Irish people with English accents

Erik Shin · 14-08-2017 8:23am

Wibbs wrote: »

But that was my point. I was a kid exposed to US and to UK accents, by far the majority of my media experience growing up, but none of my peers picked up these accents. Probably my earliest TV memories were of Sesame Street. I did pick up some knowledge of Spanish words from that(we got the Californian version IIRC), but not the accent. Didn't pick up the British accents from Play School, Blue Peter or Magpie either. Something has changed in the last 20 years. There has certainly been a change in how the mid Atlantic accent is regarded. Where once it was seen as the preserve of saddos, it is now seen as something of an attractive accent and has far more uptake among Irish people. As noted before a fair chunk of media types have this accent. Watch something like Xpose on TV3 and it's hard to avoid it.

I can only go on my own experience and what a play therapist told me, that the over exposure to English and American TV does affect a child's accent...I have no research to back it up, so must have a look

looksee · 14-08-2017 8:47am

I have lived in Ireland for 45 years and still have an English accent. I use Irish words and phrases though, so the combination is confusing. There are still some people who react badly to an English accent - unless I give the impression I am a tourist, especially in Dublin, which can result in almost excessive helpfulness

I think the fact that my accent has not changed is down to the fact that I do not have a 'musical ear'.

murpho999 · 14-08-2017 9:45am

_Dara_ wrote: »

By the 90s, American TV was much more commonplace and there was no distractions such as the internet like now so those shows were watched. I don't see TV or film being the source of the sea change.

TV in the 70s and 80s was full of American TV too.

70s:Mash, Starsky and Hutch, Brady Bunch, The Muppet Show, Sesame Street, Streets of San Francisco, Six Million Dollar Man, The Odd Couple, Mary Tyler Moore Show. Charlies Angels, Happy Days, Hawaii Five-0,

80s: Chips, A Team, Dukes of Hazard, Cheers, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, Alf , The Cosby Show, Cagney & Lacey, Dallas, Different Strokes, Family Matters

These are just programmes I can think of off the top of my head that were on Irish and UK TV an awful lot and were hugely popular.

topper75 · 14-08-2017 9:48am

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I quite like the television programme Lords and Ladles, where viewers get to see and hear the owners of castles and mansions around the country. They seem to see themselves as Irish. As their families have been here for hundreds of years, it seems a bit churlish to say that they are not.

I'm still not convinced to be honest.

Hundreds of years of sending their kids to schools to another country: England. Not entirely sure what is Irish about that. There is a certain daftness and bloodymindedness to it.

Imagine if I moved to Dublin to work but generations and generations of my family thereafter are sent back to Clare for school!? Insane. Like some sort of Japanese soldier in the jungle in the late 1940s, they refuse yet to disobey the Statutes of Kilkenny (1377!). I can't take them seriously in that respect.

rainbow kirby · 14-08-2017 10:06am

My great-aunt is 40 years in Essex and still has a strong Dublin accent. I'm 4 years in London and my accent is flattening a little.

bobbyss · 14-08-2017 10:17am

Forgot to mention Michael D. Limerick. Galway. And briefly Manchester and USA. But sometimes he speaks like William Rees Mogg.
How can that be explained!

seachto7 · 14-08-2017 10:27am

What about people who use American or English expressions, but keep the Irish accent, as opposed to having an English or American accent.
e.g. Expose presenters. “Social media was lit up….”

Yamanoto · 14-08-2017 10:50am

topper75 wrote: »

Hundreds of years of sending their kids to schools to another country: England. Not entirely sure what is Irish about that. There is a certain daftness and bloodymindedness to it.

Imagine if I moved to Dublin to work but generations and generations of my family thereafter are sent back to Clare for school!? Insane. Like some sort of Japanese soldier in the jungle in the late 1940s, they refuse yet to disobey the Statutes of Kilkenny (1377!). I can't take them seriously in that respect.

But that is what many Protestants in the State do by necessity. Due to the scattered and low-density demograpic, very few outside of Dublin have access to a local C of I secondary school - just 12 counties have them, with only six free second-level schools (and three of these are in Dublin and Wicklow).

