Friedel talks like a Geordie.

Discussion in 'Yanks Abroad' started by RobB, Sep 23, 2003.

  1. Deimos

    Deimos Member

    Apr 23, 1999
    Louisville, KY, USA
    Scottish settlers were some of the first to move to the South, so that's probably some kind of recidivism. They were also followers of William of Orange, which is why they are called "Hillbillies". (So I've heard)
     
  2. Deimos

    Deimos Member

    Apr 23, 1999
    Louisville, KY, USA
    Apparently, an American speaking German is just about the funniest thing they've ever heard there. For example, if you flatten the long I in 'mine' (mahn) in English, meiner in German. Hilarious!
     
  3. Scotty

    Scotty Member+

    Dec 15, 1999
    Toscana
    Friedel's case is hardly unique.

    Anyone remember Harkes' accent after playing 6 years in England? Just check out some of his interviews from the 94 World Cup and see what I mean.
     
  4. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    I think that's Scots-Irish, not Welsh. William of Orange didn't go into Wales.
    I don't agree he sounds geordie though, far from it. I've said it before, but the nearest "English" accent to his was Robin Williams's character Mrs Doubtfire, whose accent went on a tour of all the countries in the British Isles except England, which was the one she was supposed to be from.

    I saw a girl in a shop the other day who had a strong southern (US) accent, except about every 6th or 7th word which came out sounding English. Very strange.
     
  5. Woodrow

    Woodrow Member+

    Dec 7, 2001
    Brick City
    Club:
    New York Red Bulls
    A big part of the accent would be tied to idiomatic expressions. The more British expressions Brad uses the more British his accent will sound. He's going to sound more British if he is talking about the "lads" and how well they performed on the "pitch" than he would talking about shopping at Wal-Mart.
     
  6. dcufan1984

    dcufan1984 Member

    Feb 17, 2002
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    my sister has done some extensive linguistics research as part of her english studies in college, and many people actually believe that isolated (hillbilly) communities in the appalachian mountains of ga, tn, wv, va, and nc sound closer to the 17th and 18th century accents of the british isles than the those spoken today in wales, ireland, scotand, and england due to their isolation from outside populations. she also has traveled to england quite a lot, and consistently gets mistaken as being english in the uk and the northern us. (our accents aren't very thick, but it has the typical south georgia drawl.)

    while i think we all know that most southerners' accents sound nowhere near those of appalachia, there are many small similarities in general pronunciation that could explain why southerners are sometimes mistaken for the english... if that theory above holds any water.
     
  7. PaulGascoigne

    PaulGascoigne Member+

    Feb 5, 2001
    Aotearoa/NZ
    This is beyond a wild theory. There was a documentary a few years ago (not sure what it is, but I can find out). Essentially, a lady went around to these isolated communities where speech patterns had remaind the same for 300+ years. Because their accents hadn't changed much, their speech and music (very nice, I've heard a few renditions) supposedly sounded more like what it DID sound like over there.

    How can this be, you say. Think of it this way--ever notice how the Aussies, NZ, SA, Commonwealth folk all have that same "twang" while we in the US don't? Essentially, the US was settled before the Cockneys had their powerful effect on UK accents. No one in Britain (or nearly no one) speaks without this influence in their accent...

    ...I'll try to find the name of the documentary.

    To add to another item that's out there, the Scots indeed were some of the first to settle the south, and (you'd know t his if you've lived in Arkansas) were the genesis of rednecks as we know them (and I believe Hillbilly music has a lot of influence from the Scots as well).

    I'll stay tuned for others' comments--linguistic history is interesting.
     
  8. PaulGascoigne

    PaulGascoigne Member+

    Feb 5, 2001
    Aotearoa/NZ
    At least one movie is called "Songcatcher" (2001 indie) about a woman professor who goes to Appalachia in 1907 and finds people singing music from Scotland, etc. that dates to "back in the day" (pre-cockney).

