Questions tagged [accent]
Pronunciation characteristics of a certain individual, location, or nation. Generally does NOT include learning to speak with various accents or identifying accents. Use [diacritics] instead for questions about accent marks on letters (such as "é" or "ü").
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What does recent research tell us about how English sounded in Shakespeare's time? [migrated]
I am interested in finding a present-day pronunciation that I could point to as close to that which was spoken in Shakespeare's era, much as if I were directing one of Shakespeare's plays and were ...
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Do 'ration' and 'station' rhyme in any English accents?
In Kipling's Bridge Guard in the Karoo, there is a verse
We stumble on refuse of rations,
The beef and the biscuit-tins;
We take our appointed stations,
And the endless night begins.
'Ration' and '...
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Which native English speakers are linguistically the most "germanic"?
English is a Germanic language. Another significant Germanic language is of course German.
Which native English speakers are the closest to German basing on the following criteria?
accent-wise (...
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How are /ɪ/ and /ʌ/ realised in the Nottingham (East Midlands) accent?
I've got a sample of a few words pronounced by a Nottingham accent representative: https://youtu.be/2fCSeDEZeVU
My ear is far from perfect and this is why I'd like to ask for your help in this ...
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The pronunciation of the definite article by American speakers
I was reading an article the other day and I came across an interesting passage:
Notice that the weak form of the is typically [ði] before a
vowel-initial word (the apple) but [ðə] before a ...
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Is there a term for when in Indian English stress is placed on the word "the" before a noun?
I often hear speakers of Indian English place stress-accent on the word "the", with a pause before finishing a sentence with a noun. There's a raised pitch and stress on the word "the&...
CommunityBot
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Are there American English dialects which distinguish /ɑ/ and /ɒ/ but not /ɑ/ and /ɔ/?
I relied on the Logic of English (LoE) phonograms to give myself a better understanding of English pronunciation since the spelling gives me a hard time (even as native speaker), but I noticed that ...
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Term for different pronunciations of the same word
Does anyone know what it's called when a word's pronunciation changes based on context? I am not talking about different people pronouncing the same word differently (i.e. caramel).
E.g. I say "I ...
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When is it legit to reduce a vowel in speech?
I want to say
peppermint ˈpɛpəmɪnt
as
pɛpəmənt
What, if anything, determines whether I can do so, besides accent?
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What's the accent in Oxford Advanced American Dictionary?
Can someone please clarify if the Oxford Advanced American Dictionary uses General American English accent?
I assume it uses General American English accent which is the accent I am learning. But ...
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What American accent pronounces color like collar?
I've noticed a few people (mostly encountered in Northern Virginia in the United States) who have an otherwise common accent for that area, but pronounce the word "color" more like "...
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Which American dialect pronounces "heard" as "hu-yd"?
There is an American English dialect/accent that pronounces words like "heard" and "bird" as "hu-yd" and "bu-yd". One example of this would be CCR's song "...
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Rounding of the START and PALM vowels
I’m a younger speaker from Chicago with a relatively standard General American accent. I have noticed that the vowels in the words “start” and “palm” sound like they have some lip rounding in my ...
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What accents 2-XL robot resembles? [closed]
2-XL is an interactive educational toy robot that asks questions using old cassette technology!
(source)
While watching clips about the toy, e.g. https://youtu.be/KpLkztVIJrc?t=35, I noticed it uses ...
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American pronunciation of "with"
What is the most common American way of pronouncing "with"?
I'm asking specifically about "th" combinations - dictionaries give both the unvoiced (wɪθ)
and the voiced (wɪð) ones?
Personally, I've ...
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Is there a development in American English with an all-around flattening of vowels? [closed]
I am not a native speaker and my first contact with American English and English in general was through movies, and there I am pretty certain that I have never noticed this aspect until the late ...
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What accent did 'kewl' (cool) originate from
I've been hearing 'kewl' for a long time excessively on social media (mostly used by Americans).
