What's the deal with the Irish accent?

eirebhoy

shane86 wrote:

As for Irish accent, posh, hot, D4 and stuck up for me all the way I dunno, I find the southside accent kinda cool.

Crumlin, Drimnagh, Inchicore, Pearse Street, Ringsend, Ballyfermot, Clondalkin, Tallaght, Dolphin's Barn, The Coombe, etc. etc? Bloody steriotypes.

shane86

eirebhoy wrote:

Crumlin, Drimnagh, Inchicore, Pearse Street, Ringsend, Ballyfermot, Clondalkin, Tallaght, Dolphin's Barn, The Coombe, etc. etc? Bloody steriotypes.

Haha Meh, Ive those accents here when I get on the bus. Familiarity breeds contempt

Remember when I was doing my leaving, for the Irish aural tapes from previous years we would practice, they always got the thickest west of Ireland accents imaginable, you would have had difficulty understanding them in English. Im talking the level of that Eurovision promoter from Father Ted here. By some miracle the people speaking on the tapes during our actual exam had regular accents and we were grand.

re English accents I think most Irish can tell where in England someone is from. London/Essex would essentially be the same accent now as its simply where a lot of east Londoners moved to. When working that call centre job its funny the peculiarities and traits you notice. Such as the fact people from up north (especially Leeds and Manchester) usually call with the husband/wife listening in, and they then proceed to get into arguements along the lines of "Sorry about this mate, MAVIS GET US A BLOODY PEN WOULD YA!". And people from Derby always address you as "duck" as in "Alright, cheers for that duck" Used to love when Id get a filthy scouse type call me (Jennifer Ellison lookalike being the mental picture in my head, god knows what they really looked like)

tallus

Mossy Monk wrote:

Quite distinctive I would have thought.

I agree, the New Zealand accent is not nice at all, it always sounded like a watered down aussie accent to me.

WindSock

Mossy Monk wrote:

Quite distinctive I would have thought.

The differences are subtle to the untrained ear. Aussies are more nasally, Kiwis pronounce I's like U's (chips=chups), U's like A's (Shut up=shad ap), A's like E's (asshole=esshole) and E's like I's (left=lift) and their words end more abruptly. My fave is Git Facked.
I still find it hard sometimes to distinguish the two and Yanks + Canadians, unless they say certain words.

eirebhoy

Is it even possible to distinguish a Canadian accent from certain parts of the US?

WindSock

only if the say ooot

Catari Jaguar

Have to say I like a deep Cork accent on a fella. Not the high pitched one... I think it's adorable all the accents the girls in my year have, it's like they're aliens or something! So innocent sounding. I'm pickin up a Mayo twang something fierce!

My boyf loves Nadine from Girls Aloud Derry accent and my friend's Monaghan accent too. I think most lads love Northern accents. I think Donegal accent is awful though (no offence)

I love a Belfast accent, and a Scottish accent too and Aussie accents. Yum.

Another thing; how come Dubliners don't have a lilt?? Just that flat accent...

Catari Jaguar

Ok, for a start the D4 accent can not even be called Irish in the slightest, it's a new, put on Anglicized accent like in RTE they're taught to pronounce E like an A. My Gran is from the back arse of nowhere and taught her self to say "goorden" for garden and so on to sound upper class. She naturally should have a Tipp accent!! The rest of the Marissa OC sounding D4 speak like, is picked up from American TV.

metaoblivia

As an American woman, the Irish accent is my favorite. One of my best friends is from Limerick, and since he's the only Irish person I speak with on a regular basis, his accent sounds like the normal Irish accent to me. I've seen a few Irish films that were made in Cork, and the Cork accent sounds very different from my friend's accent, although I couldn't say why except to badly imitate some of the words.

The Irish accent has a nice lilt to it (although from what I gather the Dublin accent doesn't) and it's very lyrical. American accents are either boring (like mine) or annoying (like Southern accents or Northeastern accents), and there's no sense of lyricism to them, except for a few types of Southern accents. I don't like most English accents apart from the straight London accent. The Aussie accent is alright, but not as nice as the Irish.