As for the Anglo-Irish shipping their kids off to board in England, it's mostly because of tradition & it being considered the 'done thing' - much like many middle class Dublin professionals sending their sons to Rugby playing schools like Blackrock or St. Michael's. It's also giving your kids the best education you can afford & with respect to the three Protestant boarding schools in ROI, they'd be no match for the likes of Harrow, Westminster etc.

Benjamin Buttons · 14-08-2017 11:24am

rainbow kirby wrote: »

My great-aunt is 40 years in Essex and still has a strong Dublin accent. I'm 4 years in London and my accent is flattening a little.

In the 'accent business' we call that a slow puncture, just come back every now and then and have it 'pumped up' by a professional such as my good self.
Competitive rates available on my website: www. Want your original accent back? It's gonna cost ya.ie
I take sterling.

Wibbs · 14-08-2017 11:27am

seachto7 wrote: »

What about people who use American or English expressions, but keep the Irish accent, as opposed to having an English or American accent.
e.g. Expose presenters. “Social media was lit up….”

Loan words and expressions I can understand. I and my peers certainly picked them up when I was growing up, but didn't pick up the accents.

andekwarhola · 14-08-2017 12:28pm

Teyla Emmagan wrote: »

Yes, half the country seemed to talk like David Norris at one stage. It's amazing how much our national accent seems to have changed when you listen to the old clips. I think it was a hangover from colonialism, as if we all believed at one stage that to speak properly we had to sound English. But we seem to have relaxed now into realising our own accents are perfectly fine.

Agreed although it's also down to general class trends in the media.

If you look at British media and TV in the same eras, you see RP everywhere before regional accents began being allowed in.

Was watching Tales of The Unexpected recently, which I remember from the 70s as a kid. Watching it now, it's hilarious how plummy/luvvie the acting/accents are, even when portraying normal characters.

andekwarhola · 14-08-2017 12:30pm

seachto7 wrote: »

What about people who use American or English expressions, but keep the Irish accent, as opposed to having an English or American accent.
e.g. Expose presenters. “Social media was lit up….”

Language is never static, especially vernacular langauge.

Whether that's something to be applauded or not is another matter.

lawred2 · 14-08-2017 12:32pm

stimpson wrote: »

He can't. Apparently to a yank his accent is awful.

I doubt that.

Wibbs · 14-08-2017 12:54pm

lawred2 wrote: »

I doubt that.

Hugh Laurie? Even to my non American ears his accent sounds below par and "off". There are far better examples of non American actors and actresses pulling off American accents. Going the other way is another matter. Vanishingly few American actors can pull off a British accent and certainly not an Irish accent. Denzil Washington can do a British one pretty well and Gwyneth Paltrow nailed it as well. The various Irish accents seem to be very difficult to get right, at least judging by all the attempts varying from kinda, yeah, but no, to bloody awful. Even Meryl Streep who can do an English accent pretty well was in the yeah, good attempt but defo not a native.

Badly Drunk Boy · 14-08-2017 12:56pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Maybe you did E, most of my peers in 70's Dublin had four; RTE, BBC 1, BBC2 and UTV and from 1982 Channel 4 and by the mid 80's Sky, Super Channel, MTV and the like. The films we saw were also majority American. Much of the music too. And no interwebs and few enough had video recorders(even if they did again it would be mostly American flics they'd have watched) so our main media entertainment was the TV. TV that started in the morning and ran throughout. Most kids outside of school watched a lot of TV. The majority of which was UK and US based and again we didn't sprout British or American accents.

At some point and I'd narrow it down to the late 90's, the mid Atlantic accent lost its previous stigma and took off from there. Mostly, at least at the start among some younger women. Even today it's usually among some women where we have the most extreme version of it. I recall reading before that people tend to imitate the accent of the person they're speaking with as a social intimacy/fitting in thing and women are more likely to do this(they're also better at learning new languages as a general thing).

I grew up in Kildare and had the same telly stations as you. And like you, there were no American accents around here, unless you put one on for effect (very temporarily). I wonder if the internet is to blame for this. I mean, the arrival of the internet coincides with the arrival of this way of speaking.

Yesterday, my brother was talking to me about the violence in Charlottesville and he mentioned the police "beating on" the protesters. I had to express my disappointment in him.

