Accents In Roleplays.

[Derpestein]

Sep said
Well some peoples accents do change quite drastically. I met a German girl whose accent changed depending on who she was talking with :P

Was she a shape shifter?

Shape shifters don't count!

(In all seriousness though, that is a bit strange. Meh.)

[Jig]

No, that's normal. Accents are fluid and they change according to who you're with.

I live in an area with a particularly distinctive accent that I've mostly avoided. My best mate has a distinct tang of it and so does her mother, and when they're together their accent thickens to the point where I can barely understand them. Just like you imitate body language of the people around when you/in order to forge a connection with them, you do the same with linguistic cues, such as accent and vocabulary.

[Derpestein]

Jig said
No, that's normal. Accents are fluid and they change according to who you're with.I live in an area with a particularly distinctive accent that I've mostly avoided. My best mate has a distinct tang of it and so does her mother, and when they're together their accent thickens to the point where I can barely understand them. Just like you imitate body language of the people around when you/in order to forge a connection with them, you do the same with linguistic cues, such as accent and vocabulary.

I've never heard of this, nor experienced it.

Me, my mother and my sister have moved abroad to move in, and we've been here for several years.

Accents and voices sound completely the same as before.

Does it depend if you live in a certain country long enough? Lets say you were in Boston, developed a certain accent, for 30+ years, would a voice still change when moving away from home for an extended period of time?

Because I have NEVER seen what you've said in your post. But it's my own personal experience and everyone has different experiences so...

[Jig]

Derpestein said
I've never heard of this, nor experienced it.Me, my mother and my sister have moved abroad to move in, and we've been here for several years.Accents and voices sound completely the same as before.Does it depend if you live in a certain country long enough? Lets say you were in Boston, developed a certain accent, for 30+ years, would a voice still change when moving away from home for an extended period of time?Because I have NEVER seen what you've said in your post. But it's my own personal experience and everyone has different experiences so...

It may be something more apparent here in the UK than in the US because the UK is notorious for having such a ridiculously huge selection of accents for really specific places. People can often tell exactly which of the nearby towns people come from just by hearing them speak. Perhaps people in the UK are slightly more in-tune with accents than in the US and so we're more fluid and/or more aware of accents' fluidity. I dunno if there are any other Brits kicking around this thread, but I'd be interested to see if it's just me/where I live, or a UK thing, or a universal thing Derpestein's just not noticed. xD

I'm vaguely reminded, as another example, of having done a French exchange to an area of France where the exclamation of pain like 'Ow' or 'Ouch' is pronounced 'Aye'. I was saying 'Aye' for pain for years - and still do sometimes.

[Sep]

For my fellow scots Aye in german means Egg. There's something interesting for you.

Where I live it's more distinctive between regions not towns. Nearer central Scotland where there is a larger population in Glasgow and Edinburgh and the surrounding areas there are greater changes. Can't talk about England though as while I've been to Australia for a year and met people from all over the year I haven't even really seen our neighbors :P

God damn I need to buy a UK keyboard instead of this US/AU one. I can't set my spelling for UK properly and it annoys me when I say something know it is spelled correctly and it is like "Lolnope"

[iKo99]

Sep said
For my fellow scots Aye in german means Egg.

Being half-german myself I just can't help doing this. D: While indeed being pronounced 'Aye' the german word for egg actually is 'Ei'. :p

Anyways, on topic. Personally I really enjoy reading other people adding accents in their posts if properly executed. Personally I never do it though, the most I use is kind of modern-day speech just as 'lemme' instead of 'let me' or 'kay' instead of 'okay'. But yea, I enjoy reading accents quite a bit as long as I can understand it.

[Nemaisare]

I think the Aye spelling was more for the english version of agreement or affirmation, so that others would understand why the point was being made. ;) I'm also almost certain that ail in french has the same(or almost) pronunciation and means garlic. Sounds are fun.

But I've noticed a tendency in this thread for people talking about the words used as well as the sounds used to create the words to call both things accents. I might be wrong, but I think those are two separate things. One is dialect, with word choice and phrasing, and the other is accent, which is much harder to create using text, because spelling an accent phonetically requires that anyone who then reads your created accent would need to have the same accent as you to understand how you're shaping the sounds you're writing.

I've found that, when writing English speaking characters, at least, the easiest way to avoid insulting anyone when trying to write the dialogue of a character with a different accent than those around them is to use dialect. A lot of stereotypical phrases that many people will recognise, if used sparingly or thoughtfully(and properly, do research these things), can have the same effect of creating an accent in the reader's minds simply by association, whereas writing out the accent can just make it hard to read.

On the other hand, when writing an ESL character's dialogue, it can be more iffy to write using phrasing stereotypes simply because some of those stereotypes are meant to be insulting, in which case, looking up the syllabic sounds that might cause difficulties for different language speakers, as well as the different word orders and combining the two so that the dialogue is still understandable but also not over the top, can be a good idea.

