Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 August 1

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August 1

Spoken English

Is there any reliable sites where can i download spoken English in Mp3 format and text format.Please avoid saying that "there is lot of sites for the same".If possible give me direct link to such sites.--RAIJOHN (talk) 10:33, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's Wikipedia, which has audio versions of certain revisions of certain articles (see Wikipedia:Spoken articles). One caveat is that the audio files aren't in MP3 format, but in Ogg Vorbis format, although it should be relatively straightforward to convert them mp3 format, e.g. if you need it for an mp3 player (search for "convert ogg to mp3" on your favorite internet search engine). The other caveat is that the audio files lag behind the written version, so you need to download an older version of the article text to get a 1-to-1 correspondence (the appropriate version should be linked in the media description page). -- 174.24.213.112 (talk) 16:06, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Do you like Jane Austen? I just searched "Jane Austen audio" on Google and found this: [1]. There's a free MP3 file to download and if you scroll down you can see links to get the text of the book for free. I'd imagine that searching for other old books (books over 100 years old are generally free from copyright) would give you more of the same. As it turns out, I'm studying French this way :-) Jonathan ^talk 18:46, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

[2] has many public domain audiobooks in mp3 format for free download. The texts are mostly available at [3]. Tinfoilcat (talk) 11:00, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Just to check: what does the OP mean by "spoken English"? Audio recordings of written materials are readily available, but they are not indicative of what we normally think of as spoken language, whether conversations, transactions, or presentations. BrainyBabe (talk) 22:12, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

conversations, transactions, and presentations.--RAIJOHN (talk) 03:12, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. The more precise you are in your question, the better we will be able to help you. To refine further, there is a distinction between scripted speech (e.g. most drama, and to a large extent political speeches and business presentations) and unscripted speech (everyday conversations and transactions). By their nature, the former are much more likely to be recorded. For example, you can find the speeches of the President of the United States on the White House website, and read and listen to your heart's content. What you are listening to is, obviously, what he actually said; what you are reading may be a script (the words prepared beforehand which he was supposed to say, and which appeared on the teleprompter or piece of paper for him to read) or a transcript (the words he actually said, as written down (transcribed) by someone after the speech happened.) Some scripts and transcripts are verbatim; that is, the speaker does not deviate from what is planned. Many, though, differ, and it is in the differences that the spontaneity shows. Linguists are interested in transcripts, because language is primarily oral. One great source for presentations, with subtitles in multiple languages, is TED talks.

Leaving speeches and presentations aside, we come to unscripted spoken English. Some scholars divide these into formal and less formal (e.g. classroom and home), or transactions (e.g. a medical consultation) and interactions (e.g. a conversation with a friend). These are harder to record and publish, and creating transcripts is expensive. However, such databases do exist; they are called speech corpora (singular: corpus), and searching for that term will give you results that may help your quest. For example, one list mentions "COLT, London Teenage English. 55 hours of recordings, spoken language. mp3-files, orthographic transcriptions, syntactically tagged. http://torvald.aksis.uib.no/colt/ "

There are the British Academic Spoken English corpus, the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English, and many others. BrainyBabe (talk) 08:09, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Posh American accent?

Reading "What is this guy's accent?" and listening to the video, it just sounds like a normal American accent, but then I am British so wouldn't know. My question is, can anyone provide a link to an example of a posh or upper-class American accent? 2.101.8.165 (talk) 12:00, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe there is anything "upper class" in America including accents. That may be a British (and other countries as well) phenomenon that does not have its counterpart in America. But I'll be interested what other editors have to say on this. Bus stop (talk) 12:55, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

