Accents? Help please! :)

[lovescurse]

Quick wave I'm pretty new here. I have just been lurking about reading past posts. I am in the process of writing my first novel. Most of the novel takes place in Ireland. Here is my dilemma, do I?:

A) don't actually show accent in written words but write something like "she exclaimed in a thick, Irish accent."

or

B) Or write it as one would hear the accent? like, "ye' okay then?" (ok crummy example but you get the picture, I hope.)

I have seen other novels written both ways. Which way is preferred?

Please and Thank you,

Diana :shrug

[macalicious731]

Hi Diana! Welcome to AW.

Reading phonetically written dialogue can get annoying on the reader's behalf.

Rather than just resorting to describing the accent, there are some ways to convey accents simply by the way someone talks, through dialect, syntax, etc.

I'm awful at examples, but I know someone will jump in instantly and give you one. I just want to get the ball rolling for you.

Okay, c'mon guys. Irish accents. Who's up??

[aka eraser]

Sure and I'd be willing to help were I not so bloody besotted with drink.

OK. So that wasn't so great either but it's a start. ;)

[Flawed Creation]

I have found phonetically respelling a word or two at the beginning of the character's appearance establishes the dialect and can be dropped. changing syntaz around is also good.

there is a very interesting discussion of this question in Sprague DeCamp's science fiction handbook, revised.

[lovescurse]

Ok I get it. I know Irish people say it's half past noon, instead of saying 12:30, so incorporating more dialogue like that and less Americanized (for lack of a better word). It makes sense. I agree I hate reading phonetically written dialogue. I'm a very fast reader, and it takes a double take to get through some of it. I'm pleased with the response because it makes writing the dialogue a touch easier. :) Thanks! :thumbs

[rtilryarms]

If it is a conversation, write it exactly as it sounds. use descriptive paragraphs to set it up.

If it is a reference, just describe it as the accent as you describe it.

I also read an excellent response here for a similar question which advised to start it off in the best phonetic accuracy possible to set up the feel and then transition it to contemporary. This sets up the feel of the conversation but does not lose the audience.

[lovescurse]

<<I also read an excellent response here for a similar question which advised to start it off in the best phonetic accuracy possible to set up the feel and then transition it to contemporary. This sets up the feel of the conversation but does not lose the audience.>>


So it won't confuse the readers then? And editors don't mind the switch? I thought about doing it this way as well, although obviously it would be a little bit more time consuming. :clover

[rtilryarms]

I was researching this very same question and finally came across the thread I mentioned. It had excellent examples and made sense. It worked for me. I know it is here somewhere.

No, it will not confuse the reader if you use it properly. Look around, if you don't find it I will look again.

RT

[Jamesaritchie]

Dialect is usually more important than accent, but it's perfectly okay to use a bit of phoenetically spelled accent, as long as you remember that it's like cayenne pepper. . .a very little bit goes a very long way.

And one of the best ways of learning how to do it right is to read fiction written by current Irish writers. There's plenty available, online and off.

[Gala]

Read McCourt's memoirs of his Irish childhood, and his journey to America.

I don't recall how he conveyed the dialects, so he must've done a good job.

I agree that less is more when using dialect spellings.

[Writing Again]

Joe smiled, "Hello, Grady."

"Aye, and top O' the morning to you lad." Said Grady O'Donnel.

Joe, "How are you doing today, my friend?"

"The wind be blowing at my back, Lad. And how be you this fine day?"

"I'm doing great. Hey, there is Pierre. How you doing Pierre?"

"Ahh, Monsieur, How good you are to ask. A most delectable day, no? And a most delicate breeze to stir the skirts of the fine ladies. What more could be asked."


The foregoing is probably a bit heavier than you need, and my memory of how the New York Irish speak has dimmed over the years, but I think you get the picture. The French I just winged.

All you really need are the hints. People tend to use the word order of their native tongue. Spanish speakers tend to say "More better" because it is good Spanish, not because it is bad English." You don't have to lay it on thick, just enough to give the reader the feel of someone from the country you are depicting.