In fairness, he doesn't normally fall for these Americanisms but still, I had to comment on it.

Hector Bellend wrote: »

Who lives in the mid atlantic?

"The Azoreans?" he said, inflecting the last word upwards.

mikhail · 14-08-2017 12:58pm

It never fails to amuse me how personally some people take other people's accents. I suspect it's a case of easily bruised nationalism.

Agricola · 14-08-2017 12:58pm

Shane Ross talked a good game in the newspapers and from opposition benches once elected.

Then he got a bit of power and a seat at cabinet. He's now as useless as a chocolate teapot. So accent or not, the man is obviously 100% Irish!

Dr. Kenneth Noisewater · 14-08-2017 1:20pm

Breaston Plants wrote: »

Yer man that used to do the football show on Today f.m, Michael McMullen, hilarious accent.

Believe it or not, Moykel is originally from Antrim!

Liam28 · 14-08-2017 1:23pm

Lia_lia wrote: »

I was on a call at work the other day with a guy in the UK. He had a very distinctive Killarney accent... Not Kerry but Killarney! Could get it straight away. He'd been living in the UK for 40 or so years and when I asked where he was from he was indeed from Killarney. Went to the same school as my brother. Not a hint of an English accent.

Lot of people mentioning a Kerry accent here, but it is spot on to say there are several accents in Kerry. Killarney is completely different to Tralee, North Kerry different to South, West Kerry has the Gaelic twang. I met a man last week and before I know he was a Kerryman, I asked him if he was from Sneem. Wonder if this applies anywhere else. OK I know North / South Dublin are poles apart, Cork city accent is different to West Cork, same with Limerick city and county. But is there one Donegal accent, one Cavan accent, one Mayo brogue?

CHealy · 14-08-2017 4:25pm

Liam28 wrote: »

Lot of people mentioning a Kerry accent here, but it is spot on to say there are several accents in Kerry. Killarney is completely different to Tralee, North Kerry different to South, West Kerry has the Gaelic twang. I met a man last week and before I know he was a Kerryman, I asked him if he was from Sneem. Wonder if this applies anywhere else. OK I know North / South Dublin are poles apart, Cork city accent is different to West Cork, same with Limerick city and county. But is there one Donegal accent, one Cavan accent, one Mayo brogue?

There are about 3 distinct accents in Cork City alone, northside and southsiders have their own waffle and then theres the "Rochestown/Montenotte" accent. East and North Cork are very similar from what I can tell and then West Cork is pretty much the same as the general Kerry area. Ireland is great for accents for such a small place.

Widdershins · 14-08-2017 4:40pm

DEFTLEFTHAND wrote: »

Wouldn't bat an eye to it.

Love England and their diverse selection of accents.

Apart from the north crowd, Newcastle, Sunderland Middlesbrough. Good God Almighty. :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Too much shipyard thug for me. I find it very hard to understand these creatures.

Maybe actually we the Irish and the English both have something in common. We both hate our nordies, and both were former ship building regions.

They're salt of the earth and much warmer people up North in England. I wouldn't judge by their more rugged facade.

topper75 · 14-08-2017 4:44pm

Yamanoto wrote: »

But that is what many Protestants in the State do by necessity. Due to the scattered and low-density demograpic, very few outside of Dublin have access to a local C of I secondary school - just 12 counties have them, with only six free second-level schools (and three of these are in Dublin and Wicklow).

As for the Anglo-Irish shipping their kids off to board in England, it's mostly because of tradition & it being considered the 'done thing' - much like many middle class Dublin professionals sending their sons to Rugby playing schools like Blackrock or St. Michael's. It's also giving your kids the best education you can afford & with respect to the three Protestant boarding schools in ROI, they'd be no match for the likes of Harrow, Westminster etc.

Sending your children to school in another land is nothing to do with a reformed Christian faith as an Irish person. Unless I haven't understood Luther's demands in full! :-) True there aren't many such schools here. But there certainly are enough. I know this because many have enrolled RC pupils and have done so for some time. I would refute, from my own experience, that the Irish CoI schools are lesser in quality somehow in comparison with English establishments. Unless you can elaborate on how?

dd972 · 14-08-2017 6:25pm

Widdershins wrote: »

They're salt of the earth and much warmer people up North in England. I wouldn't judge by their more rugged facade.

