Ben From The North appeared as a guest in the forums, and...
Ben From The North appeared as a guest in the forums, and asked about the origins of accents.
I'm doing an A level in English Language and i was just wondering where do accents come from and why do we have them? and if we didn't have them what would we loose. Do we have anything to gain if state schools taught children to speak in RP or a modified version of it?
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I'm doing an A level in English Language and i was just wondering where do accents come from and why do we have them? and if we didn't have them what would we loose. Do we have anything to gain if state schools taught children to speak in RP or a modified version of it?
> I'm doing an A level in English Language and i was
> just wondering where do accents come from and why do
> we have them? and if we didn't have them what would
> we loose. Do we have anything to gain if state
> schools taught children to speak in RP or a modified
> version of it?
How did your A Levels go?
Firstly, we need to distinguish between ACCENT & DIALECT.
ACCENT: How the words sound
DIALECT: How the words are placed within a sentence. Dialect refers to the grammar of an accent therefore they are not the same thing.
Accents are established over years by people from different areas conversing with each other. An example is the Liverpool 'Scouse' accent. The people of Liverpool originally spoke with a Lancashire accent however the influx of Irish to the area gradually changed the original Lancashire intonation to that of what it is today.
Proof of this can be seen in any town/city. The town I live in is bordered by Liverpool & Warrington. On the side closest to the border of Liverpool, our 'Woolyback' accent has a nasal quality to it & several Liverpool features. In fact, if we travel anywhere out of the local area, we are often mistaken for Scousers. The other half of Widnes closest to Warrington has more of a Lancashire accent similar to that of Wigan or Bolton.
It is true that accents are passed down through family however our biggest influence is from our peers, especially as a teenager.
The origin of English is argued however the main theory is that it originated from the Vikings way back when in 500AD when they invaded the British Isles. English, in fact, became extinct when the Romans invaded and the country spoke Latin apart from the 'peasants' in the villages. After the Italians left, we got our language back & it wasn't until 1800's that we borrowed the French & Latin words that are prevalent in our language today.
Just to point out, hate to be pedantic but :
English is a polyglot language from a variety of sources.
When the Romans arived people spoke Brythonic, or anciant British(Welsh and Cornish are left over forms of this0. After the romans left (and very few people, apart from the educated few would have bothered to learn Latin wen they were here) Britain was over run by tribespeople from what is now Germany and Holland, most notably Angles and Saxons. Their Germanic language mixed with the French of the Normans, who invade in 1066, and the Vikings who came a little earlier became the English we speak today
According to some the original English originated in what is now Friesland in north Holland. I watched a very interesting exercise on the tv only a couple of weeks ago when a professor of ancient English went into a Friesland supermarket and asked the manager, in Old English, where the sugar was, and apart from not understanding only one particular word, he took him to the shelf where the sugar was located. Everything else was understood.
> I'm doing an A level in English Language and i was
> just wondering where do accents come from and why do
> we have them? and if we didn't have them what would
> we loose. Do we have anything to gain if state
> schools taught children to speak in RP or a modified
> version of it?
For an A Level English student, I'm sure you know how to spell the word "lose" in the above post. BTW, which one is correct? "Payed" or "paid"?
The British Library have a few accents and dialects on record:
http://www.collectbritain.co.uk/collections/dialects/
The introduction is quite interesting to read.
Where do they come from? Well, they develop through time, usually unconsciously although people can consciously change accents (one of my sisters on the phone for one).
When you learn to speak, you mimic the sounds you hear - random individual variations can be picked up, or lost (I like to think of it a little like gene selection and development in evolution).
Isolation from other groups is the key to developing changes - whether that is social isolation or physical.
Teaching PR would be a disaster - although don't mistake the difference between accent and dialect - the case for Standard English in schools is strong.
I work with people learning English as a foreign language a lot and understandability is a lot less connected to accent than people think.
Isolation merely accentuates the accent further.
It does not develop changes in an accent. Changes come from contact with other groups.
What 'original'? All diversification results from hybridisation, not pure breeding, and especially not by some bizarre craze to imitate the accent of one man. And most especially not in the case of London. London has dozens of variations within a radius of 8 miles of the centre, feeding off the neighbouring country accents, and from the imports of all the peoples passing through it over the years.
You talk as if there was a single primal accent from which all others decended.
OK. Africa.
Which part of Africa?
