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In the US, African-Americans who don't "sound black" are then deemed "trying to sound white"
But in the UK, the British-born Blacks don't necessarily have their own "Black accent"
There isn't that phenomenon of Blacks "trying to sound black or white" over there. I don't think the Blacks in Toronto Canada face this too....There is just something at large, in American society...Race takes on every aspect here..
Out of curiosity, do you think you'd be able to tell Ella Mai is black just by hearing her (non-singing) voice? I was trying to figure that out the other day
Out of curiosity, do you think you'd be able to tell Ella Mai is black just by hearing her (non-singing) voice? I was trying to figure that out the other day
I'd be reasonably certain she was black, mixed or hung around a diverse crowd based on her cadence and a few of her vowels. If she said she was from outside London, I'll up it to 90% certainty she is black or mixed. I'm not saying there is a UK black accent per se, but black Brits I've noticed are more likely than Brits of other ethnicities to pick up features of the MLE sociolect even if they are outside London. Hearing someone like Stacy Solomon on the radio for example I'd be 90% sure is not black as black Brits in their 30s and below who grew up in the same area are very unlikely to pick up such an accent. However I grew up around London and Kent and was heavily around black Brits so I'm very attuned to these subtle differences. I'm sure to foreigners and to many Brits, Mai just sounds like a typical young Londoner.
I hear quite a few Hispanics in Texas speak with a Texas style Southern accent.
I worked with several people who came from Vietnam in the mid 1970's after the fall of Saigon and many of them couldn't speak a lick of English and most of the ones who could speak some English were nearly impossible to understand.
What has amazed me about the Asians is their children can speak perfect English with no trace of any kind of accent and nearly all rank at the top of their high school graduating class and got into the best universities and went on to become doctors and physisicists and engineers.
Most of the Vietnamese didn't have much money in the 1970's and 80's. To make ends meet and not to be a drain on society, most of the families doubled and tripled up into an apartment or house rental and stayed together and they split the expenses so they could each save their money quickly. They made their kids study and instilled in them a strong work ethic in order for them to live an independent life so they won't have to depend on govt hand outs to make ends meet.
It's like the Asians have a better understanding of the way America and capitalism is intended to be than Americans of all colors who have been in this country for generations.
From my point of view, the way I see it, the Asians are the group that depend the least of all groups to rely on food stamps, welfare, section 8, or any goverment assistance. For the most part, the Asians take care of their own. And they are the group that is the most prosperous, least violent and has no chip on their shoulder or have any kind of an axe to grind with America.
I grew up in Tennessee and I've been told I sound white although I do apparently have a bit of an accent depending on who you ask. But my Samoan grandmother who had raised had an accent as well as my Carribean grandfather. Yet I never took on either accent.
Yeah I have a hard time pronouncing R’s. It’s not an ethnic thing. It’s just for some reason, I struggle with it. I once mistook someone’s lisp for an accent, but it turned out to be a lisp.
I have no doubt you’re right because I’m guessing you lived in a relatively integrated part of California. Unlike this forum, I think there’s a lot of that out there more than people want to admit, so it makes everyone sounds the same.
Environment dictates accent more than anything.
I knew a girl in college whom I thought had a lisp. Turned out she was from "Whode Island".
Where in New York do you live? Manhattan? That accent is alive and well in the Bronx, Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, (I would put money on LI, but I don't get around there much), and pretty much anywhere that isn't a bunch of transplants.
Go to the Walmart in Fishkill, Cross County Shopping Center in Yonkers, any Italian hangout in the Bronx, the Palisades Mall in West Nyack, etc.
You will hear non-rhotic (or lightly rhotic) accents all over the place, plus cot-caught distinction, short-a split, and several other non-standard accent features.
Many Upstaters use the caught/cot distinction too.
I'd be reasonably certain she was black, mixed or hung around a diverse crowd based on her cadence and a few of her vowels. If she said she was from outside London, I'll up it to 90% certainty she is black or mixed. I'm not saying there is a UK black accent per se, but black Brits I've noticed are more likely than Brits of other ethnicities to pick up features of the MLE sociolect even if they are outside London. Hearing someone like Stacy Solomon on the radio for example I'd be 90% sure is not black as black Brits in their 30s and below who grew up in the same area are very unlikely to pick up such an accent. However I grew up around London and Kent and was heavily around black Brits so I'm very attuned to these subtle differences. I'm sure to foreigners and to many Brits, Mai just sounds like a typical young Londoner.
So you're saying there is a difference but far more subtle than between white and black Americans? And do you think black British accent is influenced by AAVE at all?
In New York, a black and white person can grow up 5 blocks from each other and sound COMPLETELY different.
Um, maybe to you. But how does this buttress your argument that Brooklyn accents spoken by white people sound like Black accents?
Ok, I guess I'm just bad at detecting accents. Either that, or the black people I met might actually have been from Brooklyn.
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