It's very interesting to hear both of the American fellows adamant that Simon is the most posh-sounding of the three of them. If you asked me, I'd say Simon is the least posh-sounding of them! Jackson's speech, to my British ear, evokes a kind of olden days Southern US vibe that is very much the idea of posh Southern gentlefolk, while Luke's accent definitely sounds very careful and well-spoken, even if I'm not familiar enough to know what the specific idea of "posh" would sound like in his particular variety of American English. With Simon on the other hand, as a fellow Brit the non-posh elements of his speech jump out immediately, particularly a lot of 'estuarised' sounds. I'd say the class inferences of his speech to me would be something like "well-educated individual, with middling-to-slightly-lower-than-middling prestige accent". I presume we naturally pick up on the nuances of that which we are familiar with, and the foreign tends to sound fancy! Much as in an intra-English context some Northerners can quite often classify any Southern accent (i.e. anyone with a trap-bath split) as automatically "posh", even if the particular Southern accent is one that other Southerners might say sounds like a chavvy yokel in class terms!
Interesting, yes I have occasionally heard what "posh" British sounds like, and Simon has a different accent to them, but I didn't really attach "prestige" to it... I think of it as "city" VS "rural" . My own accent is rural southern Louisiana.
American chiming in. Luke does sound incredibly refined to me. He has a sort of polished accent that sounds very close to the neutral American English used on train announcements for clarity. The only other place I've heard it is at universities. I don't think Jackson sounds posh at all, though. His accent is Joe Shmo Texas.
The British accent was in principle "invented" in the 1770s to sound different from the rebellious Americans' accent. So while many US accents can sound refined, the British accent is kind of "inorganic", and in that respect it's the most posh of all.
As a vocalist it’s very interesting to watch this and think not only of the mouth and tongue placement but also the difference in where the voice resonates from. This is something we think a lot in singing and it seems like a big difference in Jackson doing Simon’s accent is actually where his voice is placed because Simon has such a soft and more breathy placement that sounds more towards the head than deep in the chest where Jackson naturally sits.
It was also interesting to note that you did the timbre and general voice quality after the ipa when usually if I’m mimicking a person I start with where it’s felt and then do the ipa because something about where it’s felt informs for me the mouth and tongue so it’s more intuitive than just learning by wrote. But that’s from a singer actor perspective not a linguist. It seems like the two approaches are different.
To me, Jackson's voice quality changes quite a bit when he switches from speaking English to reading Old Norse. I'd like to hear the opinion of a professional on this...
@@Galenus1234 Languages flat out have different pitches. For example, a cheater way to do an approximate (good enough to get the point across) Russian accent is to start with a Scottish accent and then dip your head, which lowers your voice. Many Russians have high voices, but the entire language sounds lower than English.
I think it's amazing how at 37:15, Roper tries pronouncing "possible" and I can't help hearing it as an Englishman saying "passable", even though the words coming before and after sounded perfectly American to me. It really speaks to how fine-tuned all the vowels in your native tongue really are, and how hard it is to adjust them to the right place when imitating an accent, especially if (like in this case) one of your own vowels is closer (but not identical). Even for Roper, who has made a RU-vid career out of being very good at pronouncing English in different ways.
This video is like watching 3 magicians develop a magic trick from scratch. I have no idea how you're doing it but it's fascinating to watch. Also I wonder if after recording you felt like you'd said the same word so many times it stops making sense but for your whole accent.
Having three linguists break down the finest details of their language really reminds me how strange and magical it is that we have these language systems in the first place. The way we use extremely nuanced small mouth noises to convey complex ideas is a true every day miracle.
Three of the coolest people on RU-vid collaborating. I'm American, but from the south east US. We say "I reckon" here, but we get poked fun at over it, but it sounds quite proper from a Brit.
Me, a Tennessean listening to each of these accents, and thinking "yall have no idea how extended a diphthong can be" (Just teasing!). I think all of you did extremely well. What really impressed me, was that each of you did a great job (with fits and starts) of replicating each other's accents, but without it turning to mimicry. I would have immediately been trying to mimic each voice, without really trying to. So, while none of you really sounded like the other person, you all nailed their speach patters. Simon and Dr Crawford sounded the most alike, I think, because each have deeper, more resonant voices, but when Luke wasn't tripping over his vowels (he was presented with some difficult ones) he did great. Watching Simon get so amused was so much fun, I could tell all of you were enjoying the exercises, but Simon's joy stood out. This was a very short couple of hours, listening to three of my favorite linguists. I think you're all posh gents, and would love to see you do something similar again. Sorry for such a long response, but thanks to all three of you, and thank you, Simon, for hosting this.
