Accents with adjectives

[Arthur_Connelly]

Need help describing accents. I'm not even going to try and write dialogue in said accents, aside from throwing in a few colloquialisms, but I'd like to be able to describe an accent and have the reader make the connection to its real world counterpart.

If I say drawl, one can make the connection to the American South. Or perhaps a twang might suggest a Texan. A lilt might suggest Ireland. For one of my fantasy counterpart cultures, analogous to Spain, I said the character spoke with a smooth accent when speaking the King's tongue (i.e. English). Does that work well enough? And how would I describe a Turkish accent? If you want, feel free to describe other accents as well.

 

[The Judge]

I don't know that I'd make the connection with a Spanish accent with 'smooth'. But I can't think of anything better either.

Soft, harsh and gutteral are all good adjectives for accents - the latter two being particularly Germanic.

 

[shadowbox]

Well, from my experience, Spanish is a fairly fast paced language, you might add that is was both rapid and smooth. Every 'r' curled and and 's' rolled.

While Turkish is rougher, harshly spoken and rather abrupt. If one didn't understand the langue, they would be hard put to comprehend the speakers emotions, being that, well, they kind of always sound a little angry.

 

[HareBrain]

People who speak a foreign language (in this case English) by mentally translating it from their native tongue, often carry over things like word choice, sentence structure and grammar, and this can give a better flavour of their voice than trying to describe their accent.

Or I guess you could choose adjectives that hint at the country as much as the sound of the voice: rounded and warm for Spanish, clipped and efficient for German, etc.

 

[ctg]

Or in case of finns, like me, forget about the articles, remember to use strong R and try to make it all sound simplistic. No big words.

Note, you might want to use search function or scroll back few pages in this forum, because you will find thread or two with these questions answered.

 

[Fal]

It might also be worth thinking who your reader will be. It is quite annoying, as a Brit, to constantly watch movies or read books from abroad which always have the English as well spoken, well to do sorts, where as the country itself has a huge variety of accents, some of which we here find it hard enough to understand.
Although, I must admit, if describing an 'English' accent, I would myself assume that very steriotype, since it is the one everyone uses.

Anyway good fellows, toodle pip!

 

[MistingWolf]

I often wonder how my American accent sounds to others. I asked a New Zealander once, and he only said, "I'm not sure how to describe it, but when I hear you talking, I know you're American." Accents are so awesome :3

 

[Peter Graham]

If I say drawl, one can make the connection to the American South.

One can make the connection to the American South, but one can equally make other connections too. The problem you have us that the words you have chosen - "drawl", "twang" and "lilt", are characteristics of speech rather than defining characteristics of specific accents.

Anyone could have a "twang" - it's just a vocal tic which tends to identify an accent - the Mancunian "twang" is particularly prominent. Similarly, a "lilt" suggests either a soft or a sing-song accent. Some Irish accents have a lilt (although check out Ian Paisley for a fine example of one which doesn't), but a lilt could equally be a definition of certain Lowland Scottish, Mid-Welsh, West Country or even South Cumbrian speakers.

Put simply, if you want to tell us that a character is Texan, telling us that he speaks with a twang is not going to achieve the purpose. You need to find another way - either have him tell people where he or she is from, or have people talk about him or her in a way which makes it obvious, or describe him in a way which gives lots of clues.

You could write in dialect, but unless you know the dialects and accents very well, you will end up with an awful pastiche - check out the stereotypical and entirely unconvincing litany of badly-rendered accents of literature, in which:-

1. Americans all say "Yee-ha" and "shucky-darn".

2. Australians cannot complete any sentence without using the words "chack anatha prawn on the baarbie, Bruce".

3. Welsh people say "look you" and "boyo".

4. Everyone living west of Andover speaks in Received Mummerset - "it be a moighty laang way too Aaaaaaxminsturrrr frum eur, moi loverrrrrr."

5. Anyone living north of Derby says "sithee by 'eck, side the pots, our kid, whilst ah go an' stand at the foot of us stairs".

6. Scottish people say "jings to hang Sarah", "och aye the noo!", "Hoots, mon" and "heuch!"

One possible way round this is to use a very modest sprinkling of fairly well-known dialect words which make the point without becoming pastiche. Off the top of my head, words like "lad", "my son", "wee", "dude", and "sidewalk" all hint at accent and, for non-English speakers who ar espeaking in English, word order and word choice can be used to the same effect.

Regards,

Peter

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Actually, as an American, I feel obliged to point out that it's actually "Yeee-HAW!"

Although I, myself, prefer to use "Boy-howdy."

 

[Arthur_Connelly]

I might just end up skipping this all together and let people make of it what they will, as far as real world connections go. That's what an appendix is for in any case.

"You going to draw that sword?" the reeve asked in a hard northern accent.

