What English do you read, write, speak?

[661-Pete]

But trained actors can fool us, I read about one who delivered a perfect speech in Danish although he could not speak the language at all

Plenty of examples of this. According to IMDB, the actor who played the village headman in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom could not speak a word of English: he recited all his lines by rote. And with a credible - if a bit stereotyped - accent!

Probably there are lots of opera singers out there who don't speak the language they are supposed to sing in - although they can sing their lines perfectly.

Speaking for myself: well I can recite a few lines of, say, Goethe from memory - although I don't speak German. I doubt if my accent would pass muster, though! Probably there are people on here who can surpass that...

[al_yrpal]

My German is spoken with the accent you hear Germans speaking English in films. The first time my wife heard me speaking German she was shocked and embarased. She told me " stop right now - shut up!" However then our German hosts commented on my German and they congratulated me on my excellent accent, and that double shocked my wife!

Vee vill ask de kwestions..

Al

[PDQ Mobile]

[quote="old_windbag"]I've never conversed with a sabre-toothed tiger on the phone. But have spoken to an elephant on a trunk call.[/quote]

It's not surprising really given the "handle"

I guess the point I am trying to make is that it may well be possible to easily identify many people in the dark (blind) even if they try to disguise their voice or indeed speak in another language.

It's not what you say, it's how your nose says it!!

And without any attempt at subterfuge, accuracy in identifying any individual is quite extraordinary.
Our perception is so finely tuned to it.

[old_windbag]

I guess the point I am trying to make is that it may well be possible to easily identify many people in the dark (blind) even if they try to disguise their voice or indeed speak in another language.

I think men men are very sensitive in this respect, that in a pitch black room without a single word spoken they'd sense the prescence of kevin spacey.

I do know what you mean though PDQ. I sound like barry white....................after breathing helium.

[PDQ Mobile]

Hmm Helium.it changes pitch -yes?

I wonder if those markers that I am trying to explain are still there?
It's the resonant quality of the mouth and nasal cavity. Plus other physiological factors.

For example if my niegbours are gathering sheep far far away on the hillside out of "eye shot", I can still tell wether it is father or son shouting in Welsh at the dogs.
Although, as is so often the case, it is the older party that tends to get more enraged and apoplectic!!
It's an age thing!!

So there may be other clues.

[gbnz]

blend of American and British.......... For some reason I acquire accents easily, so I tend to gradually sound more and more like the people I am speaking with. I'm not always conscious of this.

Same here. A slight complication with my North American accent, as my best friends on growing up were French Canadian and Finnish!

The worst part is spending time abroad; a year in Wales resulted in a number of individuals asking me what part of Wales I came from; on returning from New Zealand I'd picked up a bit of Kiwi (22 days since an interviewer asked me when I'd left New Zealand/Australia).

But small mercies . I've not picked up the slightest trace of Geordie or coarse Northumberian (Similar to Geordie, but even more guttural).

[gbnz]

......lIs there a hard divide between Lancashire and Yorkshire?

No there isn't,they try their best to sound Lancashire for obvious reasons

That's done it

The best way to think about...... Yorkshire in this regard is as one area, with a patchwork of accents...... The accents in Leeds and Hull are not the same. t.

Very true. When working down in Yorkshire, there were clear differences in accents between the Leeds/Wakefield, Northallerton, Selby/Hull operational staff, though all had a Yorkshire accent.

[softlips]

No there isn't,they try their best to sound Lancashire for obvious reasons

That's done it

The best way to think about...... Yorkshire in this regard is as one area, with a patchwork of accents...... The accents in Leeds and Hull are not the same. t.

Very true. When working down in Yorkshire, there were clear differences in accents between the Leeds/Wakefield, Northallerton, Selby/Hull operational staff, though all had a Yorkshire accent.

I was once in Germany with two English colleagues. A German colleague said how different all three of our accents were and asked if we came from different parts of the country. He was amazed when I pointed out we all loved and grew up within a 35 mile triangle - Barnsley, Leeds and Bradford.

[Cyril Haearn]

blend of American and British.......... For some reason I acquire accents easily, so I tend to gradually sound more and more like the people I am speaking with. I'm not always conscious of this.

Same here. A slight complication with my North American accent, as my best friends on growing up were French Canadian and Finnish!

The worst part is spending time abroad; a year in Wales resulted in a number of individuals asking me what part of Wales I came from; on returning from New Zealand I'd picked up a bit of Kiwi (22 days since an interviewer asked me when I'd left New Zealand/Australia).

But small mercies . I've not picked up the slightest trace of Geordie or coarse Northumberian (Similar to Geordie, but even more guttural).

Keep them guessing! Some people can place me quickly, others try to guess and I have to tell them in the end

I was pleased when someone noticed my Welsh accent after many years away, apparently it is indestructible

[pete75]

But small mercies . I've not picked up the slightest trace of Geordie or coarse Northumberian (Similar to Geordie, but even more guttural).

That's a shame becausethey do sound better than all the other accents you mention.

[pete75]

I love hearing different accents when travelling, they are part of the place just like buildings or landscapes

My Oxford English (or accent-free as it has wrongly been called) is not like Mr Rees-Mogg speaks, he is in a different league

Yes, RP ain't Oxford English. Some of my family speak with pretty close to true Oxford English but I think I've ended up speaking some sort of East/South Midlands dialect, sometimes referred to as northern with a southern sound... it's fairly fast and blunt, with lots of shortened past tenses (spelt not spelled, snuck not sneaked, frit not frightened, dreamt not dreamed and so on) and many place names are cut down. I think you can hear the faint influence of both the harsh (IMO) Birmingham accent and the consonant-dropping North London one, but not much.

Now I've always thought frit was a Lincolnshire dialect word not Midlands of any flavour. Of course you could have picked it up from Mrs Thatcher as she occasionally lapsed into her native dialect.

[Paulatic]

).

But small mercies . I've not picked up the slightest trace of Geordie or coarse Northumberian (Similar to Geordie, but even more guttural).

Northumbrian guttural? That’s not how I would recognise it To me it’s soft and rolling especially the way they roll them rrrrrrrrs.

[pete75]

I speak Oxford English, or used to
Is there a Cambridge English?
Or has Oxford *won* this one?

Pam Ayres speaks with an Oxfordshire accent. WHat you're talking about is not an accent related to a place but to a class. The accent of entitlement and privilege.

[PDQ Mobile]

[quote="pete75"]
WHat you're talking about is not an accent related to a place but to a class. The accent of entitlement and privilege.[/quote]

Yes and don't forget power.
The language of the ruling class.

[PDQ Mobile]

Here's an interesting accent!
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe ... mcallister

David Mcallister Prime Minister of Lower Saxony.

Born Germany, raised bilingually, father was a Scot, Mother German.
Total command of both languages I would guess.

Yet there are, within his English, some of the usual differences seen in German speakers, small but still there. Bird Song?

One can only envy his command though.

Ps.sorry about Brexit subject matter, though IMV he talks some diplomatic sense!