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Fri 22 Jan, 2010 02:08 pm
Any idea how many way are there to pronounce the above snetence?
1,204 were recorded by the
>Speech Accent Archive<.
(They use an elicitation paragraph consisting of all English sounds and sound combinations to document the English accent as spoken all over the world.)
But I should hold my tongue ...
@Walter Hinteler,
This looks really cool.
I'll play with it later on.
Downloading software as I type....
I still can't listen! I don't understand well enough the jargon to decipher what the differences are by reading.
once you get it downloaded littlek, you'll really enjoy it.
I listened to some various english speaking versions. Then I had to go out.
I'm going to listen to some of the other languages now.
The amazing thing is that I could almost always locate the region of the world from where the foreign English speaker was.
A bit more difficult with the native English speakers..
Accents in the same area change over time as well.
I listened to an english speaker from Point Pleasant NJ, where I'm from, and he sounded nothing like what I sounded like growing up. The other NJ accent didn't sound the same either.
My accent as a child and teen was more like the Staten Island NY one.
I noticed when I went to NJ a few months ago, that there was a difference in the accents of people in their 20's, as opposed to people in their 50's.
I listened to all the polish accents, and could not find one that sounded like my grandparents. All the polish speakers were young, and some obviously did not learn american english, but rather learned english spoken in great britan. For those with american english, I think the polish accent must have changed over the years as well.
I found it interesting how some of the italians insisted on putting the superfluous "a's" at the end of a lot of words, and some didn't. I know someone from milano, but didnt see that city listed. I guess the closest was venice.
@DrewDad,
One reservation I have with this is the selection bias towards folks who can afford computers and Internet connections.
I think its interesting that the only people who can talk properly are the aussies.
@DrewDad,
i agree DD. income or class would make a big difference to regional accent.
DP wrote:I think its interesting that the only people who can talk properly are the aussies.
Maybe because you wash your mouth beforehand?
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