#rhotic discourse

[saintbleeding]

I understand your pain when it comes two conflating TMA characters. I think up until very close to actually meeting them I thought Gerry and Jared were the same person 💀. I don’t even have an excuse it was literally just the name.

anon you’ve just unlocked the tale of A Fuckin Discourse that occurred in a discord server I’m in early last year

see there’s this one bit in mag 102 where jon refers to (imo) “gerard”, and elias responds “gerard keay?” but pronounces with the emphasis on the second syllable, whereas jon’s been pronouncing it with the emphasis on the first, which, in a non-rhotic (ie, wouldn’t pronounce the R in hard) accent, does sound VERY similar to “jared”. however, to speakers with non-rhotic accents in the server (an english person and an australian person both sent voice memos attempting to demonstrate), jared and gerard have distinct vowel sounds in their first syllables.

BUT, coming from people WITH rhotic accents (ie. WOULD pronounce the R in hard) (a canadian sent a voice memo, and an american had Very Strong Opinions), they sound a lot more similar, and presumably therefore the distinction specifically in jon’s voice sounds less noticeable.

so basically, especially if you happen to be someone with a rhotic accent, that’s a very understandable misapprehension, and my friends and i argued on basically that topic over multiple days one time

#asks #anon

[inquisitiveheretic]

ACCENT DISCOURSE UGHH!!!! if british accent was his intro to english, that would make a lot of sense (not only geographically and culturally but also phonetically) bc he talks like no other ESL person i’ve ever heard and the people i know all learned standard american accented english. Like he just is so heavy on his o and a vowels. I guess it’s a natural carry over from Danish too bc to my ears, they put the stress on those vowels a lot which is where that distinctive language sound comes from. You hear Danish and KNOW it’s Danish lol

i know he learned british english in school pretty much as a fact, since that's how my father learned it (and cuz it just makes sense, its europe)

but also: yeah, the vowel sets used in english & danish are not the same, so when he switches it's more of a conscious effort. the wide "a" sound is very american (as is just .. the wider mouth position in general). he definitely goes the extra mile with the plosives as well, cuz danish tends to soften them, especially the hard "r" (NOT a natural sound in scandinavian languages); californian accents are rhotic (which, fun fact, likely is due to the migration of southern farmers into california during the dust bowl), so it's definitely being reinforced.

what makes danish distinctive is stød, which is the guttural, base-of-the-throat sound ! it's laryngeal; aka they're essentially speaking from the back of the throat – which you can hear that lars does, though to an increasingly lesser extent as time passes

#sorry this is one of my Things. i am a nerd #as a swedish speaker i can say (lovingly) that danish sounds dumb as hell. like they got marbles in their mouth #also most esl speakers in america learn english by living here so obviously classroom education builds a different approach to language. #he didn't have to 'survival learn' it he just had to get used to it #lars ulrich #larsmybeloved #asks #tallica.txt

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Occasionally, when I travel to England I have a hard time understanding a person's accent.  Granted, I speak Californian, but I was wondering do you ever have a difficult time understanding a person with an American accent ? Thanks

Actually I don’t for the simple reason of how deeply embedded American popular culture is through the film and television shows that one can’t avoid. But speaking for myself I am well traveled and I have been in quite a few parts of the United States for work or vacation reasons - genuinely admire the genius of the American Founders (they were educated as English gentlemen and some were even educated as Classicists) and the landscapes are breath taking.

I love the cosmopolitan flavours of New York and the down to earth humour of New Yorkers themselves; I am charmed by the preservation of civility and manners of the South; I respect the indivudual and community frontier spirit of those in the Mid West. But I have to confess California remains a mystery to me. I know not everyone speaks like a stoned Keanu Reeves but I find it far too laid back for my tastes. That is not to say I don’t understand the way they speak because I do by virtue of having friends from there. The only time I had difficulty understanding anyone was in Boston when I went to give an academic paper there at Harvard. I just found the Boston accent terribly hard to follow.

This is ironic when you really think about the issue of English and the origin of American English began in New England.

The first English people to colonise the land that would become the United States came over in 1607, and they brought the English language (and accent) with them to New England. So most of us can picture the idea of the original Pilgrims talking like Benedict Cumberbatch only to have their future descendants talk like Keanu Reeves.

Except it’s not true.

Afew years ago I had a friend who was a Shakespearian scholar at Cambridge where we both studied and he surprised me once over dinner. He told me that the modern American accent is a lot closer to how English used to be spoken than the British accent is.