I wondered what accent it came from. I searched, but only found the following information about it:
...
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What are the 'distances' among the major English dialects?
Yes, I admit, as an AmE speaker, that all non-North American accents sound the same: BrE, Irish, Scottish, Australian and South African. Or rather, I can tell they are different if placed side by side ...
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How there are so many dialects of English in England?
I was just wondering how there are so many variations of dialects in England, which isn't really a very large country, they have Brummie, Yorkie, Cockney, the one in Liverpool, I don't know what's the ...
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Reverse Tensing of the /æ/ Phoneme in American English?
I am a native speaker of a General American sociolect that realizes the /æ/ phoneme as [ɛə] before nasal consonants (e.g. 'fan,' 'stand,' 'ram'), and I've recently noticed that I've begun un-raising (...
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Are Canadianisms like "aboat" equally common on the American side of the border, adjacent to it?
Most Canadians live close the the border. If you cross to the American side of border, in a rural area, do Canadianisms (1) like "aboat" (2) suddenly become much less common?
Since this ...
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Unvoiced final "d" where it "should" be voiced -- regional accent question
Native speaker here.
I don't have a problem with /d/, but somehow in words like "record", and in all -ed preterites, I voice it /t/, borderline aspirated.
My English is native (think, dream ...
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How to accent the 'a'/second syllable in Oscar?
If you had a character (male) called Oscar but the emphasis was on the second syllable how would you write that? With a macron on the a?
For example, pronounced Oscarr or Oscaar (with the a sound from ...
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Are regional accents disappearing?
Maybe this fits better on Skeptics @ SE?
There is an idea that is frequently seen that states that regional accents are disappearing:
Regional accents are disappearing: which do you want to save?
...
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Why do some people say "v" as "w"?
I've noticed that Germans and Indians will sometimes say "/w/ector space" instead of "/v/ector space".
I get that in German "w" is pronounced /v/. But "vau" (German "v") is pronounced like /f/. So ...
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Do some people pronounce "women" same as "woman"? [duplicate]
This is something i've noticed lately. Example 1, example 2 (1:10). (...i do not necessarily endorse these videos).
I can clearly hear them say "all woman"/ "why do pregnant woman"....
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When did the California Vowel Shift begin?
When did the California Vowel Shift begin: as soon as California was settled by English speakers? Or did it develop later?
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Has the Tangier island accent truly remained unchanged since the Elizabethan period?
I'm not sure how well known Tangier Island is outside the Chesapeake region. To make a long story short, Tangier Island is an isolated fishing community in the Chesapeake bay. It has been mostly ...
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Am I imagining the Warshington (Washington) accent?
So my wife grew up around Vancouver, Washington, USA. Every once in a while she will say words in peculiar ways that I have jokingly taken to call her "Warshington accent" because it makes the ...
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What are the important differences between Canadian and American (USA) English?
English is not my first language; the little English I know is mostly from the USA.
I know some of the differences between British English (or just English?) and American English, and the same with ...
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Is there a term for the letter T not being pronounced when at the end of a word? [duplicate]
I thought it might be called a soft T, but upon looking that up, it seems a soft T is when T sounds like D, as in putty or letter.
What I mean though is when Batman uses his second favorite cup, it's ...
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how do you pronounce a rolling "o" as in "so" or "no"?
I noticed that in New Zealand most people pronounce "o" at the end of "no" or "so" in a rather rolled manner - something closer to [our] instead of simple [ou]. For example, lady in this video does ...
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What makes Jacob Rees-Mogg's accent posh? [closed]
The accent of the British politician Jacob Rees-Mogg is often described as posh, with many people going as far as saying it is an affectation of his. To my non-native speaker ears, his pronunciation ...
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Is the line blurring between "accent" and "dialect"?
The definition that I have had in my head for most of my life is:
dialect: a variation of the original language (usually regional), sometimes even using different vocabulary and grammar
accent: a ...
