More on accents

And in related news, guys will watch cute girls play out-of-tune pianos badly, among other things.

It's necessary for survival of the species.

Well, she's Chines, and we all know the Chinese are and especially sneaky people, as Uncle Duke explained when he became our Ambassador to the PRC.

Brits: her accent is moderately lower-class, yes?

Wouldn't say so ortho. Middle class, maybe even towards the upper end.

But then I did grow up and go to school in a working class town (and have the accent to prove it). So anything non-chavvy sounds posh like to me.

Yes, definitely middle-class. I grew up in a household that's the UK equivalent of poor white trash, and my accent is still firmly pegged as 'northern' working class, despite having moved from my home town in the Midlands to the South-East 30 years ago. It's the flat vowels, you know.

My sister, still in our old town, thinks I 'talk posh'. People at work think I'm an 'ee bah goom' northerner.

Her accent is pretty slap bang in the middle of the middle class, if you ask me. I like the rendition of Tetris a lot - reminds me a bit of the Tokyo Orchestra version of the Super Mario theme.

She sounds very much middle class to me. Having said that I've often found that the children of working class immigrants with ambition often sound like this. For example one guy in my class from school who had, if I remember correctly, Nigerian parents and lived on the grotty local housing estate had by far the poshest accent of anyone in the class - except maybe for a lad who's parents were from the Phillipines.

My Irish parents were rather dissapointed when my accent veered heavily into London working class as soon as I started primary school. I don't think they were too keen on the constant swearing either.

"who's parents". jesus, i don't just sound like a moron, I type like one too.

I thought this post would lead me to some essexjan content. I give it a FAIL.

This song is also known as "Korobeiniki". It's a Russian folk song from the mid-19th century. I really don't like this song, which is why I will only give it a 2/10.

So where is the cute girl?

It's very interesting to me how accent-conscious English people are. We have a little bit of that here in America, but in England people seem to have much more nuanced and subtle readings of accents.

some chick on the internet stumbles her way through korobeiniki.

great, thx

It's very interesting to me how accent-conscious English people are. We have a little bit of that here in America, but in England people seem to have much more nuanced and subtle readings of accents.

That's because in America, we use more obvious differences: the clearly different accents of immigrants, and race, where the difference is apparent in the skin.

Read up on the concept of "Herrenvolk" or "mud-sill" democracy, on English class distinctions from the Conquest forward, and recent studies on English genetics.

Basically, Herrenvolk democracy argues that in order to have a democracy, you need a group that is effectively excluded from the voting demos, so that the voters can say, essentially "I'm as good as any other white man, because I'm better than any nigger!"

English class distinctions are ultimately based on the Conquest of Anglo-Saxon England by French speaking Normans (who were themselves descendants of Vikings). French became the language of the occupiers, then of the upper classes as occupation gave way to a united country under Norman rulers.

Several centuries of upheaval follow, in which adultery and bastardy are rampant; Norman genes mix with natives. But the class distinction remains, as the bastard son of a Lord and servant girl (usually) learns the common culture of his mother, and the accent and diction of the lower class.

The British see subtler distinctions because they have fewer obvious signals; accent works because it's cultural learned, not genetically conferred, so the Lord's bastards aren't confused with his legitimate issue.

You sure she's english? There was a tiny bit in there that sounded more Australian than anything. ("mistakes")
Otherwise. Yep - middle class. From the south. (Kent, from a cursory internet search)

e/j. People think I talk posh too. Until I move out of Yorkshire. And then they all start talking about flat caps and whippets as if it's the funniest thing in the world.

The interesting thing about her is, if you watch some of her other videos she can "do" an American accent pretty well (although she slips out of it in some of the scenes), as well as a french one.

I couldn't hear her accent, but accent isn't everything. Whatever accent she has, there is plenty of which to disapprove. Such poor piano playing! What bad manners! And putting yourself on the Internet for strangers to look at you? Her parents have quite failed.

...as it were.

I don't think she's cute, and she can certainly play piano better than I can.

I don't think it's just an immigration issue in the US. It's at least partly that we like to pretend we don't have social classes -- The American Dream! The meritocracy! All men are created equal! -- and so we pretend that's not what we judge people on.

Oh, she's cute.