What does English sound like?

I'm imagining this sounding like what Goofy mumbles to himself when he picks up a hot skillet.

Rould roo lirke serm sarsboory steark.

Yeah. Pronouncing the r's. Worldwide tragedy, that is.

rar rar rar like a dungeon dragon.

http://www.eslamprey.com/bork.jpg

This guy has a lot to answer for.

You fucking don't know the half...

"Blah bluh blah blah, drop it like it's hot, drop it like it's hot, drop it like it's hot, I'm rollin' in the phom and the phom is shom jom and the jam jam lam cuz I got it goin' on."
-- n/a (nu...) (webmail), June 23rd, 2005. (Nick A.)

from Wikipedia's other uses of the word:

It is or was common for a crowd of extras in acting to shout the word "rhubarb" repeatedly and out of step with each other, to cause the effect of general hubbub. As a result, the word "rhubarb" somtimes is used to mean "length of superfluous text in speaking or writing", or a general term to refer to irrelevant chatter by chorus or extra actors.

granted she'd already been living in america for a few years so her danish accent could have faded a little.

Heh, yeah, maybe! I think I know English a bit too well now to do the gibberish version of it, but when I was a kid we used to speak pretend-English a lot, singing along to pop songs etcetera. We probably got more American than British input, because all I can remember is that it was lots of r's.

Supposedly there is a dialect of Freisian which is exactly what Old English originally sounded like. So that might help.

Actually that's a pretty good description of our dialect. West-Flemish sounds like French but the *meaning* as German (because, duh, it's the same family). Dutch (in the Netherlands) sounds very harsh compared to our Dutch (in Belgium, of course depending where you live).

I wouldn't know how English sounds as I learned it from about the age of nine (on my own watching telly, HURRAH).

I guess the only thing I could say is that it sounds much clearer and even more nasal than
our language. Our dialect is probably more muffled in sound.

Afrikaans sounds very funny to me because it seems so much *simpler* than our language. I hope that doesn't come across as disrespectful, Kate.

Aussie english is terrible, all flat nasally A sounds like "ahhhe heheh ahhh ehh?"

some do, many don't

-- gabbneb (gabbne...), August 18th, 2005

Sorry for the blanket generalization. I should've clarified as I assumed that was a given.

But on that lottery commerical where the doowawg wins the lottery...

This is like my favorite thread ever.

I know mine is like a lot of schwas and heavy rrrrr and never saying "t" in the middle of words or 't' or 'g' or 'd' at the end. (This is why it pisses me off when people spell things without the g in 'ing' ie "I'm lovin' it." No one I know ever says the 'g' at the end, don't try to force us to talk how we already do (improperly).)

Tho I admit if I'm talking to my neighbs all day (ie trying to understand Spanglish all day), I kind of pick up that 'taco bell dog' inflection (this may be offensive but I cannot think of another example; sorry).

Aussie english is terrible, all flat nasally A sounds like "ahhhe heheh ahhh ehh?"

-- Trayce (trayce), Thursday, 18 August 2005 18:27 (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

Hat full of diphthongs. OY AY ROIT OY YYYEEEEEEEEEEEAH AY AY OY ROIT AY

I've been told that Americans say "tee-MAR fAR shadeBAR a TAR duh LAR HAR.." like that.

-- andy --, Wednesday, August 17, 2005 1:50 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

^^^ is how they sound to me

Foghorn Leghorn has a lot to answer for.

Some (not all) Americans sound shrill, too. Headache-inducingly so. That may be predominantly the daytime talk show circuit, however.

When I was in high school (~15 years ago) a friend went to China for a month or so. He said to make fun of American English some of the Chinese people he knew would say "hamburger" in a long, drawn-out cowboy/southern type accent.

Abbott, have you gone southwestern enough to kind of say "eeee" at the beginning of sentences, for emphasis? (Also does NM use "all kinds" to mean "very," or is that just southern CO?)