The main difference between the British accent and the American one is rhoticity, or how a language pronounces its "Rs." What you might think of as standard American (or "newscaster voice") is a rhotic accent, which basically means "R" is enunciated, while the non-rhotic, stereotypical English accent drops the "R" pronunciation in words like "butter" and "corgi".

Of course, there are a few American accents that drop the "R," too — Bostonians "pahking the cah in Hahvahd Yahd," for example, or a waitress in the South who calls you "Suga.'" And some accents in Northern England, Ireland, and Scotland retain their "Rs" as well.

But Americans didn't find a treasure trove of Rs in their new country.

Instead, British speakers willingly lost theirs. This is where it gets interesting.

Around the time of the Industrial Revolution, many formerly lower-class British people began to find themselves with a great deal of money, but a voice that instantly marked them as a commoner. In order to distinguish themselves from their lowlier roots, this new class of English gentlemen developed their own posh way of speaking. And eventually, it caught on throughout the country.

It's called "received pronunciation," and it even influenced the speech patterns of many other English dialects — the Cockney accent, for example, is just as non-rhotic but a lot less hoity-toity.

Meanwhile, English-speakers in the United States, for the most part, did not change with the times and kept the Rs in their speech.

Although pronunciation has changed on both sides of the Atlantic, some Americans began claiming that their particular regional dialect is actually the original English pronunciation, preserved for all time in a remote pocket of the country. Unfortunately, most of these claims don't really pan out. Indeed sholars now believe many have tis idiosyncratic speech as a result of isolation instead. One popular candidate is the Appalachian accent, which is distinguished by some archaic words such as "afeared," but otherwise doesn't seem to have much connection to the language of Shakespeare.

But on the topic of English speakers making a conscious choice to drop their Rs, there was an interesting blip in linguistic history around the time that radio became popular.

Like received pronunciation, the ‘Mid-Atlantic or Transatlantic Accent’ was deliberately invented to serve a purpose. You almost certainly don't know anybody who speaks it, but you've definitely heard it before. It's the voice of Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, and Pierce Brosnan (Bahnd, James Bahnd).

In the Transatlantic accent the Rs are dropped, the Ts are articulated, the vowels all softened to an erudite drawl. It's also an ambiguous combination of the British and American accents.

Taken together, all of the factors made it the perfect voice for broadcasting at the time. The unique pronunciation was easy to understand even on early audio equipment with poor bass frequencies and could appeal to listeners in multiple English-speaking countries. But it fell out of favor after World War II, and one of the first accents to be immortalised on audio recording was consigned to another piece of wartime nostalgia. Today it’s confined to British film stars who make their living in the US.

As an aside when I was a small child growing up in India my parents insisted we enunciated properly and spoke clearly that was the Queen’s English. And that is indeed how I speak to this day but I was helped by the surrounding Indian culture because they also spoke the Queen’s English. This was simply because they retained the English language textbooks from the days of the British Empire (even to this day). 

The rich irony wasn’t lost on me when I had a hard time going back to England because - outside of my boarding school environment and social circles - I just couldn’t always understand the many commoner regional accents in England that were now coming back in vogue. It’s everywhere now especially on the BBC. So in effect it is Indians (and Pakistanis) who are preserving what we have been burying for some decades now. I remember how shocked my well educated friends from India or Pakistan who came to study at Cambridge or Oxford to find the way they spoke naturally with the Queen’s English was now considered a quaint anachronism in this Age of championing regional diversity.

I think the erosion of the Queen’s English is a travesty as well as a tragedy. To speak ‘proper’ English is considered elitist and privileged. To me it’s just a sign of civilised discourse. Of course there is a place for regional accents and they should be preserved because it is part of the tapestry of our culture but I fear it has been at the expense of clarity of speech and the coherence of thought.

Thanks for your question.

