LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.09.12 (08) [E]

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From: Glenn Simpson <westwylam at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: "Language varieties" [e]

Dear all,

Billy Elliot stuff you've been talking about. It is
based in Easington a former mining village in Durham
close to the city of Sunderland. The dialect will be
East Durham, although if I recall few of the actors
spoke with this accent, & in most cases I was
disappointed with the lack of dialect used,
particularly among the main actors who sound 'posh' to
most locals.

The local accent & dialect, while superficially
sounding like Geordie/Northumbrian, is quite
distinctive, which may account for some of the
confusion. For example, the 'h' is not pronounced in
words such as house, hoos in Northumbrian and 'oos in
East Durham, similar to Yorkshire dialect.

I watched it some time ago so can't remember the
accent used by the actor you mentioned. Will try and
see it again. There's loads of Scots in Northumberland
and Durham, no surprise given the geography.

Gan canny
Glenn

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From: Críostóir Ó Ciardha <paada_please at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.09.12 (04) [E]


Heather wrote:
"And have you ever noticed that although one parent living out of his/her 
own language area, might (still) have a strong accent, the children won't 
pick it up. The children have the accent of their environment - not that of 
parents who have moved away from theirs."

Yes. I've wondered about this many times. I've (despite my best efforts) 
kept my Nottingham accent because I spent the first few years of my life 
there, even though my mother has a Truro (Cornish) accent and I spent later 
childhood and teenage years in west Cornwall. However I can turn a 
convincing Cornish accent on and off at will; my Australian wife's father is 
from Kildare yet she can't do any sort of Irish accent (much less a Kildare 
one) no matter how hard she tries. She has said numerous times that she 
never "heard" her father's accent when she was a child, and I don't much 
remember noticing my mother's accent as different from my siblings' (who 
have Nottingham accents), either. Nevertheless I did once know someone born 
to Irish parents in Finland; he spoke English with a strong Monaghan accent, 
as that was where his parents were from, even though Finnish was actually 
his first and preferred language.

I have also wondered what "critical mass" of migration is required to change 
the accent of an area. Irish and Welsh traits are clearly heard in the 
Scouse accent(s), for instance, to the extent that the more Lancastrian 
elements of Merseyside speech can occasionally be hard to detect. Yet I 
understand, conversely, that on the Isle of Man the Manxest Manx accent is 
confined to Peel, on the west of the island, because sustained migration 
(short-term and long-term) of Lancashire people has made the Manx accent 
more Lancashire-like. Similarly, I notice more and more that younger Cornish 
people have accents more reminiscient of RP than of Cornwall, due to 
likewise sustained immigration of middle class "rat race escapees" from 
across the south and south east of England.

I met a fellow from Corby the other week - a part of Northamptonshire which 
should sound similar to Leicestershire, and so not too dissimilar to 
Nottingham. Due to migration of steel workers from Scotland and Ireland 
(mainly north east Ulster) Scots and Irish together form about a quarter of 
the population and the Corby accent now (if my source was representative) 
contains definite characteristics from West Scotland, as well as sounding 
more Mancunian (I actually mistook him for someone from Manchester, and 
curiously enough, he mistook me for a Manc, too). I was fascinated listening 
to him speak.

Go raibh maith agat,

Criostóir.

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From: Paul Finlow-Bates <wolf_thunder51 at yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: LL-L "Language varieties" 2005.09.12 (04) [E]


Gabriele wrote:
"But DVDs have one other very useful function - subtitles! Just switch them
on the next time..."

This reminds me of a TV serial in the 90s starring Robert Carlyle and set in 
a tough area of Edinburgh with a particularly heavy accent (Carlyle is a 
genius at accents).  Because the dialogue was so difficult to follow, they 
subtitled it.  OK so far...but not in Standard English, they just 
transcribed the dialect!!  So you couldn't understand half of what they 
said, and couldn't read it either!!

On the same vein, do they ever produce dramas or programmes in Germany in 
other dialects/languages with standard HD subs?

Paul

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