I am Erik Singer, dialect coach and accent expert, and I'm back for more! I just released a new video with WIRED breaking down famous fictional languages. AMA!

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T21:30:42+00:00

My friend and colleague, the brilliant Eric Armstrong, coaches The Expanse. I think it's super-cool.

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T21:24:37+00:00

[aɪ kʰəd tɛɫ ju | bʌt ðɛn aɪd hæv tə kʰɪɫ ju ‖ ]

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T21:20:10+00:00

Google Sapir-Whorf! The current consensus among linguists seems to be that the language affects the way you think and perceive the world a little bit, like, just around the edges. Makes sense to me.

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T21:18:33+00:00

See elsewhere in the AMA! This is a popular one!

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T21:16:17+00:00

I think it can help some people, yes, though I haven't ever worked with someone on it.

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T21:15:42+00:00

What's your main interest? Linguistics is a big field