The "Pirate Accent"

[Jack Roberts]

Yes the video series was awesome. What you haven't seen it?? Well say no more.

Enjoy!

[Fox]

For regional English dialects, the easiest to master is probably that of Somerset (where I lived for some years). You can get by with only the following:

Um: any question.

Ar: any answer.

For example.

UM?

Ar.

Um?

Oh Ar. Um?

Ar.

(Trans. John?

Yes Bob

How's your wife?

Oh, she's fine thanks. How's yours?

Same as usual.)

For the advanced practitioner, Um and Ar can be interchanged so that Ar is the question and Um is the answer, but really we're leaping ahead to lesson two here...

[PoD]

here's a dictionary of Stoke Dialect. Seems some of the words actually come from old english too:

http://www.thepotteries.org/dialect1.html

I thought I had a stoke accent but when I went to a school reunion there last year I was told that I talk posh apparently

[Capt. Sterling]

For regional English dialects, the easiest to master is probably that of Somerset (where I lived for some years). You can get by with only the following:

Um: any question.

Ar: any answer.

For example.

UM?

Ar.

Um?

Oh Ar. Um?

Ar.

(Trans. John?

Yes Bob

How's your wife?

Oh, she's fine thanks. How's yours?

Same as usual.)

For the advanced practitioner, Um and Ar can be interchanged so that Ar is the question and Um is the answer, but really we're leaping ahead to lesson two here...

OMG...ROTDLOL!!

Um

There is a group of folks living on Tangier Island, a few hours away, that supposedly have the oldest 17th century accent surviving today in the US. We plan to make a field trip of it soon to check it out.

[Grymm]

Accents meld, drift into each other so I'd contest the 'fact' that American English is closer to 17/18thC English than English English apart from the syntax, the way sentances are constructed, that is closer, more archaic in the American dialect.

Put a mixed bunch from all over a country together and their accents drift towards each other and they pick up words/slang/dialect from each other. The Scots emigrees influence on the Canadian accent with oot and aboot is one that springs readily to mind but it's happened to me and others I know.

When I join HM Forces I did have a very Bucks rural accent, used words like ockkerd (bloody minded), called ants emmet, used cop 'old for get or grab( More Bucks 'words' ) baint for isn't but over time it lessened and military slang like tab for run, NFI for not interested plus other regional slang, mardi for grumpy from Sheffield, numpty for idiot from Scotland, drifted into my speech patterns, my ex was a valley girl from S Wales and everytime she went home her accent got stronger then vanished after a week back in Bucks. It's a human survival technique so you blend in with the pack.

Gurt fun though finding all this cant n bolting it into your persona.

Geordie anyone? H'way canny lad, am gan yam.

Edited October 7, 2010 by Grymm

[Tar Bucket Bill]

Great replies so far!

The one thing I fear from trying to learn an accent from a film, is that the American actor's English accent in the film might be total rubbish. Then I am only copying rubbish. And I don't quite know how to tell they are speaking rubbish before hand. My ears aren't that finely tuned to proper English accents yet.

For instance, in the 1990 "Treasure Island" film starring Charleton Heston and Christian Bale, there are several English actors. I can probably rely on the English actors' accents to be much more accurate than American actors in that film. However, I don't know what regional accents each one is using in that film. And maybe some of those accents are rubbish too, because I have even read that some English viewers regard some actors attempting a West Country accent in a film as speaking rubbish. So that still makes it difficult for me to determine what is correct in a film such as this.

But anyway, I thought I would attempt learning some regional West Country accent and dialect in homage to my ancestors who may have been from Wiltshire.

Zo, if 'ee 'ear me zingin' "Combine Harvester" at an event, don't pay I any mind. haharr!!

-Tar Bucket Bill

Edited October 7, 2010 by Tar Bucket Bill

[Grymm]

This may help

This lot have been going even longer than the Wurzels The Yetties from Yetminster though they don't play up to the yokel image as much

See if you can find Kathryn Tickell & Ensemble Mystical just for the Corn Fiddler/Poem done in a NE English accent, puts the hair up on y'neck or listen to

for a bit of a Sussex accent. Edited October 7, 2010 by Grymm

[jendobyns]

This may help

This lot have been going even longer than the Wurzels The Yetties from Yetminster though they don't play up to the yokel image as much

See if you can find Kathryn Tickell & Ensemble Mystical just for the Corn Fiddler/Poem done in a NE English accent, puts the hair up on y'neck or listen to

for a bit of a Sussex accent.