Much rather listen to a Northern English accent then that dry, bland monotone they call Estuary English, they impart more warmth, wit and humour.

Del.Monte · 14-08-2017 8:18pm

dd972 wrote: »

Much rather listen to a Northern English accent then that dry, bland monotone they call Estuary English, they impart more warmth, wit and humour.

Yes, yes but it's well known that civilisation ends north of the Watford Gap - accents don't come into it.

indioblack · 14-08-2017 8:30pm

dd972 wrote: »

Much rather listen to a Northern English accent then that dry, bland monotone they call Estuary English, they impart more warmth, wit and humour.

You don't have to go all the way north - the West Country is closer. Where men are men, [and sheep get nervous].

pickarooney · 14-08-2017 8:37pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Hugh Laurie? Even to my non American ears his accent sounds below par and "off". There are far better examples of non American actors and actresses pulling off American accents. Going the other way is another matter. Vanishingly few American actors can pull off a British accent and certainly not an Irish accent. Denzil Washington can do a British one pretty well and Gwyneth Paltrow nailed it as well. The various Irish accents seem to be very difficult to get right, at least judging by all the attempts varying from kinda, yeah, but no, to bloody awful. Even Meryl Streep who can do an English accent pretty well was in the yeah, good attempt but defo not a native.

Yet, if you read any of the many redditors threads or discussion forums populated by American linguists the overwhelming consensus is that he sounds completely American, yet without a specific local accent, which is arguably even harder to pull off.

Ipso · 14-08-2017 8:57pm

Liam28 wrote: »

Lot of people mentioning a Kerry accent here, but it is spot on to say there are several accents in Kerry. Killarney is completely different to Tralee, North Kerry different to South, West Kerry has the Gaelic twang. I met a man last week and before I know he was a Kerryman, I asked him if he was from Sneem. Wonder if this applies anywhere else. OK I know North / South Dublin are poles apart, Cork city accent is different to West Cork, same with Limerick city and county. But is there one Donegal accent, one Cavan accent, one Mayo brogue?

I think the Southern accents are bit like Welsh and obviously the Northern accents a bit closer to Scottish.

Wibbs · 14-08-2017 9:44pm

pickarooney wrote: »

Yet, if you read any of the many redditors threads or discussion forums populated by American linguists the overwhelming consensus is that he sounds completely American, yet without a specific local accent, which is arguably even harder to pull off.

I've heard that too P. Apparently quite the number of Americans were shocked he was English. His accent still sounds "off" to me. As does say Liam Neeson's, or our own Colin Farrell's. A few others too. Maybe I hear the slight Irish intonations that Americans would miss? My ear being more attuned to them?

Now this is just my take, but what might be in play here is that America has so many local accents that vary quite a lot, including a fair few that have accents with external influences(Latino, French, German, Asian, African etc), so the "American accent" is a broad church. So because of that, once somebody approaches close enough to generic American™, avoids any sounds in their native accent that would jar and like you say with Hugh apes one that isn't a specific local one, they sound "right" to them. Lotsa Canadian actors can pass as American with little of a shift. Just avoid the "oot" type sounds.

I'd have a pretty good ear for accents, though I can do none but my own, but Hugh's accent really stood out for me. Neeson's is extremely jarring and Farrell's is variable, but rarely consistent across an entire film. One like Gerard Butler(he of 300) American accent is hopelessly off(his Oirish accent was appalling). Sean Connery was always Sean

Karl Urban(a New Zealander) is another that jars. His costar in the flic Judge Dredd, Lena Headey sounded flat too(and it was damned hard to type that as I want to have her babies

). All no doubt sounded fine to the majority of Americans.

There can also be an element of that oh so American contradictions thing going on. Where they can be both maddeningly insular and wonderfully broad. Years back I was on the phone to an American lass in a consultancy role and we got to generally chatting and she said she loved my accent. She had that lovely middle class New Englandish type accent so I said I liked hers too(note, not loved. I'm not American, they're more enthusiastic a people

). Her reply worthy of a Snopes no way search was; "I'm American we don't really have accents". And this woman was nobody's fool and widely well read and educated. We had a great oul discussion about it and she quite obviously knew that there were various American accents, but she hadn't really thought about it too deeply. Even when she did it seemed she saw it as more a range of extremes from soft to harsh, with standouts like say the Bronx accent and the Southern Belle accent.

