The Development of the American Accent

[FloridaClay]

I am not qualified to comment on American accents, but I can certainly endorse the opinion that standards of diction have decined during the past 100 years. The mumbling, grunting and wailing of today's pop singers renders the words almost incomprehensible, although with the drivel that passes for lyrics this is probably no bad thing.

And I can remember my elders saying the same thing in the 40s and 50s about my generation.

Clay

[orpington]

I have learned a lot lately. It appears that any recordings of McKinley are indeed NOT him. Supposedly no recordings exist of his voice.

Is this one legitimate? President Benjamin Harrison. Note that he died in March of 1901.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU4gGEL5c8g

[orpington]

I have since found this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU4gGEL5c8g

However, one would think that the Vincent Voice Library would not have a 'fake' recording of William McKinley on its site???? However, I don't believe it to be real???

[phonogfp]

To the best of my knowledge, Harry Spencer (Len's brother) made the Columbia recordings of McKinley's speeches. Even the Talking Machine World published an editorial comment about how so many customers bought records of McKinley speeches thinking it was him speaking. I believe that later pressings actually credited Harry Spencer on the label.

George P.

[De Soto Frank]

Some general comments on the topic...


As for film references, an interesting model is Oliver Hardy... ( as in Laurel & ).


Oliver was from Georgia, and while his speech in the talkies does not sound like "deep Southern-fried cracker", certain words do have a characteristic twang to them, for example: "word", or "heard", which Hardy delivers something like "hoid", or "woid"... not quite so much as Archie Bunker ( Carroll O'Connor was an unapologetic Brooklyn-ite ), but in that direction.

I have heard other speakers from Hardy's generation speaking the same way.


As for the disappearance of regional dialects, sadly mass media and the internet has done a lot to "homogenize" the way we speak.

And as for "not being able to speak like where you're from", I grew-up near Baltimore, MD, which had a pronounced accent / dialect. My mother and father, who were both born & bred within 15 miles of Baltimore did not have the accent, nor did I... and, sometimes to my frustration, I cannot speak "Bawlmore-ese" for the benefit of my friends, try as I might... I think in another generation, it will be gone.

Here's a slightly embellished, but pretty darned accurate guide to Balwmer-ese... working-class, perhaps, but this guy's schtick is well-grounded in truth... I've heard it for myself many times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KylF4mZXf1Q

[Henry]

[deleted]

[Henry]

As for film references, an interesting model is Oliver Hardy... ( as in Laurel & ).

Oliver was from Georgia, and while his speech in the talkies does not sound like "deep Southern-fried cracker", certain words do have a characteristic twang to them, for example: "word", or "heard", which Hardy delivers something like "hoid", or "woid"... not quite so much as Archie Bunker ( Carroll O'Connor was an unapologetic Brooklyn-ite ), but in that direction.

I have heard other speakers from Hardy's generation speaking the same way.

My parents, Southerners through many generations (mother from SC, dad from GA) also had the "-oi-" sound for "-er-" and "-ur-". "Hamburger" came out as "hamboigah" (the "-er" always with the dropped "r"), "church" sounded like "choich." We noticed the same tendency in certain native New Orleanians, though not so pronounced, perhaps, as with the stereotypical Brooklynese rendering. Conversely, I hear certain British speakers add "r" to the terminal "a", as in the name Louisa, which comes out "Louiser." Some of us will remember that JFK pronounced Cuba as "Cuber."

There is definitely a middle-Atlantic accent centering on the Maryland-Delaware-Philadelphia region. One characteristic is that the long "O" sound comes out something like "ow", as in the word "go" ("gow"). We noticed the same trait in North Carolina; "Go Tar Heels" becomes "Gow Tah Heels."

Supposedly there are traces of a mid-Atlantic (Philadelphia version) accent in the voice of W.C.Fields, but if so I can hear only a faint trace of it, if any.

[Lenoirstreetguy]

I've been waiting for one of you to post this example of American speech from T A Edison in 1908. This is much better than Let Us Not Forget: for one thing he's ten years younger and sounds it. Every time I hear this I think again that he really does give evidence that his parents were Canadian. He sounds a lot like the folks of my grandparents' generation in southwestern Ontario. But he " Americanizes " enough of his vowels ( " encourage" is pronounced "en-core-age" for example) so that he doesn't sound as if he grew up here.
But the American accent is still incredibly varied...to these Canadian ears... and delightfully interesting.
And what is interesting to us up here is that when one travels in the States...hardly anyone sounds like they do on American television....unless one goes to California or Minnesota or upstate New York.


Jim


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipKgecuWihU

[Rastus10]

There was a recording from about 1915 posted in one of the 78rpm groups on a certain social media site that, if I remember correctly, had excellent fidelity. I believe that it related to Thomas Edison--perhaps someone can fill in the gaps.

More importantly, people were raving about diction of the speaker, and what a "lost art" etc etc proper speech was. They could not have chosen a worse example.

While I regret the hastily constructed, rushed, and mumbled sentences that are too common today, the gentleman in the recording sounded like an automaton, absolutely devoid of personality. He added sounds to words that I had never heard before, and was certainly NOT an embodiment of proper speech. I think that people go overboard about this too much. I remember googling the speaker's name, and found that he was from Alabama. Personally, after having traveled in that state extensively, I would have rather heard his native drawl, rather than the excessive efforts that he took to cover it or "improve" upon it.

To assume that the handful of phonograph personalities whose voices are left to us is about as realistic as to assume that early talking films with their painful obeisance to the primitive microphone technology of the time are indicative of how people spoke in the late 1920's.

I think of the cylinders by Issler's Parlor Orchestra, and their frequent "by--uhhhh Issler's Parlor Orches-tra." That's probably closer to the mark for a population that had a middle-school education.

[Lucius1958]

There was a recording from about 1915 posted in one of the 78rpm groups on a certain social media site that, if I remember correctly, had excellent fidelity. I believe that it related to Thomas Edison--perhaps someone can fill in the gaps.

Was that perhaps the "Transcontinental phone call" recording?

Bill