Posted by Ed Kiser on August 31, 2011 at 07:47:20 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Re: Pronunciation posted by Mike Dennis on August 31, 2011 at 23:45:29:
In "The Sound of Music", the Maria name is "MA REE AH".
In Wolfe's audio readings, he calls her "MA RYE AH".
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As for American English, there are two locations in North Carolina where some claim that the dialect spoken there is original Colonial mode of sounds. These two areas are the Outer Banks and the marsh lands bordering on the shallow waters separated from the ocean by the Outer Banks, a chain of off-shore islands, recently blasted by a recent hurricane. The other area is deep into the Appalachian Mountains in the western end of North Carolina. Both are at the extreme ends of this state. The reason they claim this is colonial dialect is that these two areas are so inaccessable that there is not a lot of flow of people of other accents in and out of those two isolated regions. So the inhabitants of those protected regions have not become poluted with other dialects. Now of course, with TV and Radio, and roads constructed into these areas, and with the heavy flow of tourists, the locals have become exposed to many other dialects and have drifted away from that original tongue. We have a name for that old dialect that perhaps is not all that respectful, calling it "hick" or "hillbilly" as a Put-Down description that implied ignorant and uneducated. As derogatory as these labels seem to be, to claim that this is original colonial English, as spoken by those originals who landed here from ships from England, that would seem to imply that the mode of speech used by Queen Elizabeth the First of those early colonial days would be to say she talks like a "hick." Somehow, that is a bit too much unkind. Who knows how that Queen spoke. We don't have recordings of her voice.
Example: "I am tired." This is pronounced as "Ah'm tarred."
"Fire" is pronounced as "Far".
Those four round rubber things on which a car rolls that we (USA) call "tires", in that back-woods speech would be "Tars."
"Can't" comes out like "Cain't" to rhyme with "ain't".
If this is Colonial English, then English English has certainly shifted quite a bit away from that way of speaking.
We here in USA feel that when we hear English English, that the speaker is very well educated, and is "putting on the dog" to emphasize that accomplishment, and is "showing off" a bit, as if to brag "I'm better than you." This can lead to a certain amount of resentment that can lead to all sorts of misunderstandings. English English is used sometimes in TV commercials to add an air of respectability, of validity in the claims of that commercial. Hear how educated he sounds, so he must be right. Which is what a good commercial should imply.
So both sides of The Pond "talk funny." At least, that is the opinion of the OTHER side of that Pond.
But this means that the written word of Ransome can be read without any strange foreign accent, and becomes a delightful story, with perhaps a few new words to learn, but without any accent to alienate the reader. This is a hazard of "talking books" as they are read using an accent that is not familiar necessarily to the listener, and so is received not all that well. To my ears, that dialect is not familiar, and is sometimes irritatingly difficult to comprehend. But as for the BOOKS that I can READ, we can love each of these twelve offerings Ransome left for us on both sides of that Pond to relish and enjoy.
So when I read these aloud to those young ones in the family, they hear the words in my own Southern American dialect that they are familiar with, although there are times that "Girt auld hen 'at wants to be cock o' t' midden" can leave them a bit puzzled, as somehow I'm afraid my interpretation of those words just don't come out with the right sounds.
Ed Kiser, Kentucky