Comment on Fantasy rednecks

PugJesus@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• YoBuckStopsHere@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  New England accent is actually closest to English of the Middle Ages.

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  • PugJesus@kbin.social ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I heard it was Southern English which was closest to Elizabethan English.

    In any case, reality doesn't matter. Perceptions matter. Britain is an old country, and America is a new country - so in 'translating' an accent to a past period, we tend to see the accent of the 'old country' as more appropriate.

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  • KevonLooney@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Pahk the caht.

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    • xX_fnord_Xx@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Dahn ehn Cahmahlaht.

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  • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I wonder how they measure such a thing

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    • merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’m not sure how they measure how close an accent is. But, they can tell how old accents sounded by looking at songs and poetry for the meter and rhyme of words. If two words rhymed, they were probably pronounced the same way. For example, in Shakespeare’s time they know that “proved” and “loved” rhymed.

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    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      well for one from times and places where there was a lot of casual writing there are just straight up people writing about how people speak, which is pretty convenient.

      but additionally you can compare different recorded and modern speakers to figure out trends which let you at least vaguely reconstruct what people from the past would probably have sounded like.

      and more specifically with new england that’s just wholesale a bunch of people from england who settled a colony, so you effectively have a twin study where you can compare it to modern england.

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• merc@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  American English wasn’t a thing until the Medieval period had long passed

  Nor was modern British English. One of the defining features of modern British English is the lack of rhoticity (dropping the “r” sound), but that’s very modern, only happening in the 19th century. They have managed to recreate how English sounded in Shakespeare’s time by looking at words that were supposed to rhyme, and their meter. To me, it sounds like “pirate English”.

  youtu.be/uQc5ZpAoU4c?t=299

  Whether modern American English is closer to Shakespeare’s English is a matter for debate. I’d say it’s closer than RP, but not as close as some rural British accents.

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• NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Actually, modern American English apparently closer to the English from old days than modern day British English is. Always found that yo be an interesting tidbit.

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  • SonnyVabitch@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Shakespeare apparently rhymes better in American accents than British ones, since it was written before the Great Vowel Shift. I’m not cultured enough to notice but I like this piece of trivia.

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  • explodicle@local106.com ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Same with the Quebec French

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  • skullgiver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    In terms of spelling perhaps, but America being an amalgamation of many different types of immigrants has definitely affected American accents.

    And it’s not like the British/Irish/Scottish characters speak anything like they would’ve a century ago. Every current accent is current, there aren’t any accents that stay unchanged unless they’re only spoken in small communities completely separate from the rest of the world (and the internet). Language develops over time, that’s why we now have English teachers with opinions on when to use “less” and when to use “fewer”, and arbitrary rules like “don’t end a sentence with a preposition”.

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• Tedrow@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  This is actually a misconception. The modern English accents are a result of fashionable language of London. This developed after the United States of America was formed. So after the Middle ages. It’s more likely English speakers in the middle ages sounded more American than English.

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• Belgdore@lemm.ee ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  That may be true for region us dialects, but the core of American pronunciation is older than Received Pronunciation

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• Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  American accents sound too ‘modern’ because American English wasn’t a thing until the Medieval period had long passed, and most fantasy is medieval or medieval-adjacent.

  OP mentions Australia, which wasn’t even established as a penal colony until 5 years after the US was recognized as an independent nation under the Treaty of Paris.

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• evening_push579@feddit.nu ⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Xenoblade 2 had a nice use of the various English accents, generally each nation/group in the game used a particular accent (eg Mor Ardain = Scottish, villain group Torna spoke American English). One unique character (a blade) had a southern grew-up-on-a-farm accent.

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