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Yearly Archives: 2011
The Anglo-Indian Dialect
Below is an interesting short film created from outtakes of The End of the Raaj, a recent documentary about the Anglo-Indian community. This snippet discusses the Anglo-Indian dialect, and the various words and terms associated with this sub-culture. It’s a long clip, … Continue reading
Anne Hathaway’s Accent in ‘One Day’
In news of the dialect work of movie stars, the romantic comedy One Day opens soon. As I did with Mel Gibson’s accent in The Beaver, I’d like to briefly examine Anne Hathaway‘s “Yorkshire accent” in this adaptation of the popular … Continue reading
Posted in British English Tagged accents for actors, dialects in film, Northern English accents 37 Comments
‘Thou’ on Google NGram Viewer
For dialect enthusiasts and language buffs, Google’s NGram Viewer is the kind of thing that keeps us up till the wee hours. For those out of the loop: type any word (or phrase) into Google’s NGram search, and you’ll get … Continue reading
Is the Glasgow Accent Being “Cockneyfied?”
I’ve often discussed Estuary English, the London-influenced accent spreading throughout England. One piece of evidence? Young people in Glasgow seem to be adopting ‘Cockney’ pronunciations. If the Glasgow accent is indeed becoming more ‘Southeastern,’ this would be a powerful indicator of London’s … Continue reading
Posted in British English Tagged Cockney, Estuary English, Rhotic vs. Non-Rhotic, scottish accents 35 Comments
Language Log on the Accents in “The Wire”
Over at Language Log, Eric Bakovic has an interesting take on accent work in films and television. The first half of the piece discusses accents on the The Wire, one of the most linguistically fascinating series in the history of … Continue reading
Did We Speak More “Properly” 50 Years Ago?
Like countless others, I’m a fan of Mad Men. One of the things I find fascinating about the show is the choice its creators made about the speech of the characters. The series almost completely eschews regional dialects (it takes … Continue reading
But, buts, bus: The Scouse ‘T’
Scouse, the native accent of Liverpool, has comparatively unique features when compared to the surrounding area. Where Manchester and Leeds can arguably sound like variations of the same accent, Scouse seems to be in a world all its own. One … Continue reading
When ‘Price’ and ‘Prize’ Don’t Rhyme
In recent years, I’ve noticed a growing phenomenon among American English speakers. People with otherwise “standard” accents exhibit a “non-standard” pronunciation of words like price, right, and kite. To use right as an example, this results in pronunciations which sound … Continue reading
Just What is General American English?
I’ve spent the last week on vacation with my girlfriend’s extended family. Most of them are from various parts of Pennsylvania, a state noted for its relative diversity of accents. Indeed, this was my experience throughout the week: I heard … Continue reading
Jill Abramson’s Accent
I’m coming home from vacation Saturday and will hopefully have proper post up by Sunday. In the meantime, I’d like to address something that has been swirling around the press: the strange idiolect of new NY Times Executive editor Jill … Continue reading