burksheers". (And why the hell do you Brits insist on turning perfectly good ERs into ARs, anyway? Hmmm? :P)

PUB LUNCH - you misread my post and URIEL didn't! England: 0 USA: 1 :-)

I've no idea why there's a difference in the pronunciation of Berkshire in our two countries. Logically the Americans have it right, but British English is full of illogical pronunciations anyway. Berkeley is a similar place name in England to Berkshire and that too comes out as "Barklee" here, and "Burklee" over there. One is a village in Gloucestershire ("Glostuh-shuh"!) called Berkeley (Barklee) with a magnificent castle where, in 1327, the imprisoned and very unfortunate King Edward II of England (and the first ever Prince of Wales) was put to death at the sharp end of a red hot poker shoved into a very sensitive part of his anatomy (in the UK a poker is a metal rod used to stoke up the embers in a roaring fireplace in the hearth). Poor Edward - his tomb in Gloucester Cathedral is still regarded as shrine apparently, and almost always bedecked by posies or bunches of flowers.

I have no idea of the reason why there are so many place names in the UK (or even surnames) which are not pronounced anything like the way they are spelt. It's either pretension or due to some historical twist of some kind. We have our share of these in Scotland - Glamis Castle is beautiful and very majestic as well as looking quite scary on a gloomy day but it's "Glahms" if you have to say it. Culzean Castle on the Ayrshire coast is "Cullain" when uttered, and the pretty town of Moniaive in Galloway is always pronounced as "Moan-ee-eye". Happisburgh in Norfolk is "Hazebruh", Cholmondeley is "Chumley", Trottiscliffe in Kent comes out as "Trossley" and believe it or not the English name "Featherstonehaugh" is supposed to be pronounced "Fanshaw", Leominster in Herefordshire must be pronounced as "Lemstuh".

See what I mean?

See how Massachusetts, USA, "stole" English place names for their counties - this is a complete list of all counties in MA:

Barnstable County - changed a letter - Barnstaple in Devon, England
Berkshire County - Royal County of Berkshire, Southern England
Bristol County - largest city in the SW of England
Dukes County - only connection is that we have a lot of dukes!
Essex County - county just to the east of London
Franklin County - only connection is the surname
Hampden County - Hampden Park football ground in Glasgow!
Hampshire County - a county in Southern England to the SW of London
Middlesex County - a county now swallowed up by Greater London
Nantucket County - nope! I think that is definitely American homegrown!
Norfolk County - a county in East Anglia, England
Plymouth County - This is where they all sailed from in Devon, England.
Suffolk County - a county in East Anglia, England
Worcester County - a Midlands county of England just to the SW of
Birmingham.

Louisiana - well, it's all French of course originally anyway - they still hold the Mardi Gras in the Big Easy do they not? The French ALWAYS have to be different and awkward! Are you sure they're not called "Departements" instead of parishes? :-)

Good night! It's 01:10hrs here and I have to be up by 06:00hrs. I shall now sleep off my pints of Belhavens....

Californian is definitely not the most popular. It is one of the most easily recognizable, but there are vastly more speakers of Southern American English, and the English spoken by urban westerners (think Denver or Salt Lake City) is the most "accent-neutral" at least to Americans.

>>I have no idea of the reason why there are so many place names in the UK (or even surnames) which are not pronounced anything like the way they are spelt. It's either pretension or due to some historical twist of some kind. We have our share of these in Scotland - Glamis Castle is beautiful and very majestic as well as looking quite scary on a gloomy day but it's "Glahms" if you have to say it. Culzean Castle on the Ayrshire coast is "Cullain" when uttered, and the pretty town of Moniaive in Galloway is always pronounced as "Moan-ee-eye". Happisburgh in Norfolk is "Hazebruh", Cholmondeley is "Chumley", Trottiscliffe in Kent comes out as "Trossley" and believe it or not the English name "Featherstonehaugh" is supposed to be pronounced "Fanshaw", Leominster in Herefordshire must be pronounced as "Lemstuh".<<

A lot of that is probably just elision and assimilation occurring over an extended period of time until the resulting words differed significantly from the written forms. Most placenames in North American outside of the eastern seaboard are just too new for such to much of a factor. However, even just here, there are a good few placenames which have quirks as to their pronunciations that one really cannot get right from their spellings (note that these pronunciations are often very dialect-specific, and different dialects may pronounce certain placenames, such as "Chicago" and "Waukesha", differently):

"Milwaukee": does not actually contain /l/ in the dialect there, and in everyday speech tends to be realized with an initial [mw] cluster rather than [m1:w].
"Waukesha": the final vowel is actually [Q] (or [A]) rather than the [@] one would guess from the spelling, even though the pronunciation of this word does vary in different dialects in southeastern Wisconsin.
"Chicago": the "ch" is really [S] not [tS], and the vowel in the second syllable is [Q] (or [A]), even though I have heard other North Americans use the FATHER vowel for such (which would be [a] here).
"Wauwatosa": the "wauw" is actually [wa:ow] not the [wQ:w] one would expect from the spelling
"Cudahy": that is actually ["k_hV:4@:he:]; the spelling is completely misleading as to the pronunciation of the final vowel, and also implies that the first syllable has [ju] rather than [V].
"New Berlin": I've mentioned this before, but the "Berlin" isn't pronounced like the city in Germany, as it really has initial stress.

<<in the UK a poker is a metal rod used to stoke up the embers in a roaring fireplace in the hearth>>

We have that kind of poker here, too, you know! Gotta keep the cardplayers warm.... ;P

You sure you want to blame the mispronunciation of New Berlin on a world war, Travis? Seems to me they insist on calling nearby* Cairo "Kayro", and we haven't been at war with Egypt lately.....

*(Sorry, but I do tend to lump all of the midwest together.)