I myself remember a few times when in the States where various locals couldn't place me and offered up all sorts of options, sometimes British, Australian another, but Canadian being the most common for some reason. And I sound nothing like any of those. I generally found that if you didn't have a "commonly accepted" accent, in my case not oh begorrah, top of de mornin to me lucky charms "Irish" they were mostly lost. Canadian, with Aussie off in second place seemed to the go to origin for "native English speaking accent I can't quite place". I did find that post Live Aid Bob Geldof and Bono and the lads while they didn't often get my origin, they accepted it far more when I told them(IE not "begorrah", but still Irish). I've always found America and Americans fascinating and the accent thing has been a part of that.

Four Phucs Ache · 14-08-2017 10:57pm

I have a phrase I use all the time in a heavy London accent, although I only say it to myself upon witnessing or suffering an error by somebody , more often a work colleague.

"You stupid c**t"

Sounds deadly if you trail off before the t.

pickarooney · 14-08-2017 11:47pm

I must watch an episode of House.

donegaLroad · 14-08-2017 11:54pm

Liam28 wrote: »

Lot of people mentioning a Kerry accent here, but it is spot on to say there are several accents in Kerry. Killarney is completely different to Tralee, North Kerry different to South, West Kerry has the Gaelic twang. I met a man last week and before I know he was a Kerryman, I asked him if he was from Sneem. Wonder if this applies anywhere else. OK I know North / South Dublin are poles apart, Cork city accent is different to West Cork, same with Limerick city and county. But is there one Donegal accent, one Cavan accent, one Mayo brogue?

There are several Donegal accents, Bundoran / Ballyshannon are bordering the Sligo accent. East Donegal is Northern as in Tyrone / Derry.. Inishowen is very much Derry too. Gweedore has a Scottish influence, but is a softer accent than East Donegal. Dungloe is Daniel O'Donnell. The most difficult Donegal accent to understand is Carrigans, St. Johnston, Newtoncunningham, Raphoe, Convoy.. Ulster Scots territory.

SharpshooterTom · 15-08-2017 10:36pm

LordSutch wrote: »

Not so sure any of those on your list have an ENGLISH accent. Shane Ross slightly?

Tracy Piggott has an English accent.

Declan Ganley doesn't have any English accent?? :pac:

Have you ever heard him speak? You would think he's never left Watford.

Ipso · 15-08-2017 10:42pm

donegaLroad wrote: »

There are several Donegal accents, Bundoran / Ballyshannon are bordering the Sligo accent. East Donegal is Northern as in Tyrone / Derry.. Inishowen is very much Derry too. Gweedore has a Scottish influence, but is a softer accent than East Donegal. Dungloe is Daniel O'Donnell. The most difficult Donegal accent to understand is Carrigans, St. Johnston, Newtoncunningham, Raphoe, Convoy.. Ulster Scots territory.

What are you saying, sir!

LordSutch · 15-08-2017 10:46pm

ThomasFlynn wrote: »

Declan Ganley doesn't have any English accent?? :pac:

Have you ever heard him speak? You would think he's never left Watford.

If you say Declan Ganly has an English accent then so be it.

SharpshooterTom · 16-08-2017 12:00am

LordSutch wrote: »

If you say Declan Ganly has an English accent then so be it.

I would bet that if most Irish people heard Declan Ganley most would think he's an Englishman. His accent sounds as English as mine and even though I've been living here for nearly 17 years most people keep on asking me how long have i been on holiday here for?

bobbyss · 29-08-2017 5:48am

On a related later, isn't it strange that the impediment that people like Jonathan Ross has and some others whose names I can't recall at the moment , doesn't seem to be apparent in Ireland?