[zerohour21]

My advice: If all the characters are from Ireland and they are used to how everyone speaks, then there's no need to mention any kind of accent, and while you should type the dialogue using their dialect, you do not need to draw attention to it and therefore shouldn't draw attention to the fact that it is a dialect. The reason is a matter of perspective. The Irish people don't see themselves as speaking with an accent anymore than people in any part of America or the UK or Canada would see themselves as speaking with an accent. Their accent sounds perfectly normal to their ears and is therefore no accent at all. So to mention the accent would be bad for the perspective. Now, if someone not from Ireland were to go there, then they obviously would notice an accent, so then maybe that's when you would bring up the dialect and accent outright if need be. Otherwise, though, just type the dialect as best you can, such as using the words that they use, etc. but never mention that this is what you are doing. I hope this makes sense.

As for doing the dialogue phonetically, I agree, don't do that. It gets way too annoying. For me, it slows things way down and I have to read the sentence again and again just to see what the words are supposed to be. Obviously, a little bit of this is okay, such as substituting "ye" for "you" because its easy to figure that out, and using "gonna" for "going to" etc. But when you start seriously mangling nearly every word in the sentence almost beyond recognition, that's when it gets to be a bit much.

[annied]

I agree with Zerohour. If you've established the setting in Ireland, then the reader knows that the characters are speaking as they would there. Using local expressions can add an interesting flavor to your dialogue, etc. But be careful with doing the dialogue phonetically--if your reader can't decode it, they'll lose interest quickly.

Check out Diana Gabaldon's _Outlander_ series. Her books concern 18th century Scotland, and she does a good job in conveying the Scots brogue without being "too heavy". Plus in her _The Outlandish Companion_, she talks about her research and "how she tried to get the accent right".

Slainte!
Annie :grin

[lovescurse]

<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>I agree with Zerohour. If you've established the setting in Ireland, then the reader knows that the characters are speaking as they would there. Using local expressions can add an interesting flavor to your dialogue, etc. But be careful with doing the dialogue phonetically--if your reader can't decode it, they'll lose interest quickly.<hr></blockquote>


Everyone, thank you so much. You all have really helped me out. I will check out the books mentioned and take your advice when writing. Thanks again!

Diana
<img border=0 src="http://www.absolutewrite.com/images/Emotesnoopy.gif" />

[Kempo Kid]

I'd also advise going to Irish sites and just reading posts. Like anyone else, the Irish pretty much write the way they talk.

irishabroad.com
ireland.com

There's another one, but I can't remember it offhand.

DO beware, though, of coming across with a fake "stage Irish" accent. I've been told that no one in Ireland says "top o' the mornin'" or things like that.

Also listen to a lot of Irish music. I don't know if that will help you with your project, but it's fun to listen to. :D

[Jamesaritchie]

Yeah, the only time I've ever heard anyone from Ireland say "Top o' the morning to ye" was when they were clowning around. The surest way to get it wrong is by using stereotype cliches.

But dialect and slang are extremely important. Dialect and accent are two very different things, and you have to use proper dialect. Dialect is the vocabulary, the word choice. It's the same way someone from England calls a flashlight a torch, or an elevator a lift. It isn;t a matter of drawing attention to it, it's a matter of understanding that the Irish have their own words for many things.

You have to get the cadence, the rhythm, and the proper word choice, or dialect.

Accent is what word is used, but the way that word is spoken. And some small amount of phoenetic spelling is not only acceptable, it just isn't going to sound right without it. You have to use phonetics judiciously, but using some here and there is almost a must.

Going to Irish websites and chat rooms is a good idea, as long as you remember that chats and forums aren't really the same thing as writing. But they are great places to pick up current slang and dialect.

As long as you don't lay it on too thick, links such as www.at.artslink.co.za/~ge...isha_m.htm (http://www.at.artslink.co.za/~gerry/irisha_m.htm) can be very helpful.