    I'm still sure there's a book on this topic, but I don't have time to look.
     
  9. Mario

    Mario New Member

    Mar 11, 2000
    San Salvador, El Sal
    ROTFLMAO! :p

    best post ever

    thanks for my new sig!
     
  10. dcufan1984

    dcufan1984 Member

    Feb 17, 2002
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    yeah, i knew of the folk songs already as well. appalachian music has been documented extensively and its implimentation of very old, and sometimes very rare, british folk songs is remarkable, considering the passage of time and the amount of culture-melting in the united states.

    imagine singing songs that were sung in scotland 300-400 years ago, carried to the colonies by your ancestors, simply because your dad sang them when he was working around the house and you just picked them up... while having no clue of their origins. that kind of cultural purity is virtually unheard of in the usa.
     
  11. Deimos

    Deimos Member

    Apr 23, 1999
    Louisville, KY, USA
    Here's the trailer to the movie Songcatcher

    There are some parts of songs.
     
  12. PaulGascoigne

    PaulGascoigne Member+

    Feb 5, 2001
    Aotearoa/NZ
    I'm listening to a song off the soundtrack called "Moonshiner" right now. Excellent. Download today!

    Obviously a mixture of American 21st century singers and old old lyrics. But it sounds great.
     
  13. Fulham9

    Fulham9 Member

    Mar 14, 2002
    Houston, Texas, USA


    Languages are always in a process of change, even in isolated communities, and even in Appalachia. It just isn't true to say that "speech patterns remained the same for 300+ years." It is true that Appalachia was originally settled by the Scotch-Irish (or Ulster-Scots) and that Appalachian dialects still have some similarities with Ulster-Scots dialects, but these are both modern dialects and are not the same as that spoken 300 years ago.




    Cockney is a modern London dialect. Standard (UK) English is based on London speech, but Cockney is just one of several London dialects. Beginning in the 18th century, the influence of London speech began to spread throughout England, first the Southeast, then throughout most of the South and Midlands. North America was settled in the 17th and 18th centuries, before London speech had spread beyond the Southeast. That is why North American English sounds very different from modern UK English. It is also why the dialects of Eastern New England sound most like UK English, because New England was mostly settled by people from Southeast England.

    Australia, NZ and SA were not settled until the 19th century, after London speech had become the "standard" dialect of England. That is why Australia and New Zealand accents sound so similar to each other, and to North American ears, similar to standard UK English.
     
  14. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    Not quite true. London pronunciation, often known as Estuary English, has had little impact beyond the south east of the country. The accents from the rest of the country are very different, it's just that Americans are rarely exposed to them. The habit of putting in a 'extra' R into certain words, such a bath, so it's pronounced barth is limited to the south east of England.

    There really is no such thing as "standard English". The 'posh' English accent, the one probably considered most typical of English accents, is possibly the rarest in the country. There is no region of the country that speaks like that - it is purely the accent of the rich and boarding school educated. A very small part of the population.

    Even if communities are isolated, it's unlikely that they'd have retained the same accent over a few hundred years when other 'isolated' places such as Australia and New Zealand have formed their own accents in a shorter time. Telling New Zealanders and Aussies apart is very easy if you know how - New Zealanders pronouce almost all of their vowels as if they are the letter 'i' - my favourite example would be hearing a New Zealand guy talking about visiting a "lip dincing" club.
    The welsh accent is almost totally down to the welsh language, which is still the main language in the north of the country.

    There are strong pronunciation links between American English and old English though. The "t" in creatures, for example, used to be pronounced as a "t" rather than the "ch" of today, and is almost certainly the source of the American "critters".
     
  15. CrewToon

    CrewToon Member

    Jun 13, 1999
    Greenbrier Farm
    At least Friedel hasn't been accused of sounding like a Mackem. :D
     
  16. Elessar1733

    Elessar1733 New Member

    Dec 11, 2001
    Columbia, SC
    Not too much of a history buff myself, but that may help explain why I had such an easy time understanding the Scottish guy with the really thick accent, while the other Americans struggled. Hm.
     