Zaph

spanner wrote:

I could never get the difference between New Zealand and Australia, can anyone

Don't say that within earshoot of my Kiwi mate - they're very sensitive about it!

eirebhoy wrote:

Is it even possible to distinguish a Canadian accent from certain parts of the US?

It's pretty subtle, but when you get used to hearing a Canadian accent you can usually identify it quite easily.


I post on an American site and several of the women there have commented about how much they love Irish accents. However, a lot of them admitted to not being able to tell the difference between Irish and Scottish accents, which surprised me. There was a recent discussion about bald men, and I mentioned that a friend of mine was nearly weak at the knees after finding herself standing beside Patrick Stewart at a bar. The women's overwhelming response was along the lines of "Oh yeah, he's a really sexy bald guy, but with hm the accent is what really does it for me". So English accents work well on American women too, it seems.

I suspect that a lot of the attraction is hearing something that's not that common where you come from. For example, if you put two identical women in front of me and one had a generic American accent and one an Australian accent, I'd go for the Aussie every time. Not that I come across many Americans day to day, but I'm more likely to watch American films and tv, so the accent is more familiar to me.

Agamemnon

Lil Kitten wrote:

I think Donegal accent is awful though (no offence)

I love the Donegal accent. It's softer and more lyrical than other northern accents and it's very sexy on a woman.

pickarooney

metaoblivia wrote:

American accents are either boring (like mine) or annoying (like Southern accents or Northeastern accents), and there's no sense of lyricism to them, except for a few types of Southern accents.

Ah come on, a dainty Jauwjeuh or Saeth Cayolahnuh twang is lyrical (and sexy) in the extreme.

simu

It's the rarity of Irish people.

I don't find accents sexy - they are either neutral or irritating in terms of atraction tbh imhoe.

However, they are interesting from a linguistic perspective.

watna

tallus wrote:

I agree, the New Zealand accent is not nice at all, it always sounded like a watered down aussie accent to me.

I love my bfs kiwi accent! He asks me to cook iggs for breakfast and tells me to puss off. It's so cute! I only recently learned how to tell the difference between an aussie and kiwi accent, to me they sounded exactly the same but now i can hear there's a big difference. i presume that's what it's like for people hearing Irish accents, they just don't hear the differences that you hear when you are used to an accent.

He's always saying how nice my and my friends accents are. Apparently we sound very melodic and the way we say our rs is very sexy. Perhaps that's cos aussies and kiwis don't pronounce their rs! In fairness Irish people are not the most attractive race in the world, lets be greatful our accents do so much for us!

Jimoslimos

Never used my accent to score - only my handsome good looks and witty personality (might have to rethink that strategy there;) )

Craziest accent I've heard - Newfoundland, its not north american, its not Irish but kinda something in between.

R0ot

Binomate wrote:

Why is it sexy?

Only the south Belfast, Donegal, Protadown accents are Dublin accent is far from sexy. /me shudders

Floppybits

I also find it hard to understand why people think the irish accent is sexy. I lived in the Southwest of England and anyone who heard my accent thought it was sexy. I couldn't understand why, I think my thick dublin accent is horrible. But I wasn't complaining, what an advantage to have when chasing the women as my male english found out and all wanted an irish accent.

I find the london/essex accent the sexiest. I dont like the southwest worzel accent.

tampopo

boreds wrote:

only if the say ooot

Ha, that made me laugh!!!!


As for yer woman Nadine and the blonde one from Blue Peter, sweet mother of god, I cannot abide the pair of them.horrible sounding.

Going back to Canadian accents, I thought they'd be easyish to spot, except in the American mid-west, think of the film Fargo.