The first one that comes to mind for me would be the Boston Brahmin accent. I don't have sound on my computer to check links, but a youtube search for Charles Emerson Winchester should give you plenty of examples. It's very geographically specific in addition to class, however, so there are other examples. Upper-crusters from New York or the West Coast would speak differently. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 13:02, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Our article on Mid-Atlantic English seems worth a read. I would concur with the majority of the examples given there. There's also the Family Guy episode "No Chris Left Behind" in which the students of Morningwood Academy speak in parodies of upper-upper-class accents. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 13:38, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Living and working in Boston, I can report that the Boston Brahmin accent is dead or dying. Certainly no one under the age of about 80 speaks that way any more. The wealthy in Boston speak just like the wealthy anywhere else in the Northeast at least and probably nationally, and that is with something very close to a General American pronunciation. I also agree with Bus stop that the United States just doesn't have anything fully equivalent to the British "upper class". Of course, we have no nobility, and although there are quite a number of very rich Americans, I think that they would qualify in British terms as middle class. The Middle Atlantic accent is another moribund thing. In elite private schools in the United States, pupils were taught to speak with pronunciations influenced by Received Pronunciation only until about the 1930s. Hardly any wealthy Americans born after about 1930 would have a Middle Atlantic accent. During and after World War II, the American elites for the most part stopped modeling themselves after the British aristocracy and embraced their Americanness. I don't think it's possible to distinguish (non-elderly) wealthy Americans by their accent, though it is possible to make a guess based on the content of their speech (i.e., vocabulary, assumptions underlying what they say, etc.). Marco polo (talk) 14:37, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

The haughtiness of a William F. Buckley, Jr., heard for instance here, may sound "upper class", but I think it is merely a style and even an idiosyncratic one. Bus stop (talk) 15:07, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

The points of Marco Polo and Bus Stop are well taken. The Mid-Atlantic English article does note that the accent is "obsolescent, if not wholly obsolete, even among the American upper classes..." and the best examples I could give were fictional characters. That said, if I heard either accent, I would recognize it quickly, and it would connote wealth, education, and privilege. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 15:42, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Notice, by the way, that William F. Buckley, Jr., was born before 1930. He belongs to the last generation of rich Americans to use a class-specific speaking style. I'd be very surprised if his children spoke with a similar Mid-Atlantic accent. Marco polo (talk) 17:26, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

The video clip of WF Buckley has none of the nasal buzz of most American voices, or at least that's how I hear them. 2.101.8.165 (talk) 17:37, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Here is a page linked to an audio interview with W.F. Buckley's son, Christopher Buckley. I am not able to listen to the audio at the moment, but I expect that you will find that his son, who had an elite education similar to that of his father, has a more standard General American accent, like other members of the post-1930 elite. Marco polo (talk) 19:22, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Having settled in front of a computer with working audio and compared father and son, I can confirm Marco Polo's expectation. Christopher's accent is much more standard American than is William's. I suspect that, if I were to hear Christopher speaking out of any context, I would still mark him as having come from a privileged background, but knowing the context as I do, my suspicion could easily be biased. I perceive a certain 'speaking though the lower teeth' quality (I can't think of any better description), and the care with which he pronounces each word, indeed each syllable, and practically each phoneme, is not typical of the American hoi polloi. Word choice and attention to grammar could well be playing key roles as well. However, his speech does not to my ear come across as Mid-Atlantic or Boston Brahmin to any appreciable degree. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 21:35, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Chris Buckley has somewhat of his father's sound, but not nearly so much. Bill Buckley's speech pattern was so distinctive that impressionist David Frey included him in his reportoire, and had his speech pattern (as well as his quirky body language) nailed to the wall. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:06, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Watch the Gilmore girls for what TV *thinks* is a posh American accent. Though it's more of a style than anything. This would also vary regionally. What's considered an "upper class accent" in New England's going to be quite different than what's considered an "upper class accent" in the South.Volunteer Marek (talk) 19:42, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Franklin Roosevelt was regarding as having an upper-class manner of speaking. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:44, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

The Howells on Gilligan's Island --Nricardo (talk) 01:16, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

The closest thing to an "upper-class" accent in America nowadays might be the General American accent. I say that because sometimes you meet suburbanites from places associated with a particular accent who don't speak with that accent but rather with GA. A working-class white guy in New York is a lot more likely to have a stereotypical New York accent than a rich New Yorker. I even met a guy who grew up in a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama and spoke like he was from Oregon or somewhere. The problem is that many rich people from areas with regional accents other than GA do carry that accent -- Jim Goodnight, for example -- and in places where GA is the standard accent, both working-class and upper-class whites would have it. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 22:50, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

This thread seems to have missed a lot. First, there is the distinction between class and classiness. There are plenty of people with British accents who may be upper class but whose manner of speech isn't particularly euphonious, such as Elizabeth II. (Not that she is grating--just silly sounding--like a Monty Python parody.)

