Let's Be Culture Shocked--Differences in Dialects, Culture, & History

Quentin Nokov said:

I hear people dropping the 'g' in 'ing'-words a lot around here. The 1st time I heard the word 'stoop' it was on Hey Arnold! Lol. We actually don't have very many corner delis where I am. We have one butcher shop that I'm aware of that will sell sliced meats. The other deli where I go is inside the supermarket.

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Bodegas don't necessarily sell deli food; they're just little convenience stores. Some of them sell food, some don't. A lot of them have cats, known as the Bodega Cat.

Quentin Nokov said:

I've seen 'turned around and said', but never in the context of someone disagreeing or trying to thwart another person. Whenever I've seen 'turned around and said', the people literally, physically, turn around to look the other person in the eye. That's a really interesting SE England uses the phrase in a metaphorically belligerent-way.

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I think the origin of it probably is the thing of literally turning around and looking someone in the eye (in an assertive or confrontational way) but it's non-literal use is extremely common over here.

I read somewhere once that the /th/ sound is only found in English, Greek, and Icelandic (someone correct me if I'm wrong) And that roughly 80% of Irish cannot pronounce the /th/, although they're English-speaking. Maybe because they have Gaelic roots? But Irish tend to only pronounce the /t/. Thirty-three = tirty-tree. And I totally had to look up snicket and ginnel; I've never heard anyone use those words in New York!

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It's definitely not correct, because Arabic has a /th/ sound. It has the voiced version (like the English word "this") and the unvoiced one (like in "thin") and they have two different letters in Arabic (tha' and dhal (Arabic transliteration uses /dh/ to represent the voiced /th/ like in "this")

I'd imagine it's in plenty of other languages as well, and what you've read only refers to European languages. The source it came from might actually have implied it was referring to all languages, because of being ethnocentric (the source, not you!), i.e. Europe is the whole world kind of attitude. Whoever said that may even have just been referring to western European languages - I wouldn't want to even say that no other European languages have /th/ without checking with one of my multi-lingual Polish (or other Eastern European country) colleagues.

I think it is quite common for this sound to be lost in dialect though. Some Arabic dialects pronounce the letter tha' as ta... for example Arabic for 3 is "theletha" and in some dialects it gets pronounced "teleta" and dhal in some dialects gets pronounced as /zal/ - this is not true in every dialect though and Arabs learn standard Arabic in school, which includes learning to pronounce the sounds the standard way (especially for reciting the Qur'an if they're Muslim)

In London and Estuary, "th" gets pronounced as /f/ - this is widespread and it's even in cockney rhyming slang, for example "You're 'avin' a bubble" = you're having a laugh (joking) because bubble bath = laugh. These rhyme in cockney, hence their use in rhyming slang. As in bath is pronounced baaf (long aa of southern England).

With Irish, it's not just that the /th/ sound isnt in Irish, it's also that the Irish dialects of English pronounce "th" as /t/ (or at least not in the Republic of Ireland - I'm not sure about Northern Ireland, and the whole "tirty tree and a turd" (33.333333) thing is a Republic of Ireland accent thing... a tired joke of English people who ask Irish friends to say "33 1/3" just to hear them say "turd"). It's not a case that Irish people are trying to say the sound but can't. It's a case that in their dialect of English, "th" is pronounced /t/. Many Londoners would say "fir'y free an' a fird".

I hear people dropping the 'g' in 'ing'-words a lot around here. The 1st time I heard the word 'stoop' it was on Hey Arnold! Lol. We actually don't have very many corner delis where I am. We have one butcher shop that I'm aware of that will sell sliced meats. The other deli where I go is inside the supermarket.

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That happens in lots of regional/working class British accents, including London. I can't give you a complete list because I'm not really qualified to comment on accents north of the Watford Gap. But definitely in Southern accents (SE and SW).

