What English (UK) Dialect Could This Be?

[Hypnalis]

@maleonolo

I'm too lazy to try to analyze the video, but I'll find the sections that sounded to me as though he wasn't using English phonemes. If everyone agrees those sounds are anomalous the most "technical" person (I'm definitely trial-volunteering you can perhaps figure out what's going on.

 

[maleonolo]

I'm too lazy to try to analyze the video, but I'll find the sections that sounded to me as though he wasn't using English phonemes. If everyone agrees those sounds are anomalous the most "technical" person (I'm definitely trial-volunteering you can perhaps figure out what's going on.

By non-English phonemes are you referring to non-native pronunciation or non-English (as in England/UK) phonemes? I know very little about English phonemes so I won't be of much help

Also, if this person is trying to hide his accent, he might be hypercorrecting which could mislead the listener. Here at 0:25, a non-rhotic speaker hypercorrects by adding the R sound to 'dance'. It's quite common for words with the BATH vowel, which dance has

And I'm not sure about this but American actors who are imitating RP - when they pronounce COT/LOT words with the CAUGHT/THOUGHT vowel it's very jarring. This might be because the COT-CAUGHT merger didn't occur in RP afaik.

In IPA (UK), cot is pronounced with the /ɒ/ vowel and caught is pronounced with the /ɔ/ vowel. This is for accents without the merger

 

[Hypnalis]

@malenolo

I meant "not AFAIK used in any form of English". For example my local language (in the EU) has a few over 10 "core" vowel sounds, with some variation in different dialects. No diphthongs.

This is way fewer vowels than any mainstream form of standard English. (There are sure to be outliers where some sounds have been retained from different languages, but that's not relevant here).

But on to the point: of the full set of vowels in my local language, about half cannot be pronounced accurately by someone whose native language is any mainstream form of UK or US English unless they work at it.
The reason for that is simple, and the correct pronunciation can be trained quite quickly. But not in an afternoon over a beer, because some "unused muscles" and movements have to be learned from scratch.

OFC the actual sound differences are tiny - but that's the nature of most differences in accent. We are bizarrely good at hearing those small differences.

So one of the ways you can hear the foreign accent in e.g. your native language is by identifying those "impossible vowel sounds". And if you're sufficiently attuned to the language those non-native vowels come from you can identify the language.

(BTW - it's much easier to learn to make the sound of "foreign" consonants than vowels. Though there are some notable exceptions (e.g. "Th" in English (often delivered as a "D" variant), and some of the "S" variants).
So most of the signifiers that distinguish different European languages in the same "family" are in the vowels, but all.
Between families cadence, stress, and things like "always ending a word with a vowel sound"(e.g. Italian) are also useful.

I thought I could hear distinctly "Germanic Language" vowels in the speech of the video presenters, but not often. And he has "native level" English, including pronunciation of most of the things he said. That's extremely difficult for an adult to learn, even with professional instruction.

Tween-aged kids though (i.e. before the "language-assist wetware" turns off) - no problem, and they already have many lower-frequency words that are still used in adult speech.

OTOH younger children have the assist-wetware" running at 100%, and over-write any perceived imperfections in their accent in no time.

 

[maleonolo]

@Hypnalis
I wish I had the language acquisition ability of children! Yes, if you can hear those vowels and know their corresponding transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet, that would help a lot. I believe that non-RP/General American accents haven't been documented as extensively, but you could search for those vowels in English accents on wikipedia (and some books). This way, you'll know whether it's a foreign accent

Though if the phonemes you identified were not an exact match but rather an approximate, that would make things significantly harder because the transcriptions could be completely different

Apart from phonemes, some qualities like R-coloured vowels (since he's a rhotic speaker) and compression (smoothing vowels) can be signs as to whether he's a native speaker or not. Non-native speakers tend to speak more deliberately and precisely, which can seem unnatural at times. That's why phonologists have created a distinction between natural RP and adoptive (affected) RP

 

[Outdated]

And he has "native level" English, including pronunciation of most of the things he said. That's extremely difficult for an adult to learn, even with professional instruction.

That's the part that convinced me he is in fact native to England - word usage, vernacular, and also speech cadence. I tend to notice this more so than any accent, it's generally something that people only learn in their childhood. This is where most foreigners to any country stand out.

A common example - German people will often use the word "make" instead of "do".

I don't think I've ever heard the un-split FOOT-STRUT in Australian or Southern English accents

In this news story they're looking at the difference between a South Australian accent and the rest of the country, there's a sound clip in there from a language professor in South Australia that might fill in some gaps for you.

Why do South Australians sound different to others Down Under?

Adelaide in South Australia was never a penal colony, instead it was a free settlement for wealthy English people. A mediteranean climate that wasn't full of foreigners. Because of this there's a lot of upper class England in our accent.