Mark Steyn and Oliver Sacks come to mind as examples of when a Bwitish accent is not necessawiwy a bettew accent.

And there are plenty of Americans (and Canadians) with distinguished but decidedly North American elocution. James Earl Jones (mississipi), Robert Foxworth (texas), Charlie Rose (north carolina), Kate Mulgrew (iowa) Colleen Dewhurst (montreal), Donald Sutherland (new brunswick) and Glenn Close (connecticut) come to mind without effort.

I love Nigel Hawthorn, but he can't hold a candle to Morgan Freeman (memphis, tennessee).

Then of course there are the examples of people like Rachel Griffiths and Olivia Newton-John who, while they don't necessarily sound classy while putting on American accents, certainly sound much classier than when they speak their native Oystrighlian.

A good clean well-elocuted North American speaker without too many shifted vowels or slurred consonants will certainly not be marked as low class by his speech, while Received Pronunciation in Britain is just as (if not more) often a sign of ambition (Tony Blair) than of birth into position.

Of course I have always imagined God to sound like Tom Baker and the Devil like Graham Crowden, so my prejudices should be clear.

μηδείς (talk) 03:24, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree that Morgan Freeman is an excellent speaker. Bus stop (talk) 04:15, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Wow, thanks for that. μηδείς (talk) 04:25, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Spoonerism of “Fukushima”

What is the spoonerism of “Fukushima”: a) Shukufima; or b) Sukuhima? --84.61.147.210 (talk) 13:35, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Read spoonerism. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:29, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Considering 'Fukushima' is Japanese, any kind of 'spoonerism' would follow Japanese phonological rules, and so your guess a) Shukufima, would be incorrect (as 'f' cannot precede 'i' in Japanese). There is a type of spoonerism that Japanese use, which swaps the first syllable of each word, and that would result in 'Shikufuma' in this case. Hope this helps. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:18, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

It's worth pointing out that the OP's question had been reverted several times, as likely trolling from that German IP cluster. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:29, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Aha, cheers, BB. I had noticed the 84, but not really decided to check. Now I've checked, I see it. Cheers. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:45, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

WP:RDTROLL, for future reference. I reverted him twice yesterday, but didn't have time for a report to AIV, and had to leave. No such user (talk) 11:30, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Pronunciation B vs M

Recently I found that 'B' and 'M' are somehow related. Let me give a few examples: 1 Mumbai vs Bombay, furthermore Chinese translate it as Meng Mai; 2 Bengal is translated in Chinese as Meng***; I believe this is not a coincidence, could anyone explain this more thoroughly?--刻意(Kèyì) 21:32, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

They are both labial consonants - i.e. produced with the lips. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 21:47, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

They are both bilabial consonants, to be more specific. The voiced bilabial plosive is the 'b' sound and the bilabial nasal is the 'm' sound. —Akrabbim^talk 22:02, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

The same applies to Celtic languages such as Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Irish Gaelic etc. where M, B and V get interchanged. Dbfirs 22:06, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Hmm. Sorry, I meant bilabial. I'll leave my answer the way it was. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:20, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

To make the points above even stronger: they are both bilabial voiced stops. The only articulatory difference between them is that with the nasal stop [m], the soft palate is lowered so that air can move through the nose, whereas with the plosive (oral stop) [b], this path of the air is closed. The same relation holds between [n] and [d], and for the ng sound ([ŋ]) and [g]. Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:15, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

And I've noticed in people speaking English with an Indian accent, that they don't make much distinction between the B and V, so "very good" sounds like "berry good". StuRat (talk) 11:00, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

OR, but - that will be because the 'v' in many Indian languages is actually closer to a 'w', depending on the speaker, and the 'v' of English sounds harder to the ears of a Hindi speaker - so they would tend to harden their own pronunciation of 'v' (when speaking English), but a little too much, so it approaches a 'b' sound, even though the points of articulation (i.e. teeth and lip) are the same as English 'v'. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:06, 2 August 2011 (UTC)