Holy Cow! That Sussex accent sounds so much like someone I know who I'm pretty sure is from around Baltimore. Another Chesapeake Bay area fossil, perhaps? Worth finding out if it can be useful, like the Tangier Island accent.

Mistress D

who really liked The Story of English.

[jendobyns]

This may help

This lot have been going even longer than the Wurzels The Yetties from Yetminster though they don't play up to the yokel image as much

See if you can find Kathryn Tickell & Ensemble Mystical just for the Corn Fiddler/Poem done in a NE English accent, puts the hair up on y'neck or listen to

for a bit of a Sussex accent.

Now you've gone and done it! I've got the Wurzels stuck in my head. And it's time for belly dance class! This should be interesting.

The more I listen to these clips, the more I'm sure there are pockets of these dialects or their descendants in the Baltimore area. Maybe it's worth checking to see if anyone 'round here has done research on immigration/local settlement patterns and regional dialects for areas around Balimer (I think the i and e are kind of swallowed when you say that).

Mistress D.

[Tar Bucket Bill]

Now you've gone and done it! I've got the Wurzels stuck in my head. And it's time for belly dance class! This should be interesting.

Belly dancing to "Combine Harvester"? That sounds like something I would see in a scrumpy haze.

Very interesting though.

Grymm, if you find those recordings of English dialects, please let us know.

By the way, I could not open those Youtube links you posted for some reason. The complete URLs were abbreviated and shortened with dots ..... in the middle of them.

Are there any American actors that do a remarkable English accent of any kind?

-Tar Bucket Bill

[Grymm]

http://sounds.bl.uk/...ts-and-dialects Is one but there's one that I should have in me favs that has wax cylinder recordings from the early20thC as well as tapes and more recent digital, 's just finding the bloody thing. Edited October 8, 2010 by Grymm

[Grymm]

Stupid f'*&%$£ board software won't let me post the other links, a pox on its bits and bytes

Go to youtube look for The Imagined Village 'Ouses 'ouses 'ouses

the other was s'posed to be a joke it was The Wurzels Blackbird song also on youtube and the Yetties was that standard of English folk songs Liliburlero.

[jendobyns]

http://sounds.bl.uk/...ts-and-dialects Is one but there's one that I should have in me favs that has wax cylinder recordings from the early20thC as well as tapes and more recent digital, 's just finding the bloody thing.

What a wonderful resource! I noticed there isn't anything for Guernsey and Jersey. Aren't they part of the UK? Or do they share a dialect with somewhere else?

[jendobyns]

Stupid f'*&%$£ board software won't let me post the other links, a pox on its bits and bytes

Go to youtube look for The Imagined Village 'Ouses 'ouses 'ouses

the other was s'posed to be a joke it was The Wurzels Blackbird song also on youtube and the Yetties was that standard of English folk songs Liliburlero.

They all worked for me. The Blackbird song was what was stuck in my brain when I left for class. And what I woke up with in my head this morning!

So, does anyone know what part of the UK Stan Hugill came from? Here's a video clip where's he's doing a presentation at Workum:

Mistress D.

[Fox]

Hugill was originally from Cheshire I believe.

[Tar Bucket Bill]

http://sounds.bl.uk/...ts-and-dialects Is one but there's one that I should have in me favs that has wax cylinder recordings from the early20thC as well as tapes and more recent digital, 's just finding the bloody thing.

Grymm, this is a great reference site! If you find the earlier one with the wax cylinder recordings and tapes, that will be even better. Great English accent and dialect resources!

I was able to click on your links to the Wurzels "Blackbird" song, and "'Ouses, 'ouses, 'ouses", etc. Only the four http links in your very first posting would not open for me. Everything else seems to work fine.

-Tar Bucket Bill

[Grymm]

What a wonderful resource! I noticed there isn't anything for Guernsey and Jersey. Aren't they part of the UK? Or do they share a dialect with somewhere else?

Not many speakers left but in both Islands the people spoke archaic forms of Norman 'French' well into the 19thC, Jèrriais in Jersey, Dgèrnésiais in Guernsey with Sark and Alderney having their own , now all but extinct, variants. These obscure Norman dialects made a bit of a come back during the occupation by German forces in WWII as a way of passing info without Jerry finding out.

I barely do English let alone Norman, that you'll have to find out from the Islands =o) But to use a Jersey proverb, "Vielles amours et tisons brûlés sont deux feux bein vite ralleunmés "old loves and burnt embers are fires which can be quickly re-ignited, which if you look at Welsh, Scottish and Irish Gallic can be true about language and dialect if people care enough.

note the editor softwear sucks too, shonky piece of doo doo so it is!

Edited October 9, 2010 by Grymm