#question #language #english #american #linguistics #accents #regonalism #queen's english

[polygondotcomvideoproducer]

Sure you have rhotic rs but your rs come from the front of your mouth like everyone else 🙄 American/Canadian accents got that bunched tongue back of the throat style r

Don't u fuckin dictate to me how I form an r

#are we doing anon hate over rhotic rs. is this the point we're at on this blog #rhotic discourse #/j I'm sure it wasn't meant in a hostile way #personal #I also genuinely wasn't sure how I did it so I have just been sitting at my desk saying ''horror'' over and over #in a bunch of different ways just checking how I do it #I... I think it's still coming from the back of the throat? #currently sucking on a werther's original so it may have skewed the data #the r feels different from the rr #in ''horror'' specifically #anon feel free to come back and tell me what ur experience w scottish accents is #bc I've been trying out a few words ending in r and yeah it's coming from the back #so I'm legit curious now where ur perception is coming from #are u scottish? do u talk to a lot of scottish people? have u only encountered scottish people in media? #let's talk about this anon let's make this a learning experience #obsessed w the phrasing of ''like everyone else 🙄'' it's got a weird energy to it #''ugh ur JUST like all those other girls'' #cannot stress enough that this is all /lh

[obfuscobble]

Consonantal sounds in order of my favour, the nerdiest post I have yet made:

FAVOURITES

1. [ɬ] voiceless alveolar lateral fricative.  I feel personally attacked by Láadan where ɬ is used as a suffix to denote disgust or evil intent because “I find it to be an ugly sound.” *  I find this to be one of the most beautiful and delicate of sounds, although it can get slushy.  I don’t see why people fawn over [θ] as an exotic fricative when this [ɬ] is a possibility.  Oh wait, yes I do: [θ] is standard in English.

2. [!] tenuis alveolar click.  The king of all clicks, its bold roundness fills the mouth before bursting forth.  Also fine voiced or nasalised, but classic is best by me.  Making this sound feels like taking ownership of one’s mouth, especially when followed by [o] or [a].

3.  [ɾ] / [ɾ̠] alveolar / post-alveolar flap. Like a tiny bird flying forth with each tap.  Simultaneously common yet elusive, as a few widely-spoken languages use it as an allophone.

4. [n] alveolar nasal.  Old, near standard, time-tested, yet beautiful in its sonorant simplicity and comforting richness.

5. [k] voiceless velar plosive.  Punchy and dependable, without being too harsh.  A solid and feisty sound.

6. [t͡ɕ] voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate.  It’s so much more dainty than [t͡ʃ].  Mwah, like a candy.

7. [ʝ] voiced palatal fricative.  I’ve been told I make this sound when I am caught off-guard or truly frightened.  Mind, I also make it alongside vowels just to feel its mellifluous yet sharp vibration.

8. [ɸ] voiceless bilabial fricative.  The fluffiest of sounds, like the consonantal equivalent of vicuña hair or otter down.

9. [ʒ] voiced palato-alveolar sibilant.  I’m sure I just like this because of growing up alongside French, but it just sounds sumptuous and inviting.

10. [ŋ] velar nasal.  Really can’t express the charm of this nasal, but it simply sounds lovely and charismatic after just about every vowel, and cute in front.

11. [t] voiceless alveolar stop and [s] voiceless alveolar sibilant.  These sounds are a workhorse and they deserve their due acclaim.  You wouldn’t think “oh yes, let’s put the bog-common [t] on a great sounds list, and let’s celebrate that hissy peasant [s]” but here we are and these we are lauding.

*(Quoting from when I e-mailed Elgin in college; she was still an intelligent and kind and overall swell lady and I wish no enmity on her memory.)

LEAST FAVOURITE Note I am not denigrating any language that uses these; I’m simply describing mouthfeel as I articulate.  Presented in ascending order of dislike.

-1. [ɡ͡b] voiced labio-velar stop.  Because I’m a weenie who can’t pronounce it well yet without overly stressing the g and I’m mad at myself and feel like every Gbe speaker is judging me for trying and failing so hard.  I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.

-2. [ɥ] labialized palatal approximant.  It’s like a pretentious [w] and I say that as a person prone to pretension.

-3. [f] voiceless labiodental fricative.  Your teeth usually show when making this sound, and it’s not as fluffy as [ɸ], so basically an embarrassment.

-4. [ʘ] bilabial click.  The worst of the clicks.  It’s not a kissy-sound, more of a popping.  I can’t forgive it for being a bad click.

-5. [ħ] voiceless pharangeal fricative.  It’s not quite [h] and whenever I make it, I feel like I’m just about to transform into a person eager to tell others my opinion of ethics in games journalism.

-6. [pʰ] aspirated voiceless bilabial stop.  People say [kʰ] is harsh but free me from the yoke of [pʰ] because it sounds violent and vulgar to me.

-7. [qʰ] But I mean I think we can all agree this is worse.

