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October 1

Mid-Atlantic accents

One thing I had wondered about lately is that English has a Mid-Atlantic accent, which is somewhat of a smoothed out middle ground between two high-prestige varieties, and I wondered whether there'd be other langugaes that would have similar accents. I was mostly thinking of Spanish (European and Latin American) and Portuguese (European and Brazilian). French doesn't really seem to have any high-prestige varieties outside of Europe, and the differences between Parisian, Belgian and Swiss accents seem to be quite negligible. Arabic might not have any high-prestige native accents other than Egyptian Arabic, but Modern Standard Arabic seems to be more directly based on the Quranic language, anyway. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:14, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Standard Spanish deals a bit with it and how Disney tried to establish an unmarked variety. However: Above all, certain grammatical structures are impossible to form in a neutral way, due to differences in the verb conjugations used (e.g. the use of the second-person familiar pronoun vos in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Central American countries, while most other countries prefer tú, and most Colombians tend to use usted in the informal context—and all three pronouns require different verb conjugations). At least one of the three versions will always sound odd in any given Spanish-speaking country.

Italian language is not exactly Tuscan language, but I don't think there is more than one prestigious dialect.

Standard Basque is mostly Gipuzkoan but with some Northeastern spellings.

I think I read that Modern Hebrew has Ashkenazi consonants and Sephardic vowels.

From standard language:

In the 1930s, Standard Chinese was adopted, with its pronunciation based on the Beijing dialect, but with vocabulary also drawn from other Mandarin varieties and its syntax based on the written vernacular.[43]

In Brazil, actors and journalists usually adopt an unofficial, but de facto, spoken standard Portuguese, originally derived from the middle-class dialects of Rio de Janeiro and Brasília, but that now encompasses educated urban pronunciations from the different speech communities in the southeast. In that standard, ⟨s⟩ represents the phoneme /s/ when it appears at the end of a syllable (whereas in Rio de Janeiro this represents /ʃ/) and the rhotic consonant spelled ⟨r⟩ is pronounced [h] in the same situation (whereas in São Paulo this is usually an alveolar flap or trill).

Rumantsch Grischun is a unified form but the "real" Grison dialects are not very prestigious, I think.

I don't find clear examples in Pluricentric language or Dialect levelling.

--Error (talk) 23:17, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Roman dialect isn't exactly "prestigious" but I gather it's used quite a bit in the literature and films of the last 50 or so years. - Jmabel | Talk 03:26, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Italo-Dalmatian languages: The Italian language was initially and primarily based on Florentine: it has been then deeply influenced by almost all regional languages of Italy while its received pronunciation (known as Pronuncia Fiorentina Emendata, Amended Florentine Pronunciation) is based on the accent of the Roman dialect; these are the reasons why Italian differs significantly from Tuscan and its Florentine variety.[3]

--Error (talk) 14:47, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not so important now, I guess, but a lot of effort went into trying to form a "standard" Yiddish (see Yiddish dialects and YIVO). The written literature of the language tends to favor the "Litvish" (Lithuanian) dialect, but Yiddish theater has more southerly origins and often leans toward a Ukrainian Yiddish. "Standard" Yiddish is spoken mainly by people who learned it as a second language, and is close to Litvish, but definitely has influence from other dialects, especially the Ukrainian dialect of the theater. - Jmabel | Talk 03:50, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Although I can see what Wakuran is trying to say, I take exception to the phrase "English has a Mid-Atlantic accent". I would agree that certain English speakers have adopted this gruesome drawl from 1970s BBC Radio 1 DJs onwards, but I suggest that such an affectation is a total fake. Genuine people from all over the UK speak in either a local dialect (often identifiable to within 30 miles radius or so) or some sort of 'Oxford' (RP) accent, either 'academic' or 'posh' to some degree. Although the French Marseillais and Québécois accents/dialects have some similarities, I feel that French speakers from either sides of the Atlantic would never sully themselves with trying to imitate each other. The British have always attempted to imitate the Americans, and the result for wannabe celebs is always atrocious. </rant> MinorProphet (talk) 01:54, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am unacquainted with BBC Radio 1 DJs. Would you count Ian McShane as an example of the phenomenon? —Tamfang (talk) 18:55, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

User:Tamfang it was more an affectation of DJs in the 1960s and 70s like Alan Freeman and Tony Blackburn. The accent was parodied by the comedy characters Smashie and Nicey. Alansplodge (talk) 17:50, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I forgot 'actors', who have a special talent for utterly mangling accents on film and even on stage. Yes, I would. Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins comes to mind as the worst possible MAA ever. Perhaps he was speaking Manglish? MinorProphet (talk) 21:02, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it's a joke, but cockney might be as low-prestige as it goes. By George, he didn't get it, though. James Marsters handled a London accent fairly well, on the other hand. I guess Americans seem to do worse than Brits or Australians, otherwise. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:04, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

When I first saw Minnie Driver she was playing an American character in Grosse Pointe Blank. Quite a shock to hear her later on a talk show. Likewise Lennie James in Jericho. On another hand Patrick Malahide's attempt at Dixie in The Long Kiss Goodnight was atrocious. —Tamfang (talk) 18:51, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Or Hugh Laurie... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:52, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

darn it, i knew i missed someone obvious —Tamfang (talk) 19:54, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]