I was born in the US South and I laughed out loud at your first comment because it is *so* accurate! I'm reminded of a Dr Phil episode from the 1990s where a guest from... Arkansas, I think?... said his name, and he just blinked at her and said, "Did you just put five different vowels in the word Phil?" 🤣
It was after 15 minutes of me rewinding and imitating all three of you and actually discussing out loud what I was discovering but finally realising that I wasn't online with you that I think this might just be my personal jam 🤣
Out of the three, I felt that Luke had the widest range in his ability to imitate sounds. He can even do impressions! Perhaps it’s because of the number of languages he speaks.
OK so at first, to me, this just seemed like a strange, perhaps silly and fun thing to try, but then watching the video---you guys are all great at turning this into a very interesting and educational experience! Loved it
Simon, you are a really *excellent* accent mimic. I say this as someone who has a knack for accents myself, but you're better than me. I have a native General American accent (Educated East Coast variant of Midlands). The one tiny error I hear in your imitation of Jackson is that you tend to slightly overdo the nasalization on some of his nasalized consonents. To an American ear the result sounds just a touch parodic. The "transatlantic" softened rhoticity Luke noticed is a class marker - it's characteristic of upper-class dialects, especially on the East Coast. Fifty years ago that stratum of accents was much less rhotic, more resembling BRP of the time. Rhoticity has been infiltrating them from the Middle American dialect over my lifetime. In general Luke's accent has a rather upper-crust sound, which is something that tends to happen with people who have self-reconstructed their idiolect a lot. It's interesting that Jackson brought up fake accents on country radio. He's right - it's really obvious to an American with any dialect ear and it's *incredibly irritating*. I figured out years ago that it activates the evolved cheater-detection module in my head.
@@francisdec1615yes there is a definite section of upper class East coast accents or newsreaders, where it can be hard to tell if they are American or British, sometimes it's only on the stress patterns you can hear the difference.
@@francisdec1615 FDR and JFK were from different places. Honestly I suspect that accounts for their different accents a lot more than the 20-ish years separating their times in office. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, regional accents in the US were much more distinct from one another.
Dr. Crawford was very very quick in picking up Simon's accent. Pretty amazing. I honestly thought Simon's reading of that line sounds not all that different from typical American accent.
I remember in the military there was me (from Southern California) a buddy from the mountains of Tennessee, another buddy from New Hampshire. These areas have very distinct American accents because its from different corners of the United States. We were drinking of course but we tried to imitate each other and it was so funny!
My three favorite language mavericks! I discovered you all independently, which makes me more self-regarding than fluent in any tongue, dialect, theory or literature, but oh well.
In addition to the main topic of this video being super interesting, I was fascinated as a German speaker by how well Luke could make the single syllable "so" sound German.
Native Dutch speaker here: I's super interesting to me when Luke and Simon discuss "small", Luke says Simon's last attempt it's pretty much the same as his, whereas to me, even though it's close, I hear Luke saying 'smoll' and Simon saying 'small'. On the other hand, I can't even hear the differencein the T pronounciations in "safety".
I liked this as you did it and also think it would be interesting to do it as another commenter suggests below: quickly, intuitively and without worrying about producing stereotypes and thus offending.
Just to join in on the phonetic hair-splitting, I think Jackson is making the /ou/ in 'no one' and the /ju/ in 'useless' too back and too rounded. Simon is saying something like [nəʏwʌn] and [jɨsləs]. Also that 'dn' sound in 'burden' - idk if there's a name for it but there's no tap, the tongue just holds against the alveolar ridge and transitions from /d/ to /n/ without releasing. The stop and release is actually coming from the back of the tongue on the back of the soft palate while the front of the tongue stays pressed against the alveolar position
As purple_purpur says pre-occluded nasal is one term for it. Another term is "nasal release". Usually transcribed as consonant with no release followed by nasal. [d̚n̩], but 'technically' should be transcribed [dⁿn̩]
One thing with Jackson that I think is playing into his resonance idea is that he seems to speak with a fair amount of vocal fry, and perhaps just a bit of twang, and I think that those aspects of his actual vocal production were influencing how he and the others were hearing his articulation.
This was so much fun. I don’t know why I was so tickled to hear Simon doing American accents. I too am a Yankee, and was surprised to hear how close Luke’s accent is to my New York accent. I think some of those things like the dark L come from older immigrant groups, I’m thinking of Yiddish, German, maybe Eastern European accents.
so I think Jackson is suffering from being stereotyped as a cowboy. Because both Luke and Simon make them sound like a Texan. Whereas a rocky Mountain accent has a bit of a drawl and it’s kind of low in pitch but it’s generally it’s much more like general American.