Something that happens in some London accents (e.g. cockney but not only cockney) is adding k to the end of ing, e.g. pronouncing "something" as "somefink" or "summink" This doesn't always happen and it depends on the word, because "you're 'avin' a bubble" - the g gets dropped from the ing but "let me tell you somefink" the k gets added. I've never heard a k added to "having" or "going" - it might be just something, nothing, etc kind of words.

Up north it becomes T, e.g. something is said "sommat". I associated this with Yorkshire but maybe someone from up North can be more specific about where up North this gets said (sorry I can't be more specific - it's North of the Watford Gap).


Here's something else... what Americans consider to be "talking like a pirate" is really similar to a broad West Country accent, i.e. SW England rural accent, that is found in Devon, Cornwall, etc. Americans associate this accent with pirates - we associated it with combine harvisters (comboin arrrrr-vistarrrrs) and cider (soid-arrrrr) - it's one of the few English accents that pronounces the /r/ in r-controlled vowels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb63PdPweDc - comedy band that's based entirely on stereotypes of the West Country. You can hear the accent and see the entire stereotype from this band.

neandermagnon said:

Here's something else... what Americans consider to be "talking like a pirate" is really similar to a broad West Country accent, i.e. SW England rural accent, that is found in Devon, Cornwall, etc. Americans associate this accent with pirates - we associated it with combine harvisters (comboin arrrrr-vistarrrrs) and cider (soid-arrrrr) - it's one of the few English accents that pronounces the /r/ in r-controlled vowels. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb63PdPweDc - comedy band that's based entirely on stereotypes of the West Country. You can hear the accent and see the entire stereotype from this band.

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Is that not because of Robert Newton in Treasure Island? Or is that yet another bit of tripe from QI?

Helix said:

Is that not because of Robert Newton in Treasure Island? Or is that yet another bit of tripe from QI?

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No idea. It's a reasonable explanation though.

I sometimes wonder whether any Americans have gone on holiday to the West Country and then thought "people here talk like pirates!"

ETA: Wikipedia suggests he is the explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Newton

Hey, dropping in from the other side of the world (Australia) with some observations from the outside.

I've often mistaken American accents with German Accented English a lot. An interesting thing a German backpacker told me was that American accent has an unusual quality: "They speak as if they have a stone in their mouths". Which is true! The sound is very rounded.

It's interesting when Americans start to lose their accent after being out of the country for a while, and become a little halfway here nor there. It softens up a lot.

There are some variations on the Australian accent, The "northern" accent which is popularised by Steve Irwin and to a smaller extent by Crocodile Dundee (Paul Hogan's accent isn't quite as broad) is the most well known but is the equivalent of the "redneck drawl".

Down south in the major cities the accent can change from place to place - my private school friend speaks the "posh" almost "Queen's English" variant, whereas I've picked up what is colloquially called "wog Aussie" influenced a lot by European migrants in the 50s, an almost Bronxy kind of patter.

Steve Irwin's accent isn't 'northern': he was a Victorian. He just boganed it up for the punters. I can't think of anyone who speaks like that unless they're putting it on. Mostly everyone talks a bit slower than in the cities, are indiscriminate in their use of 'mate', and are very, very funny in a dry and understated way.

Some formal vocabulary:

Accent — words have accents

Dialect — groups of people have dialects, often associated with a time and place, and distinguished by pronunciation, vocabulary and syntax.

Idiolect — an individual's personal language choices and usage

Register — a subset of language usage associated with social class and / or level of formality used in a specific socio-cultural setting

Code-switching — Many people are comfortable with multiple dialects of a given language, or multipe languages, and can switch between them at need/will

Sunflowerrei said:

Particularly New York City-ish words:
stoop--from Dutch. Basically, the front steps to your apartment building.

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Fascinating. I didn't know this. But I lived in New Orleans for several years, and "stoop-sitting" was a common activity and common parlance there. The eastern suburbs of Da Big Easy (Ninth Ward, Chalmette) were settled originally by people from Brooklyn and surroundings, and the local accents there are very Newyawkish, far from "southern".

caw

neandermagnon said:

No idea. It's a reasonable explanation though.

