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Because I'm too lazy to write a post, today.... (actually, I should be gone already, I need to go to the bankruptcy court here in town and collect some info for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eor's brother re the disposition of his case.)
Someone was so silly as to ask me a question I can really ramble on...
What does a Maine accent sound like?
There's no one answer to that. There's the French Canadian influences in certain areas, then there's the classical Down East accent which Marshal Dodge made famous and now Tim Sample makes his money on. (And I'm pretty sure they were both from away - they came here, learned the accent, and made money making fun of it.) And that would be what they're talking about on the 20th Maine, Company G, Homepage: http://users.lmi.net/mcm20me/20th_Maine/CompG/research/talkyankee.htm (They need to learn how to talk Yankee because they're in Northern California doing Civil War reinactments and portraying soldiers from Maine - how twisted is that? ;))
I was raised on television, so I usually don't sound extremely different from the American norm - softer on my 'r' - unless I get nervous or tired, then I lapse more into it. Of course, when my brother, Hawk, was teaching Koreans to speak English he taught them a Maine accent, so if you ever meet a Korean who says 'Ayuh' in place of 'yes' they might be one of my brother's students. ;) (edited to add: Or those of one of this friends or our Mom, who's still there.) If you try listening to the humble Farmer on Friday, 7pm, our time, here: http://www.publicbroadcast.net/mpbc/ppr/index.shtml his accent is stronger but similar to how I speak, because he was a friend of my father's and from the same town, Rockland. (If you want to hear a very unusual dialect of Finnish you can send him email and, the next show, he might speak some Maine Finnish for you, I've heard him do it before.)
Hm, I'm trying to think of what's in the popular media that you might have heard, already. Do NOT listen to Tom Bosley's accent on "Murder, She Wrote," he sucked so bad at doing a Maine accent that we all tuned in just to laugh at him. Oh, Hawkeye, in M*A*S*H*? He's supposed to be from Maine. Alan Alda didn't really try to do the accent, and we appreciated that. (Either that or he did it so well that it was invisible to us. I suppose that's possible.) In the original movie, Donald Sutherland did the accent, but I really can't remember if he did it well or not. In Stephen King movies there's often a Mainer character - in Pet Sematary it was Fred Gwynne's character, and, much as I adored Fred Gwynne it was painful listening to him do a Maine accent.
Oh - I just did some more poking around after writing the above paragraph, and found an article ( http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20050227-9999-mz1a27maine.html ) in which a dialect coach references nearly every one of the characters I had already mentioned above. He says Alan Alda didn't try to do the accent for the show because Hawkeye's origins weren't all that important, and that he doesn't try to do a Maine accent for his role in The Aviator, even though his character there is supposed to be from Maine. Good choice.
(a snippet from the above article...)
'For a non-native, that twang is tough to imitate: Most Mainers would rather jump naked into a tank of angry lobsters than hear the pained Maine stylings of Tom Bosley on TV's "Murder She Wrote" or Fred Gwynne in the film "Pet Sematary."
"Frankly, I don't think I've seen a Hollywood movie where it's really been done well," says Rolde. "Sometimes it's been done so it wasn't objectionable, but it's never been really authentic."'
- Ha! Yeah. :)
Here's another site that's got some good things to say, although I'm not sure on their recorded examples... some of them sound a little too hard around the edges. http://www.derek.co.uk/carousel/
eor's brother re the disposition of his case.)Someone was so silly as to ask me a question I can really ramble on...
What does a Maine accent sound like?