 

[maleonolo]

That's the part that convinced me he is in fact native to England - word usage, vernacular, and also speech cadence. I tend to notice this more so than any accent, it's generally something that people only learn in their childhood. This is where most foreigners to any country stand out.

Yes, England (and the rest of the UK) has a huge variety of accents, it might be premature to conclude that he's not from the UK

The phenomenon you mentioned occurs in Cockney and Estuary English too if I'm not wrong - where L is pronounced with a W consonant

L-vocalization - Wikipedia


That professor sounds so posh though, is it the Cultivated Australian Accent? I haven't heard many people from Adelaide but he sounds really old too because of the similarities to 20th century RP

 

[Outdated]

That professor sounds so posh though, is it the Cultivated Australian Accent?

It's different to all of the rest of Australia. I travelled the country quite a bit and a lot of people would ask me how long I'd been in Australia, I was born here and I've never even owned a passport.

The professor in that clip is deliberately speaking very clearly and distinctly in order to make the differences stand out, but in general that's what any educated person from Adelaide sounds like. You'll hear the same in our news presenters and public speakers, and even in the voice messages on our public transport telling you which station the train will stop at next.

 

[maleonolo]

It's different to all of the rest of Australia. I travelled the country quite a bit and a lot of people would ask me how long I'd been in Australia, I was born here and I've never even owned a passport.

The professor in that clip is deliberately speaking very clearly and distinctly in order to make the differences stand out, but in general that's what any educated person from Adelaide sounds like. You'll hear the same in our news presenters and public speakers, and even in the voice messages on our public transport telling you which station the train will stop at next.

Oh, do you speak that way too?

 

[Outdated]

Oh, do you speak that way too?

My accent broadened slightly after spending 27 years in other states, but yes, that's what I sound like too.

Common street talk and banter in general sounds a bit more like common Londoner with a little bit of cockney in there as well, but as soon as we have to speak to someone in an official capacity the "plum in the mouth" English toff comes out.

 

[Hypnalis]

My accent broadened slightly after spending 27 years in other states, but yes, that's what I sound like too.

Common street talk and banter in general sounds a bit more like common Londoner with a little bit of cockney in there as well, but as soon as we have to speak to someone in an official capacity the "plum in the mouth" English toff comes out.

Do you use "w" for "l" (e.g. "miwk" (including messing up the "i" sound a bit) for "milk")?
I've heard that (possibly in Sydney so perhaps someone from Adelaide), but it sounds really strange to me - and AFAIK it's not consistent with RP (or my very limited exposure to "Upper Class" UK accents).

BTW it also messes up the "i" sound

 

[Outdated]

Do you use "w" for "l" (e.g. "miwk" (including messing up the "i" sound a bit) for "milk")?

No. I wouldn't say a "w" sound, but the L is a little softer than in many accents, a little less pronounced. It's not always easy to relate sounds to text, not always easy to write phonetically and even worse when trying to describe an accent, but to me that seems more like Melbourne.

As with all Aussies, it's a very British thing really, we tend to truncate a lot of sounds too. Three of Australia's capital cities - Melb'n, Brisb'n and Canb'ra. There's also a lot of places where a consonant is almost but not quite pronounced, there's a space for it but no real sound, Bottle is a good example of that.

I grew up across the road from a Dutch family, the mother couldn't put another consonant after the letter L. So "miluk" instead of milk. Filum. You come to Craig's birthday party, he's turning tweluv. Only the mother spoke like that, not the rest of the family.

 

[maleonolo]

No. I wouldn't say a "w" sound, but the L is a little softer than in many accents, a little less pronounced. It's not always easy to relate sounds to text, not always easy to write phonetically and even worse when trying to describe an accent, but to me that seems more like Melbourne.

As with all Aussies, it's a very British thing really, we tend to truncate a lot of sounds too. Three of Australia's capital cities - Melb'n, Brisb'n and Canb'ra. There's also a lot of places where a consonant is almost but not quite pronounced, there's a space for it but no real sound, Bottle is a good example of that.

I grew up across the road from a Dutch family, the mother couldn't put another consonant after the letter L. So "miluk" instead of milk. Filum. You come to Craig's birthday party, he's turning tweluv. Only the mother spoke like that, not the rest of the family.

How often do foreigners you meet pronounce Aussie with an S rather than a Z?

 

[Outdated]

How often do foreigners you meet pronounce Aussie with an S rather than a Z?

I see it online a lot but not in real life. Once people visit here they usually put a little bit of effort in to fitting in better.

The most common issues that get tourists laughed at is when they have only learned American English and a lot of their word usage just doesn't make sense here.

Ask an Aussie where to find the nearest gas station and you'll get directed to a place that refills gas cylinders.