I sometimes wonder whether any Americans have gone on holiday to the West Country and then thought "people here talk like pirates!"

ETA: Wikipedia suggests he is the explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Newton

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Weren't Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh from Devon? As well as many other seafarers, good and bad? Perhaps that's why Robert Newton was picked for the role? He did, indeed 'sound like a pirate'?

neandermagnon said:

One expression that I find interesting... "and then ..... turned round and said" (or turned around and said).
(snip)
I associate it with SE England and think it's probably cockney in origin and has got into other accents from there. It definitely sounds working class and I've never heard anyone posh say it. It's not a literal turning around, but a metaphorical one. The expression's used when someone disagrees with you or says something that somehow thwarts what you're trying to do. .

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West Coast Canada, and that's how I've heard it used here: as an indication of minor verbal belligerence, or at least a change in the tone of the conversation.
"I told him I wouldn't work Fridays and he turns round and tells me I'm fired!"
"I told him I never wanted to see him again, and he turns round and gives me flowers!"

Sunflowerrei said:

Bodegas don't necessarily sell deli food; they're just little convenience stores. Some of them sell food, some don't. A lot of them have cats, known as the Bodega Cat.

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Here, we used to call them 'Chinese' stores, after the people that ran most of them. Little corner stores. Now, with more ethnic groups starting up small businesses, they're just 'corner stores', or, locally, called by it's name.

"Bodega" isn't quite as universal. I've heard it used more out on the east coast, primarily in New York and Pennsylvania. Where I live (St. Paul, Minnesota), they're called "convenience stores", "mom & pop shop", or "inconvenience stores" (great they're so nearby but they're so horribly expensive).

AW Admin said:

Register — a subset of language usage associated with social class and / or level of formality used in a specific socio-cultural setting

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I'm not disagreeing with any of the definitions above (and what's more you know way more about linguistics than I do), but in the UK the difference in speech between working class (regional dialects) and posh people (RP, which probably started as a regional dialect) is dialect.

For centuries the wealthy associated with the wealthy and disassociated themselves from the commoners. Not mixing led to them evolving separate dialects. The association of a particular dialect/set of dialects (generally called RP) with prestige and social class is the result of social snobbery, as it was the dialect of the rich and powerful and dialect became a major signifier of social class.

RP's the official term. Working class people call it "talking posh" or "plummy accent" (terms will vary by region).


Regarding register - this exists too of course, but it isn't the same as a UK working class person putting on an RP accent to try and sound middle class. Unless someone's a really good actor, they can't pull this off convincingly anyway. Or they pull it off for a short time then revert back to their natural accent. It would be like someone from New York trying to convince people they were from California through trying to adopt the accent/dialect.

As I understand it, the difference between accent and dialect is that an accent involves only how you pronounce your words and dialect involves vocabulary and grammar that is specific to the region in question, for example, in Dudley (near Birmingham) people say "am you" and "you am" e.g. "Am you from London?" or in Liverpool "boss" means "great" and "scally" means "reprobate" but they're not used outside of those regions.

Example:

Cockney dialect: "the old bill nicked some dodgy geezer outside a rubber down Elephant"

Standard British English equivalent: "the police arrested a man acting suspiciously outside a pub in Elephant and Castle" - but if a Cockney read this, it would still be read in a Cockney accent. A Geordie would read it in a Geordie accent, a Glaswegian in a Glaswegian accent, etc. And it can also be read in an RP accent.

IMO the term "standard British English" should only apply to vocab and grammar, not accent, because there is no standard UK accent and to say RP is the standard one is pure snobbery. Even the BBC has moved away from this (newsreaders have to use standard grammar and vocab but no longer have to have an RP accent). That is my opinion on how it should be, but probably doesn't reflect how the term "standard British English" is currently used.


ETA: regarding class-specific dialects, I don't know how much this is true outside the UK and I'm only speaking for the UK and I'm not saying any of the definitions in the post I quoted are incorrect.

frimble3 said:

West Coast Canada, and that's how I've heard it used here: as an indication of minor verbal belligerence, or at least a change in the tone of the conversation.
"I told him I wouldn't work Fridays and he turns round and tells me I'm fired!"
"I told him I never wanted to see him again, and he turns round and gives me flowers!"