There's no one answer to that. There's the French Canadian influences in certain areas, then there's the classical Down East accent which Marshal Dodge made famous and now Tim Sample makes his money on. (And I'm pretty sure they were both from away - they came here, learned the accent, and made money making fun of it.) And that would be what they're talking about on the 20th Maine, Company G, Homepage: http://users.lmi.net/mcm20me/20th_Maine/CompG/research/talkyankee.htm (They need to learn how to talk Yankee because they're in Northern California doing Civil War reinactments and portraying soldiers from Maine - how twisted is that? ;))
I was raised on television, so I usually don't sound extremely different from the American norm - softer on my 'r' - unless I get nervous or tired, then I lapse more into it. Of course, when my brother, Hawk, was teaching Koreans to speak English he taught them a Maine accent, so if you ever meet a Korean who says 'Ayuh' in place of 'yes' they might be one of my brother's students. ;) (edited to add: Or those of one of this friends or our Mom, who's still there.) If you try listening to the humble Farmer on Friday, 7pm, our time, here: http://www.publicbroadcast.net/mpbc/ppr/index.shtml his accent is stronger but similar to how I speak, because he was a friend of my father's and from the same town, Rockland. (If you want to hear a very unusual dialect of Finnish you can send him email and, the next show, he might speak some Maine Finnish for you, I've heard him do it before.)
Hm, I'm trying to think of what's in the popular media that you might have heard, already. Do NOT listen to Tom Bosley's accent on "Murder, She Wrote," he sucked so bad at doing a Maine accent that we all tuned in just to laugh at him. Oh, Hawkeye, in M*A*S*H*? He's supposed to be from Maine. Alan Alda didn't really try to do the accent, and we appreciated that. (Either that or he did it so well that it was invisible to us. I suppose that's possible.) In the original movie, Donald Sutherland did the accent, but I really can't remember if he did it well or not. In Stephen King movies there's often a Mainer character - in Pet Sematary it was Fred Gwynne's character, and, much as I adored Fred Gwynne it was painful listening to him do a Maine accent.
Oh - I just did some more poking around after writing the above paragraph, and found an article ( http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/features/20050227-9999-mz1a27maine.html ) in which a dialect coach references nearly every one of the characters I had already mentioned above. He says Alan Alda didn't try to do the accent for the show because Hawkeye's origins weren't all that important, and that he doesn't try to do a Maine accent for his role in The Aviator, even though his character there is supposed to be from Maine. Good choice.
(a snippet from the above article...)
'For a non-native, that twang is tough to imitate: Most Mainers would rather jump naked into a tank of angry lobsters than hear the pained Maine stylings of Tom Bosley on TV's "Murder She Wrote" or Fred Gwynne in the film "Pet Sematary."
"Frankly, I don't think I've seen a Hollywood movie where it's really been done well," says Rolde. "Sometimes it's been done so it wasn't objectionable, but it's never been really authentic."'
- Ha! Yeah. :)
Here's another site that's got some good things to say, although I'm not sure on their recorded examples... some of them sound a little too hard around the edges. http://www.derek.co.uk/carousel/
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There are some other dialect/accent tricks that don't seem to be present in the standard Maine Accent Repertoire, as represented by some of these sites. The first of these is the "inhaled Ayuh," which is more of a Down East thing. I can't even imagine what letters to put together to represent the Inhaled Ayuh. You've probably heard old Yankees making this noise, and perhaps assumed that they were choking. :-)
Another Maine accent thing that's thrown me is the pronunciation of "horse" by some Mainers. One of my former co-workers, a 7th-generation Mainer, pronounced "horse" as "haahse," rather than "hawse" as you would expect to hear in the traditional Maine dialect. She was from the Rockland/St. George/Tenants Harbor area, so I'm wondering if that's some local Midcoast thing.
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East thing. I can't even imagine what letters to put together to
represent the Inhaled Ayuh. You've probably heard old Yankees making this
noise, and perhaps assumed that they were choking. :-)
I was going to mention that Hawk taught this to his Korean students, but I wasn't at all sure how to explain what it sounds like, so I decided (in the interest of brevity - ha!) to not try. ;)
Re 'haahse' - it's kind of like 'hoss,' except a little more open-mouthed?
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From: (Anonymous)
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you don't have one silly......( I agree except when you're tired......
There are those that think a MA accent is the Southern Maine accent:)
I Got your post card ......many thanks.
I actually was quite taken with DC during my train trip 2 falls ago....I would like to go there and spend some time....see more of the sights.
You sound good .....
CT
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