My 'ishishmish' comment upthread was based on an episode in a French children's book where a kid from England comes to school and starts talking - 'ishishmish' is how it's transliterated. To the French, it's the 'sh' that comes through most strongly, I'm guessing. Perhaps it's a general rule that one hears the features least prominent in one's own language first.

He said to make fun of American English some of the Chinese people he knew would say "hamburger" in a long, drawn-out cowboy/southern type accent.

Ha, a Scottish guy I know does this, too. Same word, same accent.

Oi! A duh bun-DUH buhh. Fulln wossn buh duh-bupduh.

my voice as entirely and comprehensively representative of all english people voice sounds like maaah maaah maaah maaah maaah all the time.

Have you ever seen "My Fair Lady" with Pirini Scloroso?
"Dee Raw ni spaw faw maw nee pai"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v41UGGIpRqk

I can confirm that nonsense American English in French is basically just a load of 'r's. Presumably because that 'r' sound doesn't exist in French.

I love that Shooby Taylor thing and regularly walk around with that version in my head.

As for My Fair Lady, I wasn't familiar with "Just You Wait" until it got sampled in some hip hop song years ago. Listening to the original, I have real trouble parsing some of the pronunciations (and I get that that's sort of the idea), but "wait" becomes "white" as in "Just you white!", and "sorry" becomes "soddy" with a soft tongued 'd'; variations that just don't exist any more.

"Just you white, in me, just you white / You'll be soddy but your tears will be too light"

French patter is characterised by the filled pause "euuuh"

"Nom-non-non-non, euuuuhhh, jouvait parait-til klaxon de rijambon euhhhh"

Modern Toss nailed French gibberish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXLJMYd35aU

To an extent this is quite good English gibberish too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O8_uXmLWOM

Whenever I do a mean impersonation of my mother, which is more often than I should, it sounds basically like “wlleewllewllee” (sry for phonetics, i realised halfway through writing this i could just do a clip)

https://voca.ro/1gtZWG28ZsWB

Other accents in Hiberno-English have their own special sounds that I can’t and don’t bother attempting

I only posted the Shooby Taylor thing because "Dee Raw ni spaw faw maw nee pai" sounds exactly like him! But, happily, the thing is that Shooby's stuff is recognizably English gibberish and has a lot of the characteristics mentioned itt - lots of 'r' and 'l' sounds, and the vowels are very English.

Found this, unfortunately it's an FB video, but this guy is very very good:

https://fb.watch/37U8xw_vVo/

he even manages to pull off the tricky Zulu ʘ clicks when he goes into that language. his British gibberish made me ROFL, clearly influenced by everything from TOWIE to Downton Abbey

Either like 'yee-haw!' or 'well, I never!'

Always assumed American English just sounded like someone doing a really nasal and shitty 'Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar' impersonation. MYAAAH, SHEEEE?

show all messages

ctrl + f 'celentano'

not found

wtf

Either like 'yee-haw!' or 'well, I never!'

They've got the numbers, there's nothing I can do about it.

Anyway, I'm going to rectify an omission so obvious I can't help but question the validity of this entire thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VsmF9m_Nt8

Aw man, I was going to post that!

Such a tune.

classic jam

French patter is characterised by the filled pause "euuuh"
"Nom-non-non-non, euuuuhhh, jouvait parait-til klaxon de rijambon euhhhh"

This sounds like Steve Lamacq. He has a French name, maybe that explains it.

Oh I love Prisencolin... so much

A strange spoken word thing from Ralph Lundsten, from 1970, includes someone doing parodies of various languages, starts with English ca. 3:50.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FIjxQ6tVcg

He seems to be having most fun with the various Nordic languages, not surprisingly.

Poke something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xB7Ge8-sJI

Ha. Good stuff.

dog latin that Facebook video you posted is insane insane insane

How did I never see this thread before? That kid in the DL FB video is indeed amazing.

Sid Caesar to thread!

Guess that guy is on Tik Tok now.

https://www.uth.edu/news/story.htm?id=c633e17d-cfc8-4dc0-b42c-78d455da2bcf

Just to pick one nit, think his Japanese could use a bit of work, maybe he could take a page out of Sid Caesar’s book.