Newfies, yeah, I heard a documentary on the radio,two over the last while, one with Newfies with Irish accents and then in Argentina, about 150 years ago there was a group of families that emigrated. They taught each other Gaeilge in their village, and the accent, (Mullingar, if memory serves me well) has survived till now. Unreal. The sound of the oul fella interviewed in the middle of nowhere bogland Argentina, jeesh he coulda been on the side of the N4 or something.

I think Northside Dubliners have a certain specific accent too.

I would have thought that an Ottawan french twangy accent would have been much different from a Chicagoan!!but there you go...

Cause

Hmm... I have had the usual 'oh my God your Irish, say something... I want to hear your accent' from time to time whilst in the US, but from my experience the Irish accent mostly gets the piss taken out of it... Brits do it a lot, Aussies sometimes and (for whatever reason) always by the Kiwis...

IzzyWizzy

I would have thought that an Ottawan french twangy accent would have been much different from a Chicagoan!!but there you go...

Ottawa isn't a French speaking city - I know loads of monolingual English speakers from there. To most people they just sound American. I hear the difference in the vowels - it's cliche but they really do say 'aboat' instead of 'about' and the intonation is a little different. The French Canadian accent is a completely different matter!

tampopo

IzzyWizzy wrote:

Ottawa isn't a French speaking city - I know loads of monolingual English speakers from there. To most people they just sound American. I hear the difference in the vowels - it's cliche but they really do say 'aboat' instead of 'about' and the intonation is a little different. The French Canadian accent is a completely different matter!

Yeah, you're right, twas only afterwards I realised I'd mistaken Ottawa for Quebec.

While in Ottawa I stayed in Kanata, before travelling up the Gaspe peninsula. I agree with what you say.

bullpost

There was huge emigration from South East Ireland to Newfoundland in the nineteenth century. The communities were pretty isolated and self-contained and therefore retained traces of their original accents. TG4 showed a documentary on it recently. If you saw some of the clips they showed you'd bet money it was rural Ireland.

Jimoslimos wrote:

Never used my accent to score - only my handsome good looks and witty personality (might have to rethink that strategy there;) )

Craziest accent I've heard - Newfoundland, its not north american, its not Irish but kinda something in between.

WindSock

And a lot of Irish were sent over to Jamaica too, I have a theory that 'dey talk like dis' because they learnt english from the irish

_blank_

They drink Guinness by the bucketload too.

Exit

bullpost wrote:

There was huge emigration from South East Ireland to Newfoundland in the nineteenth century. The communities were pretty isolated and self-contained and therefore retained traces of their original accents. TG4 showed a documentary on it recently. If you saw some of the clips they showed you'd bet money it was rural Ireland.

"traces" is a bit of an understatement. I remember the first time I heard the accent in Canada whilst watching a comedy programme, and I honestly thought they were taking the piss out of Irish people. Turned out they were just Newfies.

thelordofcheese

Well, i don't know why, but the girls over here seem to like it alot.
I'm not complaining....

Manic Moran

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone know if a certain mobile 'phone advert from a couple of years ago ever made it to Youtube? The one where a good looking girl slips a good-looking guy her number, and he ruins it at the very end by opening his mouth. "Hiya, it's yar mahn fram da barr..."

NTM

Ruu_Old

I think it was for Digifone (now O2). I haven't seen any sign of it on youtube.

WindSock

Manic Moran wrote:

Slightly off-topic, but does anyone know if a certain mobile 'phone advert from a couple of years ago ever made it to Youtube? The one where a good looking girl slips a good-looking guy her number, and he ruins it at the very end by opening his mouth. "Hiya, it's yar mahn fram da barr..."

NTM

Hello Kayshe (kate) itsh me de guy from de byarr.....ah no, honestly it is.

InFront

boreds wrote:

And a lot of Irish were sent over to Jamaica too, I have a theory that 'dey talk like dis' because they learnt english from the irish

Yeah, I overheard a Caribbean guy in town recently who I could have sworn was from Cork until I listened more carefully. It can also sound Welsh.

I used to have big problems telling the Northern Ireland accent apart from the Scottish one until I became friends with some people from the North.