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That's really interesting. Both of the above examples are how they would be said over here too.

frimble3 said:

Weren't Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh from Devon? As well as many other seafarers, good and bad? Perhaps that's why Robert Newton was picked for the role? He did, indeed 'sound like a pirate'?

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Yeah but if they were upper class they wouldn't have spoken in a West Country accent. They would've spoken in the accent of the wealthy classes. The West Country accent is the accent of the poor in the region - mainly farmers as its traditionally very rural.

There is a history of smuggling in the South West though, and major ports in the region such as Plymouth. There probably was a historical association between this accent and shipping before the particular actor was chosen.

ETA: as pirates are criminals, the association between poor, working class accents (as opposed to upper class people and their legalised version of piracy and worse*) and pirates and smugglers in SW England ports probably also was a contributing factor. It could very well have already been a stereotype. But the prevalent, modern stereotypes of the West Country involve farming. Like tractorrrrs and combine 'arrrvistarrrs.

*all the terrible things that the British Empire did which goes way beyond piracy/pillaging. But they made the laws while working class people were thrown in jail for stealing so much as a loaf of bread.

neandermagnon said:

I'm not disagreeing with any of the definitions above (and what's more you know way more about linguistics than I do), but in the UK the difference in speech between working class (regional dialects) and posh people (RP, which probably started as a regional dialect) is dialect..

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That is dialect. However, if you're discussing the footie game in RP with your peers, you're likely to be using a different register when you commiserate with a stranger about the death of a loved one, even in RP.

Even in RP, there's casual and formal differentiations; those are registers. (My first linguistics classes were in the UK; in Derby).

Are the 'traditional' divisions of Australian English into broad, general and cultivated varieties accent, register, dialect, or a little of each? My feeling is the difference is mostly just in accent now. People with broad accents don't really pepper their speech with elaborate colloquialisms any more, like they may have 50 years ago. And those with the 'cultivated' accent all sound like they're from Adelaide, but there aren't any real dialectical differences as far as I can hear.

I like the word idolect. I think I have an idiolect. It would explain why kids in school used to make me say 'bag' over and over again. I never got the joke.

Albedo said:

I like the word idolect.

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I initially read that as "idiotlect" and immediately thought, yep, I know a few people like that.

neandermagnon said:

With Irish, it's not just that the /th/ sound isnt in Irish, it's also that the Irish dialects of English pronounce "th" as /t/ (or at least not in the Republic of Ireland - I'm not sure about Northern Ireland, and the whole "tirty tree and a turd" (33.333333) thing is a Republic of Ireland accent thing... a tired joke of English people who ask Irish friends to say "33 1/3" just to hear them say "turd"). It's not a case that Irish people are trying to say the sound but can't. It's a case that in their dialect of English, "th" is pronounced /t/. .

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In Irish (Gaelic) there's a thing called lenition (this is a kind of mutation), where the spelling of a word can change based on syntax; t lenites to th, but the h is just a signal that "this word is in the genitive," for instance, and it isn't pronounced (some mutations are pronounced).

On the th as f thing; this is called th-fronting, and it's a known phenomena in terms of looking at linguistic drift.

neandermagnon said:

There is a history of smuggling in the South West though, and major ports in the region such as Plymouth. There probably was a historical association between this accent and shipping before the particular actor was chosen.

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In the late 1400s Dartmouth was so well-known/notorious in terms of piracy that Chaucer makes snarky comments about it in his bit about the Shipman in the Prologue to Canterbury Tales:

388 A SHIPMAN was ther, wonynge fer by weste;
389 For aught I woot, he was of Dertemouthe.

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And then this bit follows, about "walking the plank"

Of nyce conscience took he no keep.
399 If that he faught and hadde the hyer hond,
400 By water he sente hem hoom to every lond.

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