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Now in spite of that I think that culture has more to do with it than physiology. For example usually, especially with men, it's easy to tell if someone is black or white by their voice if they're American. There is very much a "black american" accent. It seems much harder to tell if a man is black or not if they're English. It would be interesting if people from England could pick out a "black english" accent, is there one?
" It seems much harder to tell if a man is black or not if they're English. "
True, almost all British people on the radio are indistinguishable to me.
As if there aren't physiological difference between white people, or more to the point physiological differences between white people in the same freaking family!
Sorry, but if by "black people" you are talking about people whose genetic make-up predominately originated in Africa... then you have a problem because the genetic difference between Africans (the most diverse genetic population in the world) is greater than the genetic difference between Africans populations and those of non-Africans!
And your survey of voices of "black men" is based upon what sample size? as I recall, the audio experts in the Trayvon Martin case could SCIENTIFICALLY distinguish the voice of either Martin or Zimmerman from one another! So much for C-D pseudo science!
"Sorry, but if by "black people" you are talking about people whose genetic make-up predominately originated in Africa... then you have a problem because the genetic difference between Africans (the most diverse genetic population in the world) is greater than the genetic difference between Africans populations and those of non-Africans!"
So true. Most everyone here who says there are physiological difference is basing it on learned stereotypes and pseudo science.
I'm an Mechanical Engineer with my expertise being acoustics . Your voice and tone is 'restricted' to physiological differences based on Vocal cord size, throat, mouth and lung volume and reflective and absorption proprieties of those body parts-That’s it! The rest is learned/environmental.
You can have a large Nordic man who has the same lung capacity, vocal cord size, and he can sound exactly like the equivalent sized man from Zaire if he was raised in that environment. If they both had large cavities expect a boomy voice: Long wave lengths and large volumes equal deep tones.
Same would apply to very small man from Central Africa and France. They would both be restricted by the size of their vocal cord size, throat, mouth and lung volume. Both being restricted to smaller volume cavities expect higher notes.
It purely physics, you can only generate so many tones from what god/nature gave you.
I don't think either one sounds "off" or "not their race".
You cannot use media people as a gauge as many have constructed accents. In any case there is a subtlety in the black woman's tone that would have made me suspect that she is black.
"Sorry, but if by "black people" you are talking about people whose genetic make-up predominately originated in Africa...you.
People from different linguistic back grounds make sounds using different parts of their mouth. There is a strong nasality in white speech that sounds so unusual to black Americans that when they mimic whites they instantly gravitate to that sound. Listen to George HW Bush for that tone.
I suggest that you listen to Van Jones, a black man, and Anderson Cooper, both CNN media personalities, both speakers of standard US English. Almost every one who is familiar with US speech patterns will immediately know that Anderson Cooper is white and Van Jones is black.
Indeed even listening to Obama, who was completed isolated from blacks when he was forming his speech patterns, there is a certain fullness to his voice which is not usually found among white men. This even as his accent has no trace of even that of a highly educated upper middle class black person (Oprah being an example).
" It seems much harder to tell if a man is black or not if they're English. "
True, almost all British people on the radio are indistinguishable to me.
There are differences and one can guess, but one would be more likely to be wrong than with the US examples. There are speech patterns and tones that are ascribed to US white menand that has nothing to do with accent or diction. A nasal thin and reedy voice that is not present among white British men.
Having spent the first 26 years of my life in Georgia, I can say that at least as far as this area is concerned, white southerners have extremely nasal accents.
I'm not exactly sure what you are wanting to accomplish with this post. I'm not from NY and maybe this is why all NYers sound the same to me. Call it nasally, call it New York, call it whatever. You keep harping on nasal sounding accents and all I am talking about is how Black New Yorkers (be it Caribbean or African) have the same accent as White New Yorkers. The segregation in NY was never to the same degree it was in a city like Chicago, where Blacks and Whites sound completely different. When I watched Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee and John Turturro sounded the same and in my opinion they still do.
When I hear Jadakiss or Styles P or Lil Kim, they have standard New York accents. Maybe you hear something consistent in all Black voices compared to White voices but I don't. I don't think "Denzil" Washington sounds White because there is no such thing as a White voice or a Black voice, as nobody in this thread has actually proven.
What the hell is "fuller" and "deeper" about Jay-Z's voice?? Or Spike Lee's for that matter?
Ask Ja-Z to pronounce the word "my". He says "mah". That is African American speech in NYC. The people who pronounce that word like that are others who grew up around AAs, like PRs. That is NOT a feature of white NYC English. Like most AAs his speech originated in the South and has survived in a transformed manner in NYC because blacks live very different lives than do whites.