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Dialect using "woman" instead of "women"?
If you watch this VICE episode, the presenter sounds like a native speaker, but uses "woman" instead of "women" every time (probably over a dozen times in the 10 minute video).
...
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Which groups of Americans pronounce -ing |ŋ| as -inG |ŋg|?
I have noticed that some American-born native English speakers pronounce -ing |ŋ| as -inG |ŋg| , at the end of a word, and I would really like to know why, or which groups have this characteristic. I'...
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What is it called when people who speak with a Connecticut accent cut off "t"s at the end of words or skip them in the middle of words?
Many people raised in the US state of Connecticut have a distinctive accent that I have never heard anywhere else in New England. They cut off their "t"s when they pronounce certain words.
One place ...
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When does realisation of velar nasal /ŋ/ as alveolar nasal [n] happen along with tensing of the preceding vowel (/ɪ/ to [i])?
I have observed some English speakers in North America who seem to produce this assimilation in words like running /ˈrʌnɪŋ/ (as [ˈrʌnin]) or winning /ˈwɪnɪŋ/ (as [ˈwɪnin]). I'm specifically interested ...
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-ment suffix reductions
I came across two different videos in which the suffix -ment was being pronounced in a way that the N sound was completely reduced and the T sound was a stop T.
The words were bewilderment and ...
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English dialect/accent that switches out the letter "p" with a voiceless bilabial trill (ʙ̥)
Just to clarify the title: not sure if this dialect always switches the "p" out with the "ʙ̥". For example, if the p is in the beginning of word, maybe this doesn't happen.
Also, I'...
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What type of accent does this person have?
My friend has lived in Kenya for the first 8 years of his life and the United States for 2 & 1/2 years. He's been in Ireland since 2009.
He is auditioning for a voiceover job on the radio and they ...
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This RP accent makes me confused and mad
I'm trying to choose between RP and my current conventional accents/pronunciations.
For already two weeks I've been looking for some proves that RP is worth something and it's well-accepted everywhere....
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Is "awe" pronounced as /ɔː/ or /ɑː/ in American English?
I have an American friend who pronounced the word "awe" with the same vowel as British people pronounce Thought: /ɔː/. But when I look up this word in dictionaries, they pronounce it as /ɑː/....
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Why do they use "received" in "received pronunciation" instead of "official pronunciation"?
I’ve just learned the expression received pronunciation: the official standard queen style or accent!
I'm not native speaker, but why use the word received here instead of standard or officially ...
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Char a baby sheep?
I was watching a video called "Amnesia day" by Juice Media and I heard this phrase:
Come on straya! Crack a tinnie! Char a baby sheep! Stick a flag on your car! Or on your knob!
I was ...
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In which US accent is “again” pronounced /əˈɡeɪn/ with the FACE vowel, not /əˈɡɛn/ with the DRESS vowel?
Most dictionaries provide the US pronunciation of “again” as /əˈɡɛn/ (uh-gen) with the DRESS vowel. This is the most common pronunciation in the USA.
However, I think I might have also come across /...
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Comment on the accentual structure of the following word: overvalue
I tried to describe the stress pattern of the word overvalue, but the only thing that I found is that it has the secondary stress. How to describe it fully?
Thanks in advance!
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What kind of accent is [closed]
There is a video from someone on youtube. The voice is beautiful. I'm not a native English speaker, so I wonder if anyone could define his accent. It sounds like Scottish, like Sean Connery if I’m ...
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What accent is it? [closed]
Came across a video from someone on youtube. It's a cover of a song. I like his pronunciation. I'm not a native English speaker, so I wonder if anyone could place his accent. Where is it from? He ...
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Opposition between the LOT vowel and the STRUT vowel
I've noticed that some UK accents have the LOT vowel in words like nothing, none or one, whereas others have the STRUT vowel. The Lexico and Cambridge online dictionaries only give the STRUT ...
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