Who first invented speech? And did everyone else suddenly realise: "This bloke is saying things with his mouth. Maybe it could catch on."
Need to differentiate between accent and language (if we can).
The 'original' was implied (but not stated)in the post I was responding to.
Accents develop by a Chinese Whispers effect, where tiny irregularities are accentuated by mimicry.
They do not follow some ancestral bloodline, each generation dependent upon the previous one.
Still less do they depend on individuals.
Eventually their accentuation may indeed make them indescipherable to the the original speakers, in which case a dialect has developed.
And a dialect may well acquire rules of its own which qualify it as a bona fide language.
It all depends on the degree and diversity of contact.
Trade, in other words.
> Accents develop by a Chinese Whispers effect, where
> tiny irregularities are accentuated by mimicry.
So, individuals introduce the changes?
> They do not follow some ancestral bloodline, each
> generation dependent upon the previous one.
So, no accent is passed down from mother to daughter?
> Still less do they depend on individuals.
So, it doesn't depend on individuals?
> Eventually their accentuation may indeed make them
> indescipherable to the the original speakers, in
> which case a dialect has developed.
So, dialect is only accent variation?
> And a dialect may well acquire rules of its own which
> qualify it as a bona fide language.
So, the bondary between dialect (a type of accent?) and language is the number of rules?
> It all depends on the degree and diversity of
> contact.
> Trade, in other words.
So, there were on accents in the earliest language users who did not trade?
> > Accents develop by a Chinese Whispers effect,
> where
> > tiny irregularities are accentuated by mimicry.
>
> So, individuals introduce the changes?
>
> > They do not follow some ancestral bloodline, each
> > generation dependent upon the previous one.
>
> So, no accent is passed down from mother to
> daughter?
>
> > Still less do they depend on individuals.
>
> So, it doesn't depend on individuals?
>
> > Eventually their accentuation may indeed make them
> > indescipherable to the the original speakers, in
> > which case a dialect has developed.
>
> So, dialect is only accent variation?
>
> > And a dialect may well acquire rules of its own
> which
> > qualify it as a bona fide language.
>
> So, the bondary between dialect (a type of
> accent?) and language is the number of rules?
>
> > It all depends on the degree and diversity of
> > contact.
>
> > Trade, in other words.
>
> So, there were on accents in the earliest language
> users who did not trade?
There are several very good books (see end of this post) on the topic of "memes" (a meme can be defined as "an element of a culture that may be considered to be passed on by non-genetic means, especially imitation"). Memes are a bit like genes with all the connections with random variations, natural selection, and retention/procreation. Along these lines, memes and genes are but only two of a phenomenon called Universal Darwinism or General Principles of Evolution, involving replicators such as genes and memes.
Accents are memes which have been passed on from person to person - through imitation. Just like the origins of a gene cannot practically be traced, the origin of an accent is also the case.
Good books on memes include: -
Virus of the Mind, by Richard Brodie;
The Meme Machine, by Susan Blackmore;
Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society;
The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain, by T. Deacon.
> > Accents develop by a Chinese Whispers effect,
> where
> > tiny irregularities are accentuated by mimicry.
>
> So, individuals introduce the changes?
No and no again.
Imitation introduces the changes because imitation is never perfect.
So, no accent is passed down from mother to
> daughter?
Not perfectly, no. And not as long as ther are other accents within hearing. If you had paid attention,you would have seen that the differences in accents from one generation have been particularly marked in the last few decades. Heavy, localised accents are almost a mark of old age. And as for a place like London, there are hardly any teenagers now who talk with the same accent as their parents.
As for this
"
> So, there were on accents in the earliest language
> users who did not trade?"
It is meaningless.
Do more listening and less reading.
All you are saying is that people talk. We know that.
Yes, that is true.
But trying to claim that a single individual is 'responsible' for the London accent is great achievement in the fiel;d of nonsense.
Accents are not invented in laboratories but acquired and developed through contact or inbred through no contact.
It has nothing to do with the influence of mysterious strangers wo manage to hypnotise millions to imitate them.
So if you insist:
"> Accents develop by a Chinese Whispers effect, where
> tiny irregularities are accentuated by mimicry.
"So, individuals introduce the changes?"
No, inaccurate mimicry introduces the changes. That is what the expression 'Chines whispers' means.
and then:
"> They do not follow some ancestral bloodline, each
> generation dependent upon the previous one.