I have lived in NYC for 32 years so I know a good deal more than you do. Spike Lee grew up in a white (Italian) neighborhood. You do know that. So his speech isn't typically black American NY. He has a blended sort of an accent. Not black nor white.
NYC is one of the most segregated cities in the USA, and indeed up to 1990 attacks on blacks by whites for simply walking in their neighborhood were not uncommon. Blacks who grew up near to working class white (especially Irish and Italian) can tell you of the fact that they often had to fight young white men, so cut your nonsense about NYC not being segregated.
One can walk miles in parts of NYC and the only white person that one will see is a cop or some similar person. I am even talking about middle class neighborhoods in The Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens where fewer than 10% of the people living there are whites, most being older whites who are ageing in place.
A little secret about NYC and the subway. The city is so segregated that people know who to stand up in front of in the trains because they know, based on their race, where this person will get off. Example is on the #4. The whites will get off at 59th and 86th with most of the rest leaving at 125th. If they haven't gotten off by then too bad because they are riding to one of the last stops.
And every one except you knows that Denzil Washington sounds like a black man, and Tom Cruise sounds white. They grew up within distinct linguistic communities so developed a different sound.
You cannot use media people as a gauge as many have constructed accents. In any case there is a subtlety in the black woman's tone that would have made me suspect that she is black.
I will only respond to this as this sums up everything I will say against your other posts as well.
First you say NOT to use media personalities, but then you appeal to Van Jones and Barack Obama. Which is interesting because at least for Barack, many people have associated him with actually not sounding Black. But, either way I love how you break your own rules when it suits your purpose.
Second, what is this bullcrap about "fuller" voices you keep appealing to? What does that even MEAN? It's just a bunch of hogwash, wishful thinking on your part based on no actual science. It's such a subjective term and means nothing because I can go and say White voices are fuller. Fuller than what, though? Those two women sound alike and you know it, which is why you made it a point to say that it's not a good example to use media people, then a few posts down you do the same.
Third, you claim that in NYC some blacks have speech left over from the South. I don't necessarily disagree with that, but that in and of itself has nothing to do with the discussion. We are discussing if similar accents produce a different sound in Whites or Blacks, and whenever I post an example of it NOT happening, you come with this of "well THAT person is just using a fake voice or they grew up around Whites blah blah blah" which is an argument that actually HELPS my case, being that Black and White people can definitely sound alike. What the hell is a constructed accent, anyway? Everyone's accent is constructed by where they grew up and their circumstances.
Fourth, even if Blacks from NYC have ties to the South which would cause them to sound a bit different than their White counterparts, how do you explain the West Indians who have NO ties to the South? Also, you claim NYC is super segregated, get out to the Rust Belt and see examples of extreme segregation. In Detroit and Chicago, Blacks don't speak their own "version" of the respective accent, they just sound like Southerners. The same cannot be said of NYC and you know it. If NYC's segregation was that serious, Blacks there would be speaking with either Southern or West Indian accents to this day, and the only people who sound like that are recent immigrants, not their kids.
Fifth, even if all NYC Blacks sounded like they were from the South, it would only show that segregation was to blame for their sounding different than Whites, not some "genetic" difference than causes Black voices and White voices to be naturally different. If this was the case, Robin Kelly would sound much different than Melissa Forman, but she doesn't. You even admitted that in England this isn't seen as much, lending credence to the idea that maybe the whole "different race=different vocals" is ridiculous and not based on actual science but wishful thinking. "B-b-b-but Black singers have more soulful voices, and they make White singers sound like crap, and I don't like White singers, and Black people do it better blah blah blah blah blah!"
P.S. Not every Black comedian imitating White voices even does it the same way. A good example would be Dave Chappelle who simply switches from his Southern (or "Mid-Atlantic" if you wish to nitpick) accent to General American without sounding nasally when he goes into "Whiteface".
I don't mean do people of different races have different accents due to culture. No, I mean, if you put 50 White guys and 50 Black guys in the same room and they both pronounce words equally, with the same accent, and they record their voices, is there a difference?
Furthermore, is there any scientific backing to the claim that a person's RACE affects their voice quality? Not their accent or their slang, but the way their voice sounds?
If you believe this is the case, I would like to see proof. Not just your own anecdote of "every Black guy I hear sounds different than every White guy". Because my own anecdote is that while I've heard Blacks and Whites and Asians sound different, I've also heard people who I swore were one race from their voice turn out to be another race.
So, what is your take?
English isn't my native language but I don't know by what reason (cultural, social or anything else) I can recognize is it the voice of a black guy or a white guy.
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