Peregrinus · 29-08-2017 6:25am

It sounds like a speech impediment to us, but actually is an extreme version of an accent feature. Ross is perfectly capable of forming the 'r' sound with his tongue placed on the ridge behind the top teeth, as you and I and all nearly Irish people do, but in fact he forms it by bringing his lower lip close to his top teeth, which is standard in Estuary English, which is his native dialect, and in quite a number of other dialects. This produces a much looser sound, and in his case it's particularly exaggerated, so it sounds to us like a 'w' sound. But in fact there's a sharp distinction between Ross's true 'w' sound - the sound he would use in a word like "woman", for example, - and the sound he makes when pronouncing his own name.

LordSutch · 29-08-2017 7:15am

You say Ross is perfectly capable of forming the 'r' sound.

So might the equivalent here be many peoples issue with the 'th' sound, and the fact that it gets lost in many words, like 'this', that, these & those, yet it pops up in other words where you wouldn't expect it, like heigth for example.

I hear many Irish people pronouncing their th's perfectly well > just not always in the right words (as those of us with 'th' sensitive ears would see it).

So what I'm asking is, might this Irish th sound (lack of) be the equivalent of the Thames estuary 'r' sound you talk about?

Peregrinus · 29-08-2017 7:40am

Something similar. Hiberno-English has a wider range of sounds than most of the dialects that prevail on our nearest offshore Island. Included in this rich diversity are values for -th- that our English neighbours lack.

Now, here's the thing about sounds that don't feature in your own dialect. Not only can you not pronounce them; frequently, you can't even hear them. Take all those Irish people who hear Jonathan Ross pronounce his own surname as "Woss". To them, the sound he makes at the start of his own name is the same as the sound he would make saying "woman". But, to Ross himself, and those who share his dialect, the two sounds are completely different. But a Hiberno-English speaker won't hear the difference.

(And this isn't confined to English. Remember all those crude racial stereotypes about Japanese speakers of English confusion -l- and -r-? That's because they genuinely find it difficult to hear the difference, which doesn't occur in Japanese. Whereas most English speakers not only can hear the difference easily; they genuinely are baffled that anyone might not hear it.)

Listen to an English performer trying to imitate an Irish accent, and saying "dis", "dat", "dese", etc. To a Hiberno-English speaker, the sound of an Englishman trying to sound Irish is very distinctive, and "dis", "dat", "dese" pretty much encapsulate the distinction. To the Englishman, this sounds close enough to a Hiberno-English pronunciation of "this", "that", "these"; to a Hiberno-English speaker, it's not remotely the same. How could he possibly think that this sounds Irish?

So, when you say "I hear many Irish people pronouncing their th's perfectly well", what you mean is that you hear them pronounce the -th- sound as, say, a southern English speaker would pronounce it. So, yes, Hiberno-English speakers can do that. It's just that, in Hiberno-English, that particular sound doesn't occur in words like "this" and "that". In most dialects in England, it does.

We've only got 26 letters in the standard alphabet, and every dialect of English contains vastly more sounds than 26. Even when you allow for combinations of letters, like -th- and -sh- and -ou-, there are still many more sounds than there are ways of representing sounds. So a lot of representations have to stand in for two or more sounds. English is famous for this, in fact (bough, bought, through, rough, cough) and the problem is even more acute in Irish where, loan-words excepted, the alphabet offers only 18 letters. So, spelling is only an approximate guide to pronunciation. "Th" in Hiberno-English represents a slightly different range of sounds than in the various dialects you'll find in England, and some of these are sounds that English-English speakers won't readily hear.

Wibbs · 29-08-2017 7:55am

Peregrinus wrote: »

And this isn't confined to English. Remember all those crude racial stereotypes about Japanese speakers of English confusion -l- and -r-? That's because they genuinely find it difficult to hear the difference, which doesn't occur in Japanese. Whereas most English speakers not only can hear the difference easily; they genuinely are baffled that anyone might not hear it.

Similar goes on with native Spanish speakers, where the English E and I sounds aren't as obvious to them. So Ship becomes "sheep" and words like peace, peas and piss can sound the same. the W and V sounds with native German speakers another one(IIRC Latin as originally spoken has a similar V/W thing going on. So while in the modern world we'd say Veni, Vidi, Vici pronouncing the V sound, they would sound more like Weni, Widi, Wici). I recall reading somewhere that this native ear for such sounds is set down pretty early in our lives and takes a lot of work to begin to hear such differences later in life.