You just have to remember that only a small part of getting an Irishman right is the accent. Dialect and slang and rhythm and cadence make up most of writing good Irish dialogue.

[arrowqueen]

Yep. Accents, particularly ones you're not familiar with, should be used as sparingly as possible.

No harm to you, WA, but:

'Aye, and top O' the morning to you lad." Said Grady O'Donnel.

Joe, "How are you doing today, my friend?"

"The wind be blowing at my back, Lad. And how be you this fine day?"

isn't a conversation between Irishmen, it's a conversation between two wee leprechauns off a St. Patrick's Day card!

I'm afraid I've never heard anybody saying 'half past noon' either. 'Half twelve', yes, but nothing more exotic.

If you get 'Father Ted' across there, watch it. It's a hoot -and as the cast and writers are all Irish, the accents are genuine.

Best of all, if you have any Irish friends, get them on boatd as 'cultural advisors.'

Best of luck,
aq.

[Kempo Kid]

That's funny!

I thought of another possibility. If wherever you are has an Irish cultural group, an Irish dance school, or even an AOH group (Ancient Order of Hibernians), they might have some people who were born over there on the Auld Sod who might be willing to help you. A thank you in your acknowledgments and possibly a lunch might be all it'd take. (Or a Guinness or two (g,d&r) )

[aka eraser]

Father Ted is hilarious! It should be in re-runs forever. Or did they hire someone to take the place of the actor who died?

I poisoned my then-six-year old son's mind by having him chant "DRINK! FECK! ARSE!" along with me whenever the old priest was on screen.

eraser<----bad dad

[Aramas]

lol - Father Ted is a classic :)

What one must bear in mind when dealing with accents is that, unless you have actually lived in the country in question, then it's unlikely that you will have any idea what you're doing.

Most people in the modern western world are essentially television-educated, and what they mistake for knowledge is actually just an absurd collection of charicatures and clichés. Unless you're writing a Disney cartoon (in which case, may you burn in hell :) ) then please don't make an Irishman sound like a Boston leprechaun. I suspect that a lot of people are quite shocked when they travel abroad and discover that foreigners sound nothing even remotely like the way they are portrayed in American television and movies.

A common device now in use in British television is to do away with silly foreign accents altogether and use appropriate British accents to denote social status. As an example, WW2 German officers speak with Oxbridge accents, while common German soldiers use various broad, regional British working-class accents. It's surprisingly effective.

My WIP is also set in Eire, albeit in the 8th century, and I'd rather stick forks in my eyes than have one of my characters say 'Top 'o the morning' :ssh One of my 'edjumacated' characters speaks properly to his wife, but slips into a broad, generic, archaic English dialect when drinking with his friends.

A good source for hearing contemporary Irish accents is Irish television and movies. Father Ted is a bit over the top, but still worth it. Ballykissangel is terribly twee, but it does have a wide range of Irish accents and quirky characters. Don't watch anything made by Disney or Hallmark, even if it is filmed in Ireland!

[Writing Again]

Interesting, everybody noticed my example, which was one American, one Irish man, and one French, but no one noticed my advice at the bottom that went with it:

All you really need are the hints. People tend to use the word order of their native tongue. Spanish speakers tend to say "More better" because it is good Spanish, not because it is bad English." You don't have to lay it on thick, just enough to give the reader the feel of someone from the country you are depicting.

And while most had an opinion on "top o' the morning" no one seemed to notice the American and the Frenchmen were overly stereotypical as well.

I should have tossed in an Australian, "Crikey."

[arrowqueen]

Funnily enough, I got chatting to an Australian bloke and his wife at the Post Office and was quite shocked when he actually did say 'Good on yer.'

And yes, I apologise WA. I was just so gobsmacked by 'Top o' the morning' that I quite missed the bit underneath.

Cheers,
aq

[Writing Again]

I never came across the term "gobsmacked" before.

I think I'm going to adopt it. Yeppers, I'm gonna do that.

