To you, perhaps. But some British and Australian accents are similar enough to each other (when compared to American accents) that an American who doesn't know or care about the difference (i.e. most) couldn't tell.
Australlian is just British with a "island prison" twist.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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Which isn't even getting into the whole Irish, Scotish, Welch, Cockney, Liverpool, etc. thing.
I myself find that at times Ihave a difficult time discerning a Kiwi accent from an Australian one. I find in these instances, it's better to guess the smaller country (see Norway vs. Sweden).
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I was thrown for a loop when I met my first South African girl.
....of course, it might have just been the girl in question.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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quote:Which isn't even getting into the whole Irish, Scotish, Welch, Cockney, Liverpool, etc. thing.
Yes I find it amazing that on that tiny little set of islands there are so many accents. In Canada anything west of Quebec and you can't really tell where we are from.
-------------------- "and none of your usual boobery." M. Burns
Registered: Oct 2001
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? You mean aside from the fact that more than 95% of us are from Europe, Asia, Africa, etc. and pretty much everything but native American?
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:You mean aside from the fact that more than 95% of us are from Europe, Asia, Africa, etc. and pretty much everything but native American?
Well about 95% of the people I know are from Canada, your ethnic background very seldom shows in your voice past the second generation. My wife is Scottish and she doesn't have an accent, she just sounds like the rest of us, unless she is in a room with a bunch of Scots then the accent suddenly re-appears. I can assure you that I am a native Canadian, I was born here, my father was born here, his father and his father before him, gets kinda murky after that. How many generations does it take for you not to be European anymore?
-------------------- "and none of your usual boobery." M. Burns
Registered: Oct 2001
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Well, thats convenient because according to Statscan , first and second generation immigrants alone account for 40% of the population in a sample of those 15 or older.
But on a more pragmatic level, I'm just saying from my experiences in Canada, its not all that difficult to tell which continent an average citizen is from, even by voice only. Especially for profs and TAs.
And the real question (leaving out genetics, because thats kind of murky) isn't how many generations your lineage has spent in Canada, its how many generations they've spent in various areas getting here from Africa
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Balaam Xumucane: Which isn't even getting into the whole Irish, Scotish, Welch, Cockney, Liverpool, etc. thing.
Welch? I'm not sure if that was a typo or not, but it's amusing. I must use that at Welsh people.
I'm not sure about this, but the UK, and specifically England seems to be unique in coming up with strange names for it's accents. Scouse, Cockney, Brummie, Geordie, Manc, and so forth. And yeah, the last one is pretty easy to guess.
quote:Originally posted by Grokca: your ethnic background very seldom shows in your voice past the second generation.
Er, accents aren't genetic, y'know. Accents are picked up from listening to other people. For some people, they get their accent from their parents (or those they learn to talk around), and never change. Others change their accents if they move. Jane Leaves (Daphne from Frasier) now has a strange Manchester/Cockney/American hybrid accent when she talks, whereas Patrick Stewart still has that Royal Shakespear Company pronounciation.
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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quote:Originally posted by Grokca: How many generations does it take for you not to be European anymore?
Until you've been born in another country. Unless you are American, of course, because they seem to take pride in declaring themselves to be anything other than "American".
-------------------- Yes, you're despicable, and... and picable... and... and you're definitely, definitely despicable. How a person can get so despicable in one lifetime is beyond me. It isn't as though I haven't met a lot of people. Goodness knows it isn't that. It isn't just that... it isn't... it's... it's despicable.
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-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
Registered: Mar 1999
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If i go to the states - Americans AUTOMATICALLY peg me as Canadian! And I don't even say "Eh!" !!!!
And it's not ABOOT --- it's about!
Never knew there was a 'canadian' accent. But i suppose there is... and it was really hilarious when i was in Rocky Mount NC. last year - the bartender at one of the bar my buddy and I stop in at, said, "Y'all are from Canadian, aren't ya?!"
and I said, "Yip - how can you tell?" "Yall have a canadian accent, EH!"
I laughed, and said, "Have you heard me use that ONCE since I've sat at the bar..?"
D'uh.. NOPE... It's everywhere i tell ya.. but.. mostly, I find it comical.. so i suppose we canadians can be pegged by how we speak as well!
posted
When I hear the word "canadian" I always think of Frank Drebin and BANG! my faculties get swamped by "Naked Gun" quotes and then I'm out of commission for a few minutes.
Registered: Aug 1999
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*sigh* It's bullying writ large. That's all the present "PC" (that's Politically Correct, not Personal Computer) trend is a reflection of. Someone gets all noisy about something unimportant, and the target of that ire meekly submits. It's the schoolyard bully saying "give me your lunch money, shrimp!"
It's also an extension of the gang mentality. If you have nothing of value, you assign value to what you have. And it will persist until "us and them" no longer matter. For instance... I am proud (usually) to be an American. I am proud to be from Seattle. I am proud to be (among other things) Irish. I'm not attached to any of it. I don't get pissed off at someone saying "Yank". If someone says something disparaging about the Irish, I don't pull out a gun and scream that I'll bust a cap in yo disrespectin' ass.
The only reason PC has the power it does is because of people who get off on being victims. I've had variations on this conversation before -- too often for my taste. "Is it because I'm black?" "Actually, no -- I wouldn't have cared if you hadn't pointed it out." And like that. I know cops who are annoyed by the same thing, but I think it was summed up best in one of Robert Parker's "Spenser" novels:
"You arrest a guy with a rap sheet three and a half yards long, and people say 'is it because he's black?' No, it's because he's got a rap sheet three and a half fucking yards long full of similar crimes."
I'm flying up to Seattle in a few days to spend Christmas with my family. I will have to either leave my Swiss Army Knife at home or pack it in my checked baggage, whereas pre-9/11 I could carry it on my belt without a hiccup, so long as I passed it around the metal detector. I'm going to have to take off my shoes and put them through the x-ray machine. If anyone were seeing me off, they can no longer accompany me all the way to the gate. All this security because they don't want to be sued for profiling. Never mind the fact that it's been almost entirely Middle Eastern males between the ages of 15 and 45 who've been doing this stuff. Never mind that almost nothing can defend against the lone assassin committed to exhanging his life for the target. If it weren't for the fact that I actually want to get on my airplane, I'd raise a stink about just that. You know, here take my shoelaces, since I can strangle somebody with them. My belt, too, since it's got that heavy brass buckle on it. And my pen -- I could stab somebody with that. And come to think of it, better cut my hands off at the wrists because I'm trained in several forms of unarmed combat, and know how to kill with my bare hands.
*sigh*
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
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But if they cut your hands off at the wrists, you'd still have two perfectly good bones to poke someone's eyes out with.
-------------------- "This is why you people think I'm so unknowable. You don't listen!" - God, "God, the Devil and Bob"
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