Delawarean English

[Englishuser]

Hi,

I remember reading a survey about which American accents Americans found most pleasant. It turned out that the Americans liked Delawarean and Washingtonian accents the most, whereas they tended to rate Texan accents very low. What's a Delawarean accent like? How is a Delawarean accent different from a General American accent?

Englishuser

[Yankee]

I grew up in South Jersey -- less than 30 minutes (by car) from both Philadelphia and Delaware, but I have no idea what a "Delawarean accent" is supposed to be. One thing I am sure of, though, is that people drink "wooder" (water) in Delaware -- just like they do in Philly, South Jersey and "Merlin" (Maryland).

[Jamie (K)]

Surveys to discern which accents are "most pleasant" don't really explain much, and they vary depending on where you carry them out.

Researchers did the same survey in both the UK and the US to find out which accents of English listeners found "most beautiful". People in the UK rated Cockney dead last, while people in the US rated it number 2. Many Americans can't tell the difference between Cockney, RP, Manchester or whatever. They just know they're "British".

[Englishuser]

Hi Jamie,

Of course, you need to read such surveys with a critical eye. If I remember correctly, the study I was referring to was conducted in all states in the US, so people everywhere from Delaware to Arizona had the opportunity to rate the various accents.

[Yankee]

Surely you already know the answer to your last question, EU.

Just out of curiosity, how do you differentiate between RP and "advanced RP"?

[Englishuser]

Hi,

How do I differentiate between RP and advanced RP?

It mostly has to do with the way a certain speaker produces the different (vowel) sounds and how they pronounce specific lexical items.

URP or conservative RP involves the alveolar tap as the usual realisation of /r/ between vowels; this clearly is not a feature of modern/standard/general RP. In advanced or demotic RP accents we find smoothing and r-intrusion. These are just some examples to illustrate how you can make a distinction between a URP speaker, a general RP speaker and an advanced RP speaker.

Englishuser

[Alan]

All sounds pretty scary to me! What a strange world you do live in, EU! I must admit when I read your diatribe, I feel a bit like Mon. Jourdain when he discovered he'd been talking prose all his life.

A
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[Jamie (K)]

[Englishuser]

Hi Alan,

You wrote:

[prezbucky]

Sarcasm lives! Of all days, perhaps on Friday it is most fitting to remind ourselves to take a collective deep breath.

Englishuser, is Cockney the accent in which the "th-->f" shift is employed?

I beseech thee to answer forthwith.


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Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Torsten]

Hi Tom,

Last time I tried to sell to this distinguished group of English language lovers a sample recording of the Cockney accent
but nobody would buy it . As it turned out, it was not Cockney but plain Estuary English....
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[prezbucky]

Is that the accent spoken by those who live under, on, in, or near estuaries?

hehe

Seriously, that's the accent of Londoners? (I'm assuming that the title refers to the estuarial portion of the River Thames)
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Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.

[Alan]

It ain't necessarily so, as Porgy has it. It's often used to refer to inarticulate mutterings that don't constitute anything.

A
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English as a Foreign Language
You can read my EFL story Here comes 2004...

[Englishuser]

Hi Alan,

Could you please answer my question to you?

EU

[prezbucky]

Englishuser

I'm telling you, dude, if you want to hear a funky accent ("occent" to them), spend some time in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (U.P.).

You will enjoy your time there. Oh, and if you're a fan of pasties (the food item), well let's just say they're a staple of the Yooper diet.
_________________
Billie Jean is not my lover. Hee.