Accent

[gothwalk]

I am rarely aware of my own accent. I know it's there, and I know it sounds vaguely Irish to most non-Irish people, and vaguely non-Irish weird to the Irish, and sometimes archaic to everyone. I have always used 'ye' as the second-person plural, for instance, instead of the more modern Hiberno-English 'yous' or 'yiz'.

However, in the progress of a recent Living And the Dead session, I noticed that due to accents, only sabayone and shootbambi can pronounced the word 'realm' correctly every time. olethros, carawyn and I always insert an extra vowel - a sort of mini-u - between the l and the m. utterlymundane, being a well-spoken young fellow, gets it right about two attempts in three, but falls on the third hurdle.

Myself, I seem to be physically incapable of excising that extra vowel - and now that I've noticed it in my own speech, I can't un-hear it. Terribly irritating.

Comments

[ailbhe]

Ah, like fillum. It's correct in the name Colm though.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

You are absolutely correct. It must be the broad vowel preceding it...

[gothic-fraggle.livejournal.com]

It's cos Colm is an Irish name. That "lm" thing is very much an Irishism.

[gothic-fraggle.livejournal.com]

I have no problem with "realm" for some reason. But I cannot for the life of me pronounce "fillum" "correctly". I even had a student correct me on it recently!!

[ailbhe]

Oh - you and gothwalk - do you say "filluming" or "filming"?

It's weird how these things work - a lot of people pronounce Liam with two syllables (correct) and Niamh with one (not usually correct).

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Having tried it[1], I can say 'filming' with no trouble, but 'film' remains almost impossible.

[1] Co-worker: You're muttering to yourself a lot there, Drew.

[gothic-fraggle.livejournal.com]

Interesting... I think I can say both... probably depends on who I'm talking to. I was talking to a colleague about it yesterday and we discovered that I tend to say "film industry".

[sharikkamur.livejournal.com]

It's not just Irish accents that add stray extra vowels like that. I have a northern RP accent. How can you tell it's northern? Because words like 'crumbly' are pronounced 'crumbuly'.

And of course 'yous' is not at all strange - although I've never heard it described as Hiberno-English before. I've always just thought of it as everyday (classical) Scouse... which is, in a very real way, a cross between a Hiberno-English and Anglo-Welsh accent.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

The -bly one is no problem at all for my accent, although I'm amused to note that when I put in that extra vowel, I suddenly sound like a lowland Scot.

[tewok.livejournal.com]

That hidden vowel is often a part of Scots Gaelic words. Might it be a generally Gaelic thing that's spread beyond Gaelic?

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

Almost certainly, I'd reckon - there are plenty of other bits of speech that are: a typical Irishman does often be going to be doing things that will put a hangover on him.

[ailbhe]

I love do be doing as a construction.

[carawyn.livejournal.com]

I've always loved that we remodelled English to suit ourselves, so I cherish my lum pronounciations. (And I nearly always use ye, but I'm a bogger.)

[carawyn.livejournal.com]

And I always associated yous as a Dublin thing?

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

I've heard it in other parts of the country as well, I'm pretty sure.

[giftederic.livejournal.com]

I think yous is a towny thing rather than a Dublin only thing. I love the word ye. It has a genuine purpose, and I like that as an anachronism elsewhere it makes our 'civilization' seem like something from the dawn of time. :)

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

I used to associate it as a Belfast thing since it seems most of the people I know who were saying that were Northern Irish, but then lots of Scots say that too so who knows? ;)

[carawyn.livejournal.com]

lots of things have stopped existing for you recently, I grow concerned at this shrinking of your personal universe.. or maybe it's jealousy.

[elorie.livejournal.com]

My father said "ye" and so do a lot of other people in north Georgia. I do it sometimes. We tend to swallow our l's and assorted other consonants...I pronounce that word almost-but-not-quite like "reaum." "Film" comes out "fium." We still don't like that "lm" dipthong.

You will be shocked to learn that there are a lot of people of Scots and Irish descent in southern Appalachia, which includes north Alabama, north Georgia, east Tennessee, eastern Kentucky, western North Carolina, and West Virginia. I went to school with a bunch of MacRaes, McNishs, Daughertys, Callahans, and so forth.

[gothwalk.livejournal.com]

I'm actually currently reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series, which draws connections between Scotland and that general area - at least, I think it's that area, my US geography is weak, and I haven't got as far as finding placenames on a map yet.

[elorie.livejournal.com]

There are a lot of connections. Interestingly, many of the Scots who came to the then-colonies during the 18th century married into the Cherokee and Creek nations. I dated a boy in high school whose last name was McCosar, after an ancestor named Cosarico. He was Creek, and since they didn't originally have last names they had adopted the patronymic.

[cpio.livejournal.com]

Almonds are often used to flavour halva. But do you like to pronounce the 'l' in almond?

[loupblanc.livejournal.com]

Drew, I'm sorry but you sound as "vaguely Irish" as I sound "vaguely French", that is to say "quite a bit" ;)

[tir-tinuviel.livejournal.com]

Ya awl tawk funny, innit, I'z da only one wot tawks proʔer, Geeeeeeezah!