A study by the British Library revealed that despite concerns to the contrary, Britons have not begun adopting the American pronunciation for English words. In fact, British English is changing at a faster rate than American English. Jonnie Robinson, one of the researchers, said:
Here's how Robinson and his colleagues conducted the study of 10,000 English speakers:
Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Image: Daily Mail
‘In fact, in some cases it is the other way around. British English, for whatever reason, is innovating and changing while American English remains very conservative and traditional in its speech patterns.’
Here's how Robinson and his colleagues conducted the study of 10,000 English speakers:
The volunteers were asked to read extracts from Mr Tickle, one of the series of Mr Men books by Roger Hargreaves.
They were also asked to pronounce a set of six different words which included ‘controversy’, ‘garage’, ‘scone’, ‘neither’, ‘attitude’ and ‘schedule’.
Linguists then examined the recordings made by 60 of the British and Irish participants and 60 of their counterparts from the U.S. and Canada.
Link via Ace of Spades HQ | Image: Daily Mail
Comments (23)
Nuclear -> Nukilar???
Lasso ->Laysoo???
I don't think they actually got Americans to say those words. I think they're just comparing British English with Stephen Fry's impersonation of George Bush.
http://tinyurl.com/45qev5n
For instance the big difference with garage is on syllabic accent. Britons tend to emphasis the first, while Americans emphasize the second.
I learned that on occasion I do say "aboot", but being from B.C. I don't pronounce it that way quite as much. Eastern Canadians, from Newfoundland, P.E.I. and New Brunswick tend to pronounce it more like "aboot". All the distinctively Canadian pronunciations are found on the east side of Quebec.
However, during my time working for call-centres, I frequently heard statements like "Oh! Thank God! An American!" I had to inform them I was not in-fact an American, but it became clear to me that the pronunciation I picked up on the West-coast was more akin to Norther-American dialects. I always sounded nothing like Southerners.
So I think if you take the Western regions of Canada, B.C. and Alberta (especially) they tend to sound more like the bordering American states, but unlike the Easter-Canadian or Southern-American dialect. Which makes sense considering the geographical proximities. Never-the-less, we still spell neighbour with a U, and centre with the E on the end. Though this distinction has broken down for me since the internet.
Dean Johnson from HomeTime calls a rOOf a ruff.
-I think he's from Wusskaahhnsn, though.
Still chuckle at the way Southerners pronounce Syrup ('surrrp') + other things, though hahaha ...
Most of the "Canadian" accents you hear are the Maritime accents.