[Kempo Kid]

The opposite is also true. It's just as funny seeing British shows that try to ape American accents, unsuccessfully. Do they think we're all from either New York or Texas? :rollin

And no, we don't have cattle drives through downtown Denver anymore (the yuppies complained), and the "wild Indians" are now elected to Congress.

You still see cowboy hats in downtown Denver, but the wearer is likely to be carrying a laptop case and talking on a cell phone.

[Kempo Kid]

People in "furrin" countries don't seem to realize that there are dozens of American accents. Even after fifteen years in Denver, Coloradans still tease me about my Chicago accent (which is different again from a downstate Illinois accent).

[aka eraser]

I'm glad I'm Canadian because we don't have accents eh?

[arrowqueen]

Glad you liked it. 'Gobshite' is even better. (someone who talks a load of old rubbish.) as in the charming Irish saying.

'Ya big gobshite ye!'

Ah, the lyrical beauty of language!

Cheers,
aq

(and of course you don't have an accent. Frank! Much!)

[ChunkyC]

I'm a Canadian of Irish descent and my parents never lost their accents. The general advice in this thread is great. Word choice should be more than enough to get it across. For example, if I was taking my sweet time getting it together, my mother would say things like:

"Well, are you coming, then?"

If she thought someone was handsome (like Sean Connery), she'd say:

"He's a bit of all right, isn't he?"

It's all about word choice and colloquiallisms.

[lovescurse]

What one must bear in mind when dealing with accents is that, unless you have actually lived in the country in question, then it's unlikely that you will have any idea what you're doing

Well I don't know about that. My best friend lives in Ireland (she was born and raised there, and is 100% Irish, not like a college student or anything. :) . However she just got married, and is moving out to the U.S. So I get alot of my dialect from her. But everything everyone is telling me here helps alot. Thanks!

[Writing Again]

Went to B&N in another town today. While there I checked out the stage section to see if there were any books on writing a stage play: None.

But I came across this book: Accents, A Manual for Actors by Robert Blumenfeld. Authentic instructions on how to speak more than 100 dialects. There are two CD's to go with it. Cost $30.

I could not resist.

After only an hour or so I went off to a nearby town where no one knows me and charmed all the ladies with my "darling" accent, telling them I was from Dublin. I thought about telling them I was a wee leprechaun in disguise, but I did not think anyone would believe in a six foot leprechaun with a pony tail -- and I'm not giving up my pony tail.

An if you be knowing the truth it is great fun to be crazy.

[Aramas]

As I see it (which admittedly is somewhat less than definitive) , the danger in constructing accents (or anything else) based on another's experience and advice is that you're essentially trying to write with someone elses voice. Still, whatever works for you 8)

I take the perhaps naive and self-serving view that, as a writer, the best I can do is to tell my story with my own voice :)

[annied]

Hee, hee! Cute story, WA.:grin

There's a danger in assuming where someone's from just based on hearing the accent. People are so surprised when I tell them I was born in England and was a British citizen for 15 years...but I have an American accent. My dad was in the military and we moved all over the world, so I don't have much of a British accent. I'm not offended when people ask; I'm more concerned when they don't and make false assumptions.

One night, I was working the Reserve desk at the Virginia Tech Newman library during my college days. This guy came by to request something on folio, and we told him to come back in 15 minutes to pick it up. He had this charming accent, but we couldn't identify it. We spent the thirteen minutes (two minutes to find the folio) speculating where he came from. One of the workers dubbed him "The Charming Leprechaun", and I thought he was Austrailian. We didn't want to come across as ignorant, but we didn't want to offend him by asking.

When he came to pick up the folio, I got the courage to ask him where he was from because we'd never heard the accent before. He kinda looked at us and said, "I'm from South Africa." Then he checked out the folio and left without another word. He sounded a bit miffed, but none of us had asked him where in Ireland or Austrailia he was from.
I figured he might have heard us talking. :smack

So I've tried not to assume and ask instead.