  17. dcufan1984

    dcufan1984 Member

    Feb 17, 2002
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    the term "cracker," used to refer to a person from the state of georgia, originates from the scotch-irish settlers on the georgian frontier in the early 1700s. many of them were pig farmers and would herd their hogs with the use of a whip. the "cracking" noise it made became synonymous with these lower-class white georgians and was turned into a nickname/slur to describe them. later it was embraced by the entire population as a symbol of pride, but is still used by blacks as a racial slur... although i've never known anyone to be offended by it and even african-american georgians are "crackers."

    yet another interesting and odd example of english in america.
     
  18. Colin Grabow

    Colin Grabow New Member

    Jul 22, 1999
    Washington, DC
    If anyone's interested, today's Wall Street Journal has a front page article about Americans who adopt British accents. Apparently linguists call this phenomenon "linguistic accommodation."

    Gist of the article is that Brits snicker at Americans who go this route, and it is recommended that they stick with American accents because it is associated with success in business.
     
  19. christopher d

    christopher d New Member

    Jun 11, 2002
    Weehawken, NJ
    It happens. When I was 18, I took a job in Manhattan for the summer. Never had an accent before then, although I had lived in and around NYC my whole life. My accent came out Brooklyn. I'd never been to Brooklyn. Fourteen years later, even after nine years in California, I can't lose it, although it's softened considerably to a generic metro NYC accent. Rather than blending, though, it fades in and out with a mild California accent (think Brian Wilson).

    Brad may have picked it up for the same reason I did: insecure, alone, new situation (the singing lessons I was taking at the time might have had something to do with it, too ;)). Having actively tried to shake mine, I can see him having problems losing his, even after he comes home.
     
  20. Pigs

    Pigs Member

    Everton FC
    England
    Mar 31, 2001
    Everywhere and nowhere
    Club:
    Everton FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    I've only heared Freidel say a few sentence because he was on the tv the other day. But to me he sounded like a Norwegian speaking English. Funnily enough, the Geordie accent is very close to Norwegian, and they still use old and modern Norwegian words in their speech.

    When I hear Americans speak in person, the first four words that come out of their mouths sounds Irish then a few words later you realise their American. Americans IMO have a lot of Irish and Cornish accent in their speech. It makes sense because people who sailed to America from England all those years ago sailed from Penzance, Cornwall. And the Irish immigrants who didn't go to Liverpool, went to America.
     
  21. PSU92

    PSU92 Member

    Feb 27, 1999
    Annandale VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    People are different.

    Arianna Huffington & Arnold Schwarzenegger certainly haven't lost their accents for example but could you ever tell that Richard Dawson was English when he used to do the Family Feud.
     
  22. RichardL

    RichardL BigSoccer Supporter

    May 2, 2001
    Berkshire
    Club:
    Reading FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    It's also thought that the west country accent (note to americans: think pirate and you'll be thereabouts) was much more widespread than now and was pretty much the standard english accent outside of the cities (which didn't get remotely large until the 1800s).
     
  23. efren95

    efren95 Member

    Apr 20, 2000
    Republic of Texas
    I know you're not joking because I couldn't agree with you more.

    What a piece of pedantic, petulant and boring snob Friedel has become.

    Whom is he trying to impress? Probably his mom...
     
  24. Pigs

    Pigs Member

    Everton FC
    England
    Mar 31, 2001
    Everywhere and nowhere
    Club:
    Everton FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
  25. Pigs

    Pigs Member

    Everton FC
    England
    Mar 31, 2001
    Everywhere and nowhere
    Club:
    Everton FC
    Nat'l Team:
    England
    I can't blame Freidel, he obviously wanted to get rid of his funny accent.;)
     

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