[Jannah]

I honestly wouldn't know how to type out most accents, thus don't bother with them. I suppose I could pull off German or Russian, but I think if a character is appropriately named and such people will already get an idea of the character's ethnicity anyway.

[XecutionerRex]

Jamaican accents.

Typed or spoken, you will not understand it.

[Thundercat]

I recently wrote a post introducing two british characters, both of them speak in english accents. The RP is currently in a period where all of the members have creative control over the posts and a bunch of us have been adding NPC's simply because it makes the story as well as writing much more fun.

post

Toby and Namine chased the item box as it flew through the air. Both of them managed to catch up to the item, simultaneously grabbing the box as they sped through the air parallel to eachother, moving at the same pace. Both riders now found themselves playing tug of war with the item box. "You're lucky I promised my mom I wouldn't hit girls!" Toby shouted and began to pull with all of his strength. "Yeah? Well you're lucky my hands are on this box, otherwise i'd punch you right in the throat-WHOA!" As Namine yelled her comeback at the boy, he intentionally released his grip on the box, causing the girl to spin 360 degrees on her hoverboard. As gravity brought Namine back to an upright position she was momentarily disoriented whilst attempting to regain her balance "Son of a carrot" She muttered. Toby didn't hesitate to snatch the item from her hands.

"Mine!" He shouted with joy, where as the girl immediately bent down, grabbing his hoverboard and pulling it from beneath him, causing Toby to reel backwards and release his grip of the item allowing Namine to take possession of the box once more "Mine," She said in a sarcastic tone as to mock the boy. Toby once again found himself flying upside down. A troublesome smirk overcame him once more as he suddenly spun himself in a circle whilst flying upside down, using his hoverboard to launch the item out of Namine's hands through the air and into another riders possession.





"Hm? Yves, seem's an item box has made it's way into your hands."

"It appears so. Today must be my lucky day." Yves studied the item box in his hands curiously, as if he was intrigued by it's presence. "Out of all the days. I'd say that's quite fortunate, wouldn't you Landon?"

"Quite fortunate indeed"

The two seasoned veterans spoke in what seemed to be english accents. Both Landon and Yves intentionally decided to pull back from the lead as to avoid the mayhem caused by Ace. The two were a perfect example of the saying "slow and steady wins the race," and took the competition a bit too serious. Yves waited patiently for the slot machine to come to a stop. Once it did, his face remained blank, as did Landon's. Even so there was still a hint of arrogance surrounding the two.

"Not a bad item," Landon said, Yves gave the box a look of distaste, "It would've been much more useful had I obtained it earlier,"

Toby eventually regained his posture and balance, the boy was quite irritated, even to the point where his cheeks were starting to turn a little red. "Hey! Numbskull! That's my item!" He shouted and with haste began to ascend towards Yves, blinded by his sudden obsession to claim the item box for himself. Namine's eyes suddenly grew wide as she realized what item the box had provided. "Wait, hey stop! Stay away from him!"

"Mine as well use it now," Yves spoke in a non-chalant tone and turned his attention towards Toby, aiming what appeared to be some type of pistol in his right hand. "I'm really kinda getting super annoyed, I saw it first an-OH! Oh geez, what is that?" Steam began to shoot out of two holes in the pistol which began to make a sound similar to that of a teapot whistling. The sound of a gunshot shook the audience as a pointed bullet whizzed through the air and lodged itself into Toby's hoverboard. Within moments the hoverboard began to shoot out steam as well and gradually started slowing down. "Oh no, oh no no no come on, what did you do!" The pointed bullet damaged the mechanism that allowed the hoverboards to actually hover. "Poor fool," Landon remarked, he and Yves sped off as Toby made the slow and inevitable journey to the ground. He began to curse profusely.

In my opinion the two characters somewhat added a little bit of variety due to their uptight, no nonsense intellectual attitude, where as the other characters are all eccentric, silly and generally cheery. The accent wasn't necessary, but I feel like it helped distinguish not only the way they sounded and appeared from the other characters but also their personality.I think effectively making a character seem unique or different from other characters solely depends on the context of the story at the time as well as the other characters. If Landon and Yves spoke like the rest of the characters, they would probably come off as narcissistic jerks, however because of their english accent's they instead come off as intellectual snobs.

Is this stereotypical? No. At least, not in the context of this story, which takes place in a world where tree's talk and donuts dance. England doesn't even exist in this story, but the accents distinguish the characters effectively because they are currently the only ones that speak in english accents.

TL;DR in my opinion writing and giving characters accents being a good idea depends on the context of the story. Does it make sense for this character to have an accent? Does it effectively distinguish your character from the others? What accent is he/she/it speaking in? All depends on the context, heh.