Annie:grin

[maestrowork]

I was born in Asia, British educated, and have lived in the US for years now. I still have an accent, but nobody could place it (if they don't know my race).

Accents and speech patterns are different things. You can have an accent and speak perfect English. All you have to do, sometimes, is to say: He speaks with a British accent, and your readers will get the idea. Here and there, if you inject a little colloquialisms, you'll do fine.

[Writing Again]

I saw a guy who looked oriental, spoke Japanese into a cell phone: Spoke with an accent that was not quite Japanese: who walked, talked, held himself, even when relaxed; Like anyone born and raised in the United States. I've never seen a Japanese person born and raised here who had an accent.

So I asked, "I hear a Japanese but I see an American. What happened?"

His mother was a Japanese nurse working in Vietnam when she met his father, an American soldier who spoke both Japanese and Vietnamese. He lived in Vietnam, Japan, Korean, and now the U.S. He said he loved his father and had always copied everything he did.

He was proud I saw an American, even though he had not perfected the accent.

[lovescurse]

After only an hour or so I went off to a nearby town where no one knows me and charmed all the ladies with my "darling" accent, telling them I was from Dublin. I thought about telling them I was a wee leprechaun in disguise, but I did not think anyone would believe in a six foot leprechaun with a pony tail -- and I'm not giving up my pony tail.



LOL That is funny! Good for you, I am defintely going to pick up that book just to see how and if anything differs from my friend. I think I will just show the dialect and not worry about typing phoentically. That book/CD sounds awesome. Thanks for telling me about it! :)

Diana

[Writing Again]

The book also points out that there is a northern Irish accent and a southern Irish accent and both a Dublin accent and an inner Dublin accent.

It also directs you to movies and books that have good examples of Irish accents that are not OTT ( over the top) which would surely help you.

[Writing Again]

I went back and edited my post.

It is BlumenFELD not Blumenf(i)eld as I originally posted.

Sorry.

[arrowqueen]

I remember laughing my socks of at some programme about accents.

The bloke said that Scots had obviously invented time travel because of our habit of saying things like: 'Well, that's me away up the road then.' while still sitting on the couch.

Cheers,
aq

[katdad]

It's very difficult to write dialect and most writers do not recommend it.

Your choice "A" is the best, but you must ask yourself "Why do I need to tell the reader that the person has an Irish accent?"

You don't. But if the person is for example a Highlander, then you might briefly say that "Ian spoke with a thick Highlands brogue" to indicate that the guy was from "the sticks".

You may of course use contractions and a bit of slang, like:

He waved the thick rebar in my face. "Ya gonna git it for sure, Pally Boy!"

[Kempo Kid]

>>When he came to pick up the folio, I got the courage to ask him where he was from because we'd never heard the accent before. He kinda looked at us and said, "I'm from South Africa." Then he checked out the folio and left without another word. He sounded a bit miffed, but none of us had asked him where in Ireland or Austrailia he was from.<<

I had an almost identical experience when I first joined my martial arts school. I joined with a friend from work, and the sensei had an accent that we couldn't figure out. Not British, not Irish, not Australian, certainly not Canadian. Finally we gave up and asked him and found out he was from South Africa. He wasn't miffed, though, but rather amused.

I'm in the middle of a science fiction convention this weekend. (I'm going home at night because I can't afford a hotel room.) The GoH is Charles DeLint. I really don't hear a lot of Canadian accent when he talks except when he says things like "aboot," instead of the American "about."

A lot of people don't realize that Chicago has several accents. When I first moved to Chicago, my boyfriend and I moved into a heavily Jewish neighborhood. After a while, people outside the neighborhood kept asking if I was Jewish, which mystified me. I'm Irish, and while I don't have the stereotypical red hair and freckles, as far as I'm concerned I look Irish. I finally figured out that I had absorbed the Jewish accent just from living there. It's what I heard all the time, and I unconsciously picked it up.

And all my life I've had people asking me if I was from Ireland. I still can't explain that. Although I think the Jewish accent faded in time, I still have a noticeable Chicago accent.