Accents and dialects

Rocklobster said:
I am from a region in Ontario called the Ottawa Valley which is just west of our Capital city..it is a rural area, for the most part which originated as farmers, settlers from Ireland, Scotland, Britain, Poland, the Netherlands,...you still see older generation immigrants here and can hear accents their accents every where you go..This has led to the people from the Ottawa Valley having quite the influence in the original dialect...I grew up with it, moved on for a few decades and have returned to embrace it...there was a time when I didn't want to sound like I was from The Valley, but I don't really care any more...everybody has an accent according to somebody..

I have a series of videos I post on our FB page if anybody wants to hear my Valley Twang..I don't hold back when speaking to the local market...
Lakeview Foods & Catering
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Just liked it
 
I mentioned before how my dad and his family pronounce certain words. He had an uncle Gary, and that was spoken as "Gurry," and other words like that are the same: "berries" are "burries," and so forth.

Also, the "I" vowel is frequently said as more of an "A" sound - if my dad wants his apple pie heated, for example, he might tell my mom to put it in the microwave for a minute, but he'll pronounce microwave as "mackerwave."

I wish so badly that I had recordings of my grandmother, his mom, speaking, because she had such a wonderful voice, full of musicality and cadence, and also peppered liberally with archaic and unusual words and sayings. I used to love listening to her.

She would use words like galluses to mean suspenders, she could talk about being "borned in the holler on Copper Crick (creek)," and she used words like "you'ns" (meaning "you all") and "brung" instead of brought, and "heered" instead of heard, which has carried on to my siblings.

Everyone, including me to this day, still says "purt near," for almost, like, "Are you ready to go yet?" - "Purt-near, just give me a minute."

Around here, "fire" is said as "far" and "tired" is "tarred," and we all know you're not from here if you say you're going to the nearby town of Ironton, because locals call that "Arn'un."

My grandmom didn't tell us ghost stories, she told us about "boogers and haints," and if she said something bad about someone, she always made up for it by adding, "...bless her heart" at the end, as in, "Oh, that poor girl ain't too smart, bless her heart." That made it ok. :laugh:

When my dad wants to tell you it's windy, he'll describe it as "airish," and if it's going to storm later, he'll say it's "about to come up a cloud."

If it's cold out, he'll say, "It's cold as kraut!" and if he ate too much, he'll say he's as full as/fat as a tick.

My mom, OTOH, her mother was Mennonite, so she has some of that. If she thinks your coffee is a little cold, she'll say, "Let me hotten that for you." She also says wash as "warsh," and wish as "weesh." That's pure southern Ohio.

This is an excellent topic, it's got my mind firmly on a nostalgic path, which is rare for me.
 
Oh, something else...to this day, when speaking to my family about my parents, my dad is referred to as "Pap," and my mom as "Mammy."

"Mammy" is a very racially charged word here, so you almost never hear it on TV or in polite company or whatever, but I'll sit here and tell you that I'm so white I'm damn near transparent, and I've always called my mom "Mammy," and that's how my dad addressed his mom, so forth.
 
Rocklobster said:
I am from a region in Ontario called the Ottawa Valley which is just west of our Capital city..it is a rural area, for the most part which originated as farmers, settlers from Ireland, Scotland, Britain, Poland, the Netherlands,...you still see older generation immigrants here and can hear accents their accents every where you go..This has led to the people from the Ottawa Valley having quite the influence in the original dialect...I grew up with it, moved on for a few decades and have returned to embrace it...there was a time when I didn't want to sound like I was from The Valley, but I don't really care any more...everybody has an accent according to somebody..

I have a series of videos I post on our FB page if anybody wants to hear my Valley Twang..I don't hold back when speaking to the local market...
Lakeview Foods & Catering
Click to expand...
I am curious now. Would love to hear it. I do not use favcebook for many years now, is it on youtube?
 
Timenspace said:
Oh wow. We were taught Zed in school in English class...never came across Zee...
Am trying to pronounce the described, it is so intetesting!
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Zee is the usual way it's said here in the US, but she grew up close to French-Canada, and there are a lot of things that get mixed together.
 
The accent/dialect from around here used to be very distinctive.
I live in Stoke on Trent and it's made up of 6 towns. At one time it was easy to tell which town of the city someone came from.
It's dying now quickly but there are some words that last...
Conner....... Can't
Wunner.......Won't
Cost........ Can You?
Wom....... Home.


Have a look on YouTube for "Owd Grandad Piggott"
That is a proper Stokie accent.
It's actually a man in his 20s or 30s telling comedy stories but he talks exactly how my Grandparents spoke.
Listen, enjoy and see if you can work it all out... If theyt(you) gets stuck(shouldn't do) then just yell.
 
TastyReuben said:
Zee is the usual way it's said here in the US, but she grew up close to French-Canada, and there are a lot of things that get mixed together.
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Those borders are so interesting everywhere precisely for the mixtures of influences and all...lovely!
 
Peloquin said:
The accent/dialect from around here used to be very distinctive.
I live in Stoke on Trent and it's made up of 6 towns. At one time it was easy to tell which town of the city someone came from.
It's dying now quickly but there are some words that last...
Conner....... Can't
Wunner.......Won't
Cost........ Can You?
Wom....... Home.


Have a look on YouTube for "Owd Grandad Piggott"
That is a proper Stokie accent.
It's actually a man in his 20s or 30s telling comedy stories but he talks exactly how my Grandparents spoke.
Listen, enjoy and see if you can work it all out... If theyt(you) gets stuck(shouldn't do) then just yell.
Click to expand...
Will do so. Thanks👍😁
 
1 more thing to mention...the Owd Grandad Piggott stories were a load of stories based very locally so if you came from 10 miles away you might not have got what he was talking about fully. He talks about famous (here) pubs like The Owd Hut..... It's actually called the George and Dragon but no one knows it as that... It's The Owd Hut.
He talks about housing estates or town suburbs so, as you can imagine, when I was younger I could actually visualise these stories happening as I actually knew these places well.


I'll be laughing tonight listening to some of them.
 
Was in between lessons online amd cooking and laundry, here in Croatia, although a fairly small croissant shaped land, we have not just the Dalmatian and Zagrebian, but also the Istrian, the Zagorski, Međimurski, Slavonski, Dubrovački, and island specific dialects...

When spoken swiftly, I get lost😂, fascinated, but lost.

Possibly the clearest is Slavonski, Eastern ...

I love watching old Zagreber dialect videos with the many German words inserted...Bademantel, Vorzimmer, Šnenokle (Schnee Knoedel i.e. a dessert using eyewhites), porihtati (zurichten) ...and some Zagorski influence: kaj? The relaxed version of What (standard is Što)...

And love the colloquial phrases coined. E.g. Nevermind, let him... Ko ga šiša ( Who cuts his hair)😂
 
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