I watched this the other day, and I found myself sort of "playing along". Foreign accents and different dialects were the first linguistics-related area I remember being interested in. I like to think I could hold my own among you three, but until I'm tested, I can't be sure. I'm sure I would end up imitating the voice as well as the accent, which on the one hand might veer a bit too close to parody, but on the other would bring in some of the suprasegmental features that Jackson kept mentioning. Maybe I'll start a channel of my own and invite you all onto a call for a rematch ;)
I'm from the Rocky Mountains in Utah, and I pronounce "wh" like Jackson Crawford. I've been teased for it as an adult, living outside the Rocky Mountains.
Luke’s voice is so much higher in pitch than Jackson’s that I feel like that is the main challenge The two of them are having. They are tuned into those vowel sounds, but it is actually the pitch and speed that distinguishes them.
The American pronunciation of the word “anything” trips up most English actors. That’s always the tell of a Brit in an American role. 😁 Just discovered this video - so much fun!
I realized from watching this video that Simon does have a bit of a Cumbrian accent (I'm assuming that's what it is) that I had never really noticed before. If I as a roughly southern UK RP speaker try to copy his accent I can get there by doing something like a mild Leeds accent (or I guess cumbrian accent) and then slide it all towards RP until there's only a tiny trace left. I sound like Simon, weird! (and also some of the younger people I met when travelling in the Lake District)... And now I'm listening to Simon near the end of the video and doubting myself. I think it's only certain words this is true for. This stuff can get so specific!
Yeah, Roper's not a standard Southern RP. I'm American and even I can tell that. Interesting that you identify the other element as Combrian - I could tell it was northern, but coul;dn't nail it closer than that.
@@ericraymond3734I’m also American. I haven’t heard much of a Northern accent from Simon except for in one video where he used [ʊ] in the third syllable of “anybody” - that really stuck out.
This is how distinct and numerous our accents are in the UK - so like to me Simon has both such a neutral accent and yet completely different to my own. (In "world" for e..g my 'rl' would just be rounded it'd be almost voiceless) We must harbour so many hangovers from the heptarchy languages that impact all our intonations, cadences and nuances - and that's before even one word of my northern slang enters the chat. Loved the level of anaylsis guys 👌
Interesting for me, I am Australian and when I hear the blokes with American accents drop their Accent and move into a British/Simon accent I feel relief in my head, a stress is relaxed. I am probably seeing it in these terms because I have a background in movement and singing.
A thought for next time, it would have been interesting to listen to Luke trying to imitate Simon as well as Jackson, taking it in turns to try and bounce off each other’s attempts. I’m 26 minutes in and I’m hoping that later I’ll get to hear Luke try it and also hear it contrasted against Jackson’s attempts. A side note, as an East Midlander, I have noticed that Simon has a very East Midlands accent in places but then it is swallowed by the southerner in him.
Off-topic I guess - but I had a thought today, and then thought of you, Simon. ‘Slang’ - as an Australian, slang is part of the daily lived experience here. And of course the British are equally famed for the use of slang. What do we know about the use of slang in Old English? Was it a thing? When did it become so prevalent in the English language (and by extension, I suppose, Australian and other colonial dialects with British roots)? Here it probably emerged as a way to be anti-establishment, to bond with others, for fun. I imagine it played a similar role in England when it emerged also? Regards, Mike Green. Oh, and I enjoy your channel immensely. Thank you!
Interesting discussion about the "wh" sound. I have a distinction between "w" and "wh", which is a bit strange since I grew up in New Jersey, but it's something I've been doing as long as I can remember. For me, the "wh" feels almost as if I'm producing a "w" and an "h" simultaneously. Also, good choice by Luke on the DS9 quote.
Simon, wonderful stuff as always. Can you give me your opinion as to why the accent in DORSET seems to have almost gone? My family all had wonderful Dorset accents, bur now when I’m there I only hear an accent from South east, London area. Yet when one is in Liverpool, or further North, everyone still has the relevant accent? Such a pity to lose Dorset’s wonderful sounds.
At 23:25 so interesting to ponder the relationship between an actor capturing the speech of a known person and how caricature drawings function. Caricature drawings are successful if the artist has correctly identified what proportions of the subject's face deviate from average. Let's say the subject's eyes are a tiny bit closer together than average. Everyone who knows that person subconsciously knows it. Thus the artist can draw the eyes a tad closer together than average, or keep pushing them closer until they're actually touching! It doesn't matter; everyone who knows that person will say the drawing looks like the subject as long as the eyes are closer than average. I don't think this can work with accent and voice quality- the actor can't push things too far. This, then, is more like realistic portraiture, I reckon.
If you watch the movie about the search for the Boston bombers and at the point of the firefight with Tamerlane Tzarnaev and once the suspect is down you hear on the radio "hald ya fi'ah ,hald ya fi'ah" in subtitles is of coarse "hold your fire" ,great insight into real Boston English
