In Accents^x, Dialects^x

>> whoa. i am from central ny (for those of us who know that upstate is not anything above westchester). we definitely do not have the accent or use any of those pronunciations that you mentioned. << Haha. I see what's going on. Check this out. Xam0 said: cat - keeyat mat -...

>> But in the US maybe it's normal to consider California English as a dialect of American English. << Actually it is generally just lumped into the Western dialect along with Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, etc. And yes, dialects in North...

I thought again about what I said, and I think I would also add the fact that a dialect should be a regional language. So, it becomes "In my opinion, a dialect is a language that is not standardized and recognized by some kind of institution and that is spoken in a particular region." Marvin A....

#2 is not correct. "When dialects diverge to the point that they are mutually incomprehensible, they become languages in their own right" That is not always the case. For example, "Chinese" dialects are mutually unintelligible, but "Chinese" is often regarded as being a language. Swedish,...

The following constucted dialect will give you what will sound like a Cockney accent to North Americans. All you have to do is change how you pronounce certain things differently and you will sound like a Cockney. The goal is to intruduce as many pronunciation differences as possible, to make...

Unless you get the accent down perfectly, it's unlikely that anyone will even be able to tell which dialect of English you learned. For example, Japanese speakers cannot make the vowel distinctions between General American and RP, nor can they pronounce their final r's, so they sound "British"...

Milky wrote:<Wouldn't that mean that the Indians then would have to learn Chinese and US English?> Depends on the competition. The Chinese and Americans now want to do business with India. Well then, you have your answer. That's precisely why Indians must learn American English. Indians...

At Indian call centres when they are dealing with western customers, they do not use Indian English. They use British or American English. They even go so far as to give themselves English names and some companies give lessons in English (or whatever) culture, so they can chat about all sorts of...

<I think the difference, is that English originated in England, and some of the native speakers were exported to the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.> When were native speakers exported to the US? The US became the US at what date? <The situation in India is about the same as...

So anyone moving to America would be wise to learn American English - the native language. Actually, in some instances learning RP would actually be better. If you can speak with a nearly perfect RP accent, you will be perceived as being a native speaker of British English, on this side of the...