-8 [ɧ] This symbol* exists solely to perpetuate The Discourse™ and is not helpful in any way.

-9. [θ] voiceless dental fricative. SUCH A PRIMADONNA.  Hey, wanna make a language sound erudite, delicate, yet approachably alien in your fantasy?  Just add in some [θ], you lazy hack writer.  We all know you’re aping Tolkien, but unlike him, you’re not basing your usage on Celtic languages.  You’re just using [θ] because it’s one of the rarest sounds still found in English and it “sounds prettier” then [s].  Yeah I see you and I’m calling you out.  [ð] is fine though; most people who use this seem to know what they’re doing.  I mean sure, if [θ] is simply part of your conlang’s phonology, because you’ve put work into it and can show me a usable grammar as well, okay.  But we all know what I’m talking about.  We all know, Thalânruil Oréthos, son of Goldendew.

-10. [ɹ̠] postalveolar approximant.  If there’s a consonant that I want to kick in the crotch, it’s this one.  I know you just read about my relationship with [θ] but [ɹ̠] kind of feels like a creeping crud, especially when substituted for other rhotics by English speakers trying to say foreign words.  I don’t expect everyone to be able to pronounce foreign rhotics but still [ɹ̠] feels like “global imperialism : the sound.”

*Swedish followers, I love you, but arguments over how to realise the /sj/ sound drive me to madness.

#linguistics #i am a dork it's true

[iparler]

Beijing dialect

Beijing vernacular has a place with Beijing Mandarin dialect. It is prominent in focus of Beijing City. A few people respected the Beijing vernacular, or Beijing tongue of Mandarin emphasize as “Jing Pian Zi”. Beijing vernacular more often than not alludes to the emphasize the urban zone of Beijing, barring the Beijing tongue of rural districts. Standard Chinese language (Mandarin) depends on Beijing tongue. By and by, there are sure contrasts between Beijing vernacular and Mandarin. Relatively talking with the Mandarin, the Beijing vernacular is additionally a lingo. Beijing vernacular is the nearest dialect to the Mandarin lingo.

Beijing vernacular is very engaging. Voyagers from different zones by and large make dissension that they infrequently realize what Beijing neighborhood individuals discussed. Beijing neighborhood individuals talk rapidly utilizing various everyday words and expressions. Despite the fact that the Beijing vernacular and Standard Chinese are very comparable, an assortment of refinements clarifies to Chinese speakers whether a man is hugely nearby of Beijing talking the neighborhood Beijing variation or is unquestionably a man imparting in Standard Chinese. Beijing tongue distinctively uses a few words and expressions which is normally viewed as slang, and along these lines seem significantly less or not in the least in Standard Chinese. Individuals probably not nearby to Beijing here and there have issues knowing a few or the more significant part of these.

What takes after is a rundown of informal articulations of Beijing, which can give you incredible help:

bié Jie — don’t (Normally utilized while dismissing some help or good manners from dear companions)

bèir —, particularly (alluding to way or trait)

diār le — to leave; to flee

cuō huǒr — to be furious

zhé — path (to accomplish something)

sóng/niār — no spine, spiritless

sa ya zi — to give up on feet, to go, clear out.

èr bǎ dāo — a man with restricted capacities, clumsy person

xiāo ting — to at last and fortunately turn out to be peaceful and quiet

Highlights of Beijing tongue

Beijing vernacular is the nearest dialect to the Mandarin tongue. A considerable lot of such slang words utilize the rhotic postfix - r significantly more than Mandarin. All rhotic vowels are the consequence of the utilization of the - 儿/ - ɻ/, a thing postfix, aside from a couple of words articulated/ɑɻ/that don’t have this addition. The Beijing vernacular is milder contrasted and Mandarin. What’s more, there are a significant number of nearby words. The old Beijing inhabitants keep more nearby words. Numerous Beijingers themselves depict the Beijing vernacular with “Pi”, which implies rabble in Chinese. Illustrations include:

kōumér – niggardly, stingy (might be utilized even outside Beijing)

qíxiǎor – since a youthful age

tàocír – to hurl into the circle; utilized of b-ball

Moreover, Beijing tongue has extensive slur discourse sound changes, which we, for the most part, called “syllable combination”. For instance, in quick discourse, starting consonants experience lenition on the off chance that they are in an unstressed syllable so bùzhīdào (“don’t have the foggiest idea”) can seem like bùrdào.

#beijing dialect #Chinese language