22 April 2009
I have always loved
an Irish accent (one of the reasons I so love the High Kings, I think). In Garfield, where I vicared, we had a little food joint down around the corner from the church that was run by two ladies from Ireland. I could sit and listen to them talk all day! They also made some of the best burgers I've ever tasted - they insisted the key to a good burger is never to use frozen meat - only fresh. But that's beside the point. What I didn't realize was that one of the keys to mimicking their sweet Irish accent is that the focal point of the speech is in front of the mouth - not even behind the teeth, like so much of American English or British English, but literally out in front of the mouth itself. Try it! It's amazing how well it works! (And no, I never noticed that there IS a focal point to where different languages or accents are spoken - but there obviously is!).
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4 comments:
Bill,
Being German, my vocal focus naturally tends to be in the back of the throat--ACHTUNG!
Mark
Yes, it's true. For British English, you imagine that you have a golf ball or ping pong ball in your mouth.
Pr. Weedon: I can also give you this tip: 2 Guinness, 1 Jamesons and an Irish Pub - somehow the month I spent in Ireland comes back and the accent comes out.
You can also mimic at least some sorts of Dublin accents by pretending that there's a question mark at the end of each of your sentences?
Gaelic seems to put the verb at the front of the sentence? At least, that's what I seem to remember? That must also affect the lilt of a language?
:)
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