Proper English spoken in USA

English has been declared the official language of USA.
So now you better learn how to speak Hoi Toider brogue, the only true English spoken in USA:

Any forum members from Ocracoke Island in North Carolina who speak the dialect fluently?

Very interesting, but I doubt that declaring English to be the official language of the USA will change anything. Americans have massacred the language persistently over centuries and we can still mostly understand them.

The beauty of English is that it isn’t just from England (where there are numerous dialects and accents) but can adopt words from every language or invent new words as well as officially change the meaning of words by common usage. In other words it’s flexible and adaptable. And it was also spread worldwide by British sea power. Many kings of England didn’t speak English.

The French do the opposite and have a language gestapo empowered to squash foreign (particularly English) intrusions and preserve the impotent purity of their language. They fail, of course, as do all authoritarians eventually.

So whatever is spoken on this island whilst quirky and distinctive, it’s not a pure version of English because there aren’t any.

The mid-Atlantic areas with primitive American english accents produce a LOT of tugboaters. In NY at least, you’re more likely to hear this accent when monitoring VTS than you do the traditional NY accent.

3 Likes

Understand coastal Carolina,Chesapeake bay, nautical English, can’t speak it. It’s a nice accent easy on the ears.

Can usually tell New Zealand from Australian. English decent South African easy to pick up. Slight differences British isles more difficult.

10 main dialects/accents as spoken in the UK:

I’m sure you can find sound examples of all these if you google them

BTW: Some people are surprised to learn that English isn’t the official language of the United Kingdom . But it is the de-facto language of the UK because it’s the main language of around 92% of the population.
Source: Which Languages Are Spoken in the UK? - Lingoda

PS> There is nothing called “British English”.

As a mid-atlantic’er I have found myself in the position of translating both for coonass captains and New England Yankee captains over the radio in NY harbor on multiple occasions. :rofl:

5 Likes

The only “English” I can’t understand is the type that comes from places like India. Talk-to-text backs me up on this.

Indian have opinions about the accents of other English speakers as well:

English spoken in different parts of the world varies of course but generally one can communicate however it’s not always easy. I have been in meetings where there were several nationalities present but we communicated in English. However, if the two Scotsmen started talking to each other no one could understand a word though they claimed to be speaking English.

2 Likes

I did my first trip to USA in 1961 on the WW Line ship Teneriffa:


She was on her regular run; N.Europe - USEC, Gulf Coast, Mexico v.v.
First US port was Boston, w/turn-around port Vera Cruz, Mexico.
While discharging in New Orleans I was on guard in hold #3 (the strongroom).

The stevedore gang was mostly blacks who spoke a language I did not understand.
I thought maybe it was some variety of an African language, but I detected some English words her and there.

I asked some of the older and more experienced crewmember and was told that it was some sort of Creole dialect, mixed with English:

I have worked with a lot of Cajuns over the years, (first on American OSVs in S.E. Asia in 1970) but never heard quite the same dialect again.

1 Like

Strikingly similar to an earlier Wilhelmsen “Teneriffa”, sunk in WWll.

I’m wondering if what you heard was simply urban black slang in a New Orleans accent. Boarding my father’s ships downtown at that time, the longshoremen
spoke slang English.

The “Teneriffa” that was built in 1922 and sunk in 1941 looked like this:


Source: M/S Teneriffa - Norwegian Merchant Fleet 1939-1945

The Teneriffa I was onboard was built in 1952, but still with the traditional two midships superstructures: BalticShipping.com

Very possible, or could this have been a gang that came from down the bayuos?
In any case they spoke a language I did not recognized as English.

Admittedly my English at that time was limited, since I had only a very basic education and had only been at sea for 2-1/2 year at that time, mostly on the Far East run.

Since than I have been exposed to any number of accents, incl. Melanesian Pidgin (Nuigini toktok) Singlish and various levels of English spoken by non-native English speakers in many parts of the world.

1 Like

Yes, that’s the same page I found under warsailors site. You were lucky to ship in such a beauty!

They probably slipped into Scots, which is it’s own language although it’s very similar to English.

1 Like

The Scots language explained:

Scots Dictionary for the adventurous:

It can be hard enough to understand the Scottish English:

Then there are the Western Isles. Orkney and Shetland:

Long ago I went to the Orkney Islands where we loaded North Sea crude. Wonderful place, with a pretty girl behind every tree. Only problem was, no trees!

this way of speaking crept into school systems, and eventually became the standard form of diction for young, high-class Americans who were learning how to speak “properly.” It was predominantly used by the rich and well-to-do on the East Coast.

Called the 'mid-Atlantic" accent. Definitely not a working class accent, William F. Buckley used a version of it.

1 Like

I have a Scots dictionary. It’s a pretty thick book in small print.

1 Like