 

[Peter Graham]

Actually, as an American, I feel obliged to point out that it's actually "Yeee-HAW!"

Although I, myself, prefer to use "Boy-howdy."

I did get "shucky-darn" right, though. Didn't I?

I wonder if any American has ever said "yee-haw" outside of a Western?

Although I have heard a Scot saying "jings to hang Sarah". A few seconds later, she called me "a big Gruntfuttock", which is possibly the nicest thing that anyone has ever said to me.....

Regards,

Peter

 

[shadowbox]

Yee-Haw us more specific to the Southern States of North America, (maybe even more so for the South Western states) With the exception of Florida....because Florida is full of people from other states and has very few of its own citizens or customs.

I guess that is something to consider, varying accents in various parts of specific countries.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I did get "shucky-darn" right, though. Didn't I?

I wonder if any American has ever said "yee-haw" outside of a Western?

Yes, in fact my sister used to say "shucky-darn."

And Americans do indeed say, "Yee-haw" outside of Westerns. For instance, my mother used to watch a Country music show on TV, and they said "Yee-haw" all the time. Not something you would hear in ordinary, day to day, American life, but at certain types of gatherings where people are going out of their way to be sort of "down-home folks" to begin with (like at rodeos or square dances), or if people are being silly or ironic, yes, you might hear it.

I suspect Sarah Palin says, "Yee-haw" when the spirit moves her.

 

[Culhwch]

Put simply, if you want to tell us that a character is Texan, telling us that he speaks with a twang is not going to achieve the purpose. You need to find another way - either have him tell people where he or she is from, or have people talk about him or her in a way which makes it obvious, or describe him in a way which gives lots of clues.

But if I'm reading the OP correctly, he doesn't want to tell us the character is Texan, or Belgian, or whatever, because we're not in Kansas anymore, we're in a fantasy world. As such, I don't see a problem with using descriptives like twang, lilt, trill, clipped or anything else - so long as they aren't over used, and fit the mood. If I came across twang in a fantasy setting, though, I think it would seriously jar me out of the world...

As an aside, I found a handy add-on to my browser that removes the '... and chuck another prawn on the barbie, Bruce' from the end of all of my sentences. I'd be lost without it, cobber.

 

[Wiglaf]

Yes, in fact my sister used to say "shucky-darn."

Must be a Northern California thing; I never knew "shucky-darn" was a word.

Actually, a descriptive word along with word choice and order would convey an idea of accent pretty well in my opinion. Stupid phonetic spellings suck. Word choice can help but not entirely; adding a descriptive word as to a characters manner of speech would lessen the chance for confusion.

Speaking of words signifying an area someone came from, maybe I'll start a thread as to what colloquialisms suggest what.

 

[Hilarious Joke]

I might just end up skipping this all together and let people make of it what they will, as far as real world connections go.

I think this is a good idea. It can be dangerous being overly prescriptive with descriptions; let your readers hear the voice with a few guiding words.

 

[Peter Graham]

I suspect Sarah Palin says, "Yee-haw" when the spirit moves her.

That's almost refreshing - my understanding was that the only thing she was capable of saying was "hockey Mom".

Regards,

Peter

 

[Peter Graham]

But if I'm reading the OP correctly, he doesn't want to tell us the character is Texan, or Belgian, or whatever, because we're not in Kansas anymore, we're in a fantasy world.

Perhaps I misread - I thought that he was saying that he wants to use a word in order to give the impression that the character was speaking something we would recognise as a Spanish accent

As such, I don't see a problem with using descriptives like twang, lilt, trill, clipped or anything else - so long as they aren't over used, and fit the mood. If I came across twang in a fantasy setting, though, I think it would seriously jar me out of the world...

Fair point, but "twang" still doesn't mean anything in and of itself. "Aragorn spoke with a Numenorean twang" is utterly awful, I agree, but at least it means something.

As an aside, I found a handy add-on to my browser that removes the '... and chuck another prawn on the barbie, Bruce' from the end of all of my sentences. I'd be lost without it, cobber.

Good man. That must be why you are so easy to talk to.

But the serious point hiding behind my original post remains valid - a misunderstanding of accent leads to pastiche, which makes for awful reading.

Regards,

Peter

 

[Culhwch]

Fair point, but "twang" still doesn't mean anything in and of itself. "Aragorn spoke with a Numenorean twang" is utterly awful, I agree, but at least it means something.

Agreed on this point, the descriptive is mostly useless without the identifying origin...

 

[chrispenycate]

How would you be defining the rhythm for a reader, without you use some typical distortions, then? And why does Italian sound "musical" while Cantonese sounds "sing-song"? (Concentration on different phonemes? But it's an immediate effect, and carries across when speaking different languages as a foreigner.)