Del.Monte · 29-08-2017 7:57am

bobbyss wrote: »

On a related later, isn't it strange that the impediment that people like Jonathan Ross has and some others whose names I can't recall at the moment , doesn't seem to be apparent in Ireland?

I had the same problem as I grew up in Bray but not being 'proper' Irish couldn't say it.

Peregrinus · 29-08-2017 8:04am

Wibbs wrote: »

Similar goes on with native Spanish speakers, where the English E and I sounds aren't as obvious to them. So Ship becomes "sheep" and words like peace, peas and piss can sound the same. the W and V sounds with native German speakers another one(IIRC Latin as originally spoken has a similar V/W thing going on. So while in the modern world we'd say Veni, Vidi, Vici pronouncing the V sound, they would sound more like Weni, Widi, Wici). I recall reading somewhere that this native ear for such sounds is set down pretty early in our lives and takes a lot of work to begin to hear such differences later in life.

Yup. Babies, as far as we can tell, hear all sounds with equal facility, and when they get to the babbling stage they can make all sounds with equal facility. But, as they acquire speech, they lose this capacity; they master the sounds that have semantic significance in the language/dialect in which they are being raised, and they lose the capacity to make, and discern, the other sounds.

Samaris · 29-08-2017 8:32am

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yup. Babies, as far as we can tell, hear all sounds with equal facility, and when they get to the babbling stage they can make all sounds with equal facility. But, as they acquire speech, they lose this capacity; they master the sounds that have semantic significance in the language/dialect in which they are being raised, and they lose the capacity to make, and discern, the other sounds.

That does likely explain the "language window", where children who, for one reason or another, are not properly exposed to speech and language at an early enough age may never learn to speak. It's most notable in so-called "wild children", children who grew up without human contact, but severely neglected children also can suffer from it. A sadly typical case was a young girl who was kept in a basement most of her short life before being rescued around the age of ten. She appeared (or was, I can't recall exactly what her condition was classified as) severely mentally retarded, but as I recall, it was an "imposed" retardation so to speak. It was just that her brain had never been able to develop in the conditions she was kept it. She learned a couple of words but while she was able to develop movements that she'd never had room to learn, she never spoke more than those few words.

Probably more the pre-language window, so to speak. Not so much the age where you can pick up other languages with facility, but the age where your brain is being shaped to recognise certain sounds.

There is some evidence that developed foetuses are already forming these distinctions between sounds while still in the womb, and it continues after birth.

Omackeral · 29-08-2017 9:23am

bobbyss wrote: »

On a related later, isn't it strange that the impediment that people like Jonathan Ross has and some others whose names I can't recall at the moment , doesn't seem to be apparent in Ireland?

There's a fella on DublinCity FM that does the traffic and it's seriously off-putting. Wanelagh and Wathmines jam packed.

Fratton Fred · 29-08-2017 9:29am

Wibbs wrote: »

Similar goes on with native Spanish speakers, where the English E and I sounds aren't as obvious to them. So Ship becomes "sheep" and words like peace, peas and piss can sound the same. the W and V sounds with native German speakers another one(IIRC Latin as originally spoken has a similar V/W thing going on. So while in the modern world we'd say Veni, Vidi, Vici pronouncing the V sound, they would sound more like Weni, Widi, Wici). I recall reading somewhere that this native ear for such sounds is set down pretty early in our lives and takes a lot of work to begin to hear such differences later in life.

I am reminded of when Silvain Wiltord joined Arsenal and upon being asked what he was looking for from English football replied "a pe-nis", or at least that's what it sounded like to the English journalists in the room.

To his French manager ( who actually clarified his statement) it came out as "Happiness".

Fratton Fred · 29-08-2017 9:48am

Peregrinus wrote: »

It sounds like a speech impediment to us, but actually is an extreme version of an accent feature. Ross is perfectly capable of forming the 'r' sound with his tongue placed on the ridge behind the top teeth, as you and I and all nearly Irish people do, but in fact he forms it by bringing his lower lip close to his top teeth, which is standard in Estuary English, which is his native dialect, and in quite a number of other dialects. This produces a much looser sound, and in his case it's particularly exaggerated, so it sounds to us like a 'w' sound. But in fact there's a sharp distinction between Ross's true 'w' sound - the sound he would use in a word like "woman", for example, - and the sound he makes when pronouncing his own name.

