So changing your "gender" is fine, but changing your accent is *weird*...

[Taupeness]

If you want a laugh amongst the stress of getting ready for Christmas, then can I point you to this thread on trans Reddit which asks the question:

so im british and have had a british accent my whole life, but it has been causing me a lot of dysphoria recently. im amab and non binary and i want to have a male-sounding voice but for it to be softer and have a more feminine tone (i cant really explain it that well), and i can only really do that voice well while using an american accent. so is it okay to change my accent and if so would other people who already know me be weirded out by it?

The answers are comedy gold. Because changing your "gender(s)" is cool, obvs, but changing your accent is weird 😆

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1psn646/is_it_okay_to_change_my_accent/

Memories of Izzard before the plot was lost, explaining why English was an easy common language:

"This is called an apple."
"Yes, but is it masculine or feminine?"
"It's a bloody apple, grow up."

It's easy if you try ....

If we swapped "accent" for "gender", many of those posts would be pointing out how ridiculous it is to try to change your "gender". Why can't they see it? 🤯

TAKE IT AWAY ROBERTA!!!

🌸🌺

Was that the same programme where Izzard rocked up in Friesland and was asking a Friesian farmer to name various animals "Broon coo" etc?

Izzard pointed to the farmer's dog and asked what it was. The farmer replied with a completely straight face "Border Collie".

The supermodel Doutzen Kroes is a native Frisian speaker who campaigns for the language. I've heard her speak it in interviews.

I still have a suspicion that the people of Friesland are having a big joke on the rest of us, but I can't tell what it is.

When I started to learn German at night school many years ago, the tutor was from Schleswig-Holstein in Northern Germany. For the first session, she spoke in phrases which originated from her region, which we northern English students understood quite well. It was only when she started to bring in words from the southern dialects, that it became more difficult.

Thats fabulous, I love it.

Not really, people do have accents. Nobody 'has' a gender.

That's me at our Comhrá in the library @UtopiaPlanitia . To the despair of the other Irish language lovers. But I can't help it .....these fascinating - to me - links pop into my head when we are doing a crosfhocal or reading a novel. Stop dissecting it , just read it they plead.

So we diverged from P Celtic ? Often wondered which way round it was. Now which Gaeilge dialect would be best for a non binary person? I'm going with Uladh because of the rising inflections at the end of sentence hi!

( Running way in Munster Irish....)

Which makes the fact that they think you can "change" it, ridiculous, no?

My Japanese teacher was Polish, and she was surprised when we got to the word for bread and I said that at least that one would be easy to remember. Pan makes perfect sense to someone familiar with French pain/Latin panis; less so to someone who thinks of it as chleb.

Similarly, knowing arigato meant I had no trouble remembering obrigado. There are links everywhere when you start looking.

I’ve been asked if I’m Canadian. Mind you, when young I was asked if I was Danish. When I chat a bit more, they get the accent though.

OH usually gets asked if he is German, or sometimes American. This had happened in a bit of an unfriendly way when we were in Crete. So, before we returned to Greece, I got him a nice Ireland jersey. A little shamrock insignia and all. Interestingly, it didn’t really do the job as Panathinaikos (Athenian football club) use the blasted shamrock as their emblem too. Their nickname is ‘To Trifylli“ (The Shamrock).

I think it is just that Ireland has a small population, so people meet those from the big countries more frequently. There is no excuse for a native English speaker though. However, I must confess I can’t really tell NZ and Aus accents apart.

@Cailleach1

Ask them to say "Amphetamines". Australians sound like Unphutemynes, NZ like eenfeeteemeens.

I learned this from watching Border Force.

Accents are almost guesswork for Estuary English and other big conurbation speakers. Not only are they unable to guess which southwestern county I come from, they are just as likely to think that I have an East Anglian accent. But, to be fair, I can't tell someone from Milton Keynes from someone from Canterbury. The only time that I have been freaked out is when a Danish guy told me that he couldn't tell if I was from Dorchester or Bournemouth.

😂

If I'm watching GAA on TG4 and the commentator is from Munster, I haven't a mission when it comes to understand anything 😳 To me, Munster Gaeilge almost sounds like a dialect of Welsh.

To be honest, Donegal/Uladh Gaeilge leaves me fairly clueless as well, as does the dialect taught in the Belfast Gaeltacht. At school, I learned from teachers speaking three different dialects, as well as learning An Caighdeán Oifigiúil, and my Mam taught me at home too from her schoolbooks that used the old Irish alphabet (which made more sense to me than modern spellings). So I have the most mixed up pronunciation and spelling going 😒 Duolingo is not helping things get any better - that bloody Ulcabhán haunts me.

The very definition of someone with way too much time on their hands.

I mean, there's navel gazing and then there's whatever this is.

For a football game in no man's land?

Flashback to my school choir days! I could hit it but it wasn't good. 😁

Now getting a different choir flashback, to singing panis angelicus...

Or this from the Lonely Planet guide circa 1999…
NZ—Fush and Chups
Aus—Fiish and chiips
I love the NZ accent. From watching Shortland Street (anyone else remember it?) “Munnie…Mun!” (someone’s daughter was called Minnie).

As an American with a Swamp Yankee accent (a Boston accent’s country cousin), I find the whole idea of a monolithic American accent funny in the extreme. I’m vehemently non-rhotic, driving a cah, and rhyming the Latin puella with cellar. My Oxford First Latin teacher couldn’t stand it, visibly wincing at times. Most trans women sound like Valley Girls with constant rising intonation.

No man's land?

Literal genocide!! 😆

I rule of thumb I picked up in travelling, was if you hear an "Australian" accent, you are safer to assume it's actually NZ. This was told to me by a New Zealander on safari in the Masai Mara when I asked if they were Australian. They were very gracious and commented that given how little there is to do in NZ, they are more likely to travel than Australians.

Amusing or not, I did then notice that for a while every "Australian" in Earls Court was actually a New Zealander.

And Ireland may be a small island, but I am trying to think of a corner of the world where I haven't met someone from the Island.

Linguistics "the schwa is an unvoiced vowel sound, and is the shortest vowel"

Kiwis : the schwa isn't ivin in thi tup five bru