So, no accent is passed down from mother to daughter?"
Leaving aside your inability to spot a metaphor, it still holds as a literal truth, as many families are finding out. Many London teenagers now talk with a totally different accent to their parents. And always have done across history. The 'ancestry' I was referring to was of course from one accent to another, not from 'mother to daughter', as you insist on misintperpreting me.
And then again:
"> Eventually their accentuation may indeed make them
> indescipherable to the the original speakers, in
> which case a dialect has developed.
So, dialect is only accent variation?"
No, as I state quite clearly in the sentence you quote, not 'variation' - but accentuation.
And yet again you get this wrong:
"So, dialect is only accent variation?
> And a dialect may well acquire rules of its own which
> qualify it as a bona fide language.
So, the bondary between dialect (a type of accent?) and language is the number of rules?"
That's one boundary, yes. Can you think of others?
And as for this:
"> It all depends on the degree and diversity of
> contact.
> Trade, in other words."
"So, there were on accents in the earliest language users who did not trade? "
When did people not trade?
But trying to claim that a single individual is 'responsible' for the London accent is great achievement in the fiel;d of nonsense.
At no point have I, or would I, make such a claim.
There is, incidentaly, no such thing as a London Accent.
No speaker of a language has exactly the same pronunciation as any other.
> Accents develop by a Chinese Whispers effect, where
> tiny irregularities are accentuated by mimicry.
"So, individuals introduce the changes?"
No, inaccurate mimicry introduces the changes. That is what the expression 'Chines whispers' means.
But it is individuals who mimic - so the individuals are responsible for the change. - Chinese whispers is an activity for individuals to play.
Leaving aside my very real ability to spot a metaphor which doesn't actually work,
Many London teenagers now talk with a totally different accent to their parents.
Totally? There are no sounds at all in common with their parents?
Your highlighting of noticable differences is not the same as No similarities.
There is obviously a problem with definition of accent and dialect.
Standard English is the dialect, and it can be spoken in a wide variety of accents. Accents do not lead to dialects.
Can you think of others?
Rather a lot - the boundary between dialect and language is a rather hazy thing.
When did people not trade?
Earliest hunter gatherers.
Surprised to see that you have no replies.
As for whether we need them - Yes and yes again.
To ethnically cleanse them would remove the last vestiges of original British culturee that have survived the industrial revolution.
As to what creates them...
I don't know if you saw the final episode of the Three Men In A Boat on BBC2 last week...
With Dara O'Brien, Griff Rhys Jones and Rory McGrath.
At one point they got into a sort of accent contest, and Jones was challenged to do his Irish accent in front of Dara O Brien.
It wasn't very good. I couldn't help noticing that when attempting an Irish accent, Jones applied a sort of fixed grin to his face.
I checked O'Brien's face when he was talking and sure enough, whether he was amused or not, his mouth was in the shape of a grin, but his eyebrows were in the 'suspicious' position. Jones' eyebrows were in the normal English 'highbrow' position. So he got the accent wrong. Accents are much easier to imitate if you adopt the correct facial expression.
Now if you were an Irish tenant farmer two hundred years ago, your grandparents the first of your family to speak any english, you would generally be speaking english only to someone in authority over you. Someone with the power to make your life a misery.
What is the appropriate or likely expression for someone in that tricky position?
A smile is almost compulsory, but a suspicious or oppressed scowl almost inevitable.
I suggest trying an Irish accent with an open, aristocratic face - it's not easy.
---------------------------------------------------
Anyway. Just one more trick.
A scouse accent is easier if you try to 'swallow' your tongue, or at least keep it at rest most of the time at the back of your palate.
This all sounds crazy, but it works.
Try doing an australian accent. Everyone I have asked to do this, squints. It must have something to do with the sunshine.
> Try doing an australian accent. Everyone I have asked
> to do this, squints. It must have something to do
> with the sunshine.
It might be just me, but I thought the Australian accent sounded rather like the Cockney accent!
> > Try doing an australian accent. Everyone I have
> asked
> > to do this, squints. It must have something to do
> > with the sunshine.
>
> It might be just me, but I thought the Australian
> accent sounded rather like the Cockney accent!
In extreme glaring sun, yes.
That's the direction we're heading.
You're absolutely right.
Good call.
There is something going on which is bigger than both of us.
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