Doug Pensinger wrote:
> What I have trouble with is telling the
> difference between other Anglo accents - English, Aussie, South African, and
> New Zealand to name a few. Does anyone have any pointers that would help
> easily distinguish these dialects?
Gosh - New Zealanders all sound alike accent wise (there are variations in what
they say), and Australians and South Africans have only small differences
regionally (though the three are completely different to each other). Your
question runs into real trouble when you get to the English. Leaving aside the
non-English UK accents (Scot, Welsh, Irish, Channel Is) the variation in England
is enormous. East Enders and Cockneys might as well be speaking different
languages. For the Queen's english, you need the "official" BBC accent, but after
that it's a maze... Experts could, until recent times of high population
mobility, pick London suburb of origin with considerable accuracy.
For the colonials, New Zealanders soften everything (it's all those sheep) as in,
fuh, fife, sex, sivvin, ett, nine, tin.
Australians drawl a bit (not like Hollywood would have you believe)and add a
"twang" to many of their syllables, and South Africans have a "harder edge" from
the Dutch influence, with some extra "R" sounds thrown in.
As it happens, I received a joke about this in my email this morning.
Warning:
Some crudity involved
Please stop if you are likely to be offended...
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The scene is set, night cold, campfire, stars twinkling in the night
sky. some of you know the scene well ! Three hang glider pilots, one
Aussie, one Kiwi and one Saffer there are sitting around a camp fire in
the Brecon Beacons, each of them embroiled in there own bravado, a night
of tall tales begins.
Kevin the Kiwi says "I must be the meanest, toughest hang glider dude
there es, ay, why, just the other day, I landed in a field, sceared a
crocodile who got loose from the swamp which ate sux men before I
wristled et to the ground.... weth my bare hends ay"
Koos from South Africa typically can`t stand to be bettered. "Well you
guys I lended orfter a 200 mile flight on a tiny trail ind a fifteen
foot Namibian desert snike slid out from under a rock and made a move
for me. I grebbed that borsted with my bare hands and beet its head orf
ind sucked the poison down in one gulp. Ind I`m still here todaiy".
Barry the Aussie remaind silent, slowly poking the fire with his dick.