[Dinh AaronMk]

It's a fun challenge, if often times difficult to learn and write a accent out without it being unreadable. I've tried afro-Carribean accents, African, German, and Boston accents. Most of the time - apart from German which is pretty easy is often stereotypical - it's a delicate dance of keeping up character, readability, and me simply keeping it up (the Afrocarribean and African accents I found to be the hardest).

[XecutionerRex]

I find it hard to imagine someone doing an authentic Afrocarib accent without growing up around it, simply because they are so difficult (Mainly speaking about Jamaica here, but some of the other islanders sound similar so the logic may still apply), but that can depend on how rough it is. The sentence structure is also switched up.

Whereas an American may say "It's not a thing you know."

A Jamaican will say "Is not a t'ing enuh." (I use an apostrophe because they often leave out the 'h' in 'thing'.) They also use "say" a lot before they are about to explain something, pronounced as "seh." They also often replace the plural s by saying "them" (pronounced dem) to signify they are talking about several of the same thing.

American: "You know the chickens are gone?"

Jamaican: "You know seh de chicken dem gone?"

As far as I can tell, other more popular accents still keep the same sentence structure that we're all using right now, but that's just my 2 cents.

[Sep]

If I ever use an accent I simply mention the accent (Not posted here for a while but I like to see how it progresses). Using the actual dialect such as Scots makes things overly complicated, well. Not for me as I grew up with it but for others.

[XecutionerRex]

Sep said
If I ever use an accent I simply mention the accent (Not posted here for a while but I like to see how it progresses). Using the actual dialect such as Scots makes things overly complicated, well. Not for me as I grew up with it but for others.

Guessing you're Scottish?

[Dinh AaronMk]

XecutionerRex said
I find it hard to imagine someone doing an authentic Afrocarib accent without growing up around it, simply because they are so difficult (Mainly speaking about Jamaica here, but some of the other islanders sound similar so the logic may still apply), but that can depend on how rough it is. The sentence structure is also switched up.Whereas an American may say "It's not a thing you know."A Jamaican will say "Is not a t'ing enuh." (I use an apostrophe because they often leave out the 'h' in 'thing'.) They also use "say" a lot before they are about to explain something, pronounced as "seh." They also often replace the plural s by saying "them" (pronounced dem) to signify they are talking about several of the same thing.American: "You know the chickens are gone?"Jamaican: "You know seh de chicken dem gone?"As far as I can tell, other more popular accents still keep the same sentence structure that we're all using right now, but that's just my 2 cents.

You're forgetting that all T's sound like D's. Or at least one alone and not thrown in with an h. Sometimes.

[XecutionerRex]

If you're talking about "the" sounding like "de", then I know.

Otherwise I'm not sure what you're saying, forgive me. Are you talking about Trini accents? I'm not very versed in any island accents besides Jamaica's, though I can understand what they are saying because of the similarities. I just wouldn't be able to speak it.

[Dinh AaronMk]

XecutionerRex said
If you're talking about "the" sounding like "de", then I know.Otherwise I'm not sure what you're saying, forgive me. Are you talking about Trini accents? I'm not very versed in any island accents besides Jamaica's, though I can understand what they are saying because of the similarities. I just wouldn't be able to speak it.

In short it's a dialectical elements borrowed from Black English on the assumption that AAVE is closely related to Creole as it is to English, or it came directly from Creole and its other African-related dialects.

[XecutionerRex]

Dinh AaronMk said
In short it's a dialectical elements borrowed from on the assumption that AAVE is closely related to Creole as it is to English, or it came directly from Creole and its other African-related dialects.

I see. You seem pretty knowledgeable about the dialects of the African diaspora. Do you have any affiliation with it?

[Nemaisare]

I always think a great way to learn about writing different accents and dialects is to read different authors who use those techniques. Like Roddy Doyle or Shani Mootoo. Of course, for me, half of that is research and half of it is just enjoying a good read. :P Wikipedia is also a surprisingly good resource. I see it's already been noted. :)

I started thinking on this subject when I was using Middle English spellings for a character's dialogue, to give the character what I thought would be a safe accent, because no one uses Middle English anymore, and the admin asked me to refrain, because she was worried it would insult someone. So now I'm always worried about doing that, but I also can't help giving in to the temptation to try writing things that way. I know the easy way out, and a fairly good way of avoiding this whole problem, is to just say the character has an accent from one language or another, but I like the challenge. Has anyone else encountered this problem? That writing out the accent or dialect is seen as (potentially) insulting?

[Dinh AaronMk]

XecutionerRex said
I see. You seem pretty knowledgeable about the dialects of the African diaspora. Do you have any affiliation with it?

Do you count being within a stone's throw of Detroit?