I know it is more a dialect thing than anything else, but how come to the majority of people born in central London (as Ross was) it would come across as some sort of impediment? Surely a dialect would be local and there would be a concentrated number of people who spoke

Another pronunciation that seems fairly obvious is the way in England the letter R is pronounced arr, whereas in Ireland, it is pronounced oar.

Peregrinus · 29-08-2017 10:13am

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I know it is more a dialect thing than anything else, but how come to the majority of people born in central London (as Ross was) it would come across as some sort of impediment? Surely a dialect would be local and there would be a concentrated number of people who spoke

Ross has Estuary English, which the experts distinguish from Cockney. He was born in central London but he grew up in Leytonstone. And, even for an speaker of Estuary English, Ross's expression of this particular characteristic is fairly pronounced.

Fratton Fred wrote: »

Another pronunciation that seems fairly obvious is the way in England the letter R is pronounced arr, whereas in Ireland, it is pronounced oar.

Aitch and haitch. Zed and zee. Ay and aa. Jay and jy. Different varieties of English having different names for some of the the letters of the alphabet is a long-established thing.

shaunr68 · 29-08-2017 10:15am

Wibbs wrote: »

Similar goes on with native Spanish speakers, where the English E and I sounds aren't as obvious to them. So Ship becomes "sheep" and words like peace, peas and piss can sound the same. the W and V sounds with native German speakers another one(IIRC Latin as originally spoken has a similar V/W thing going on. So while in the modern world we'd say Veni, Vidi, Vici pronouncing the V sound, they would sound more like Weni, Widi, Wici). I recall reading somewhere that this native ear for such sounds is set down pretty early in our lives and takes a lot of work to begin to hear such differences later in life.

Reminds me of an aspect of Operation Chariot, the Commando raid on the port of St Nazaire in 1942. Planners came up with a German-proof password: "War Weapons Week" to which the countersign was "Weymouth", ensuring that even if the Germans discovered the password they would not be able to pronounce it. Genius!

osarusan · 29-08-2017 10:18am

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yup. Babies, as far as we can tell, hear all sounds with equal facility, and when they get to the babbling stage they can make all sounds with equal facility. But, as they acquire speech, they lose this capacity; they master the sounds that have semantic significance in the language/dialect in which they are being raised, and they lose the capacity to make, and discern, the other sounds.

This is pretty much it. The older they get, the less likely they are to be able to accurately discern, and therefore store certain sounds in their brain to help with deciphering language in the future, and moreover, as they cannot hear it properly, they cannot replicate it in their own speech - rather, they will simply be approximating sounds from their own (limited) store of acquired sounds.

This 'fossilisation' of language acquisition lead to the development of the critical period hypothesis, which is that without being adequately exposed to a language before a certain age, the person will never become a 'native' speaker of that language. But these days, research is suggesting that the brain is a lot more plastic than we used to think it was, and these theories are being revisited.

Anyway, this is purely an issue with the brain, not the ear or mouth - the child of two Asian parents who have the usual 'l' and 'r' pronunciation problems will end up with perfect Irish-English pronunciation if it is adopted at an early age by two Irish people living in Ireland, for example. Sadly, there is occasionally a belief that it is an issue with the mouth, and there was a brief but horrifying trend among South Koreans of getting the lingual frenulum (stringy part on the underside of the tongue) cut in their young children, in the hope that the tongue would now be unrestricted in its accurate pronunciation of English.

Back to Johnathan Ross, I think his particular pronunciation (a labiodental approximant in place of a phoneme) is so...eh..pronounced that it is more than simply a dialectic variation though. I'd probably class it as a speech impediment.

farmchoice · 29-08-2017 10:22am

speech and accents and pronunciation really is fascinating. in my job i speak to people all day, mainly people from my locality, by and large i can now tell what part of town or what local village they live in before they tell me.
in my medium sized Irish town there are 3-4 distinct accents and a few more sub accents.

there are also generational accents, people in their 30's and 40's have a distinct accent from those in their 50's ad 60's and same again for people older than that.

Irish people with English accents

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