Ask an Aussie where you can buy a fanny pack and you'll get directed to the personal hygiene section of the supermarket.

 

[Hypnalis]

How often do foreigners you meet pronounce Aussie with an S rather than a Z?

There's no voiced "S" in my local language. They learn it for English, but never use it in the local language, and strangely, they can't hear it accurately in other languages.

I learned that by accident from someone with Chinese "Zi" in their name. They'd given up trying to get the locals to pronounce the "Z", so I scored points for being able to.

I failed on the tone though, so final score was still zero /lol.

Back on the "S" sounds. A neighboring country (different language family) has only one "S", and they don't like trying to get ours right. We have 5, none voiced /lol.

 

[Outdated]

I learned that by accident from someone with Chinese "Zi" in their name. They'd given up trying to get the locals to pronounce the "Z", so I scored points for being able to.

Many years ago I met a Vietnamese lawyer who signed all his documents as T.S. Lee. I asked him what the T S stood for and he laughed, he said his name is French - Tiess. But he never writes it properly because Aussies read it wrong and pronounce his name as the verb Ties. By just putting two letters on the page people pronounce his name correctly.

 

[Mary Terry]

I once represented a large number of Vietnamese immigrants. Almost all of them were named "Van Nguyen" or "Tran Nguyen". Vietnamese names are gender neutral, too. The only way we could differentiate among them in client files and court filings was to use their social security numbers.

 

[Mary Terry]

Many years ago I met a Vietnamese lawyer who signed all his documents as T.S. Lee. I asked him what the T S stood for and he laughed, he said his name is French - Tiess. But he never writes it properly because Aussies read it wrong and pronounce his name as the verb Ties. By just putting two letters on the page people pronounce his name correctly.

I once had an employee who named her daughter "T'a". Everyone called the girl "Ta" instead of "Tia" which is what the mother intended. When the girl reached age 21, she legally changed her name to "Tia" so people would know how to pronounce it. Frankly, I never understood why she would name her daughter the Spanish word for aunt. If the girl had nieces or nephews, they'd have to call her Tia Tia in Spanish.

Shortsighted parents do burden their kids some really strange and unfortunate names here in the US.

 

[Judge]

It's hard to tell since many youtubers have Americanised accents, but if you're familiar with the qualities of a wide variety of accents you could use a spectrogram, they're used among linguists who study phonology.

I know very little about northern accents but it's surprising that he pronounces 'theory' as 'theury" at 7:18, and 'enough' with the FOOT vowel (which sounds like enoff) at 8:28. I don't think I've ever heard the un-split FOOT-STRUT in Australian or Southern English accents

Phonological history of English close back vowels - Wikipedia

It's nice to meet people who are interested in accents/phonology

Good point!

That's what I like about "Nick" of YouTube's "Linux Experiment". While he has an unmistakable French accent residing in Lyon, I can understand him 100%. And that the English dialect he speaks seems clearly more American. (Not "bleedin' proppa" British).

It continues to vex me as to the origins of his (Tech Notice) accent, combined with a lack of information of his identity. But he goes into the minutia of thermodynamics of computer components on another level that I so appreciate. I'm such a geek....I love watching these kind of presentations that go so deep into subjects most people would be put to sleep by...lol.

Another YouTuber I like is "Tiny Tom" Logan of "OC3DTV". Though his accent is clearly not "Posh"...

Though "Bleedin' Proppa" English accents are welcome when it involves Kitguru's Leo Waldock:

 

[maleonolo]

Good point!

That's what I like about "Nick" of YouTube's "Linux Experiment". While he has an unmistakable French accent residing in Lyon, I can understand him 100%. And that the English dialect he speaks seems clearly more American. (Not "bleedin' proppa" British).

It continues to vex me as to the origins of his (Tech Notice) accent, combined with a lack of information of his identity. But he goes into the minutia of thermodynamics of computer components on another level that I so appreciate. I'm such a geek....I love watching these kind of presentations that go so deep into subjects most people would be put to sleep by...lol.

Another YouTuber I like is "Tiny Tom" Logan of "OC3DTV". Though his accent is clearly not "Posh"...

Though "Bleedin' Proppa" English accents are welcome when it involves Kitguru's Leo Waldock:

It's interesting that Linux Youtubers have so many different kinds of accents while the rest of Youtube is filled with mostly American and some English accents

 

[Judge]

It's interesting that Linux Youtubers have so many different kinds of accents while the rest of Youtube is filled with mostly American and some English accents

If I had to guess, I'd say that it's likely because Microsoft doesn't dominate the rest of the planet as much as they do here. Though it would intrigue me to find out what the breakdown by nation may be globally of Linux to Windows users. Even though Linux users only amount to around four percent of the market.