Accent Expert Explains Why Different Accents Can Sound the Same | WIRED

hi I'm Eric Singer and back and today I want to talk about some interesting similarities between different unrelated accents in the english-speaking world south we can define a vowel sound according to two pretty basic things one is what the lips are doing whether they're rounding forwards or not and the other is where the tongue is in the mouth and to pinpoint that B as a map we call it the vowel space looks like this it's a quadrilateral the front of the mouth it's basically a person facing to the left like this or in a cross-section the front of the mouth is over here Mac and mouth is over here so let's talk about a feature I've talked a lot about before goose fronting goose fronting goose front and goose fronting what is that exactly I've said it means the goose vowel is pronounced further forward in the mouth but what does that mean so if the tongue is up like this somewhere up in this area and the lips are rounded forwards we have an O sound you can probably feel that make an O sound like a nineteenth-century Shakespearean actor or a 1950's no coward character saying u2 and breathe in some cold air over that tongue you might be able to feel that it's arched up high in the back right up here now if that arch of the tongue moves forwards and you get something that's arched up high but closer to the front of the mouth something like E then you've got goose fronting and we can find this goose fronting in a lot of different places in the world you hear goose fronting in Australia goose in London goose in Ireland goose you hear it in the southern US a lot you can hear it in California accents goose and here for your viewing and listening pleasure a goose fronting medley goose goose goose goose goose goose now let's talk about something called mouth raising this is a feature that we might find in Australian accents now London accents mouth New York accents now a lot of southern accents now mouth in my own accent starts down here something like ah and moves up here and runs the lips a little bit something like oh oh and you might be able to feel that in your own mouth if you imitate my mouth bow mouth raising then would raise the starting point so instead of being down around here a little bit higher and gonna go something like ah I'm not sure exactly which accent that was they're all roughly similar not exactly the same sound but they're all gonna start that mouth though from a little bit higher up here's a London version south here's a New York version so here's an Australian version south here's a u.s. southern version and here they are all up against each other south south south so in the kit set of words words like ship and women and bid and missed we have a phenomenon in New Zealand where the vowel sound instead of being towards the front and pretty high something like an e it's gonna move back towards the center back towards the schwa this sound and that's why we had fish and chips as a way you might be able to tell an Australian from a New Zealand er fish and chips fish and chips in South Africa we have something very similar we have kits entering as well the trick is it only happens on some of those kit words milk myth it's a little complicated but if you follow that kit vowel with a gut or a cup hard G or a K sound that takes you're gonna keep it from centering it's gonna keep it up so you get big or kick baked cake in other words we don't have one of those sounds following it will also be centered like New Zealand so but cooked that's that's fish and chips chips so that's a weird totally coincidental similarity between those two accents let's talk about a really similar start vowel in Boston accents and in Irish accent stop trust in their higher seharris instead of a start bell like mine that might be very much towards the back of the mouth ah I was followed by an R but it starts back here ah sort of low cupped area we're gonna have something that's much more fronted we could call it start fronting so we'll have a Boston accent that doesn't have that R sound it's kind of just a vowel at the front stab here's Boston speakers stat Wow in a very pronounced Irish accent we're gonna get a really clear version of that exact same vowel sound we are gonna hear it with an R after it but the vowel sound is still this front at stash here's one of those trusts in their hearts our hearts stop so hopefully now you know what the hell I'm talking about when I use terms like higher lower fronted back centered it's a map [Music]

Channel: WIRED

Views: 1,323,028

Rating: 4.9509664 out of 5

Keywords: accent, accent expert, erik singer, accents, accent expert wired, wired accent expert, erik singer wired, erik singer accents, erik, erik accents, wired accent guy, dialect coach, dialect coach erik singer, different accents, similarities between accents, accent similarities, mouth shapes, tongue shapes, accent tongue shape, kit centering, goose fronting, goose-fronting, mouth raising, linguistics, accents explained, accent break down, dialects, accents sound same, wired

Id: uuFCoDqLmY0

Length: 5min 28sec (328 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 22 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/bluesidez]

How can one meet this man?

And more importantly, how can one become this man?

[u/[deleted]]

I love a good Palatal fricative! Thanks for posting!

[u/Rhazior]

That's a pretty good tongue-twister title.

[u/Elkram]

I really do enjoy that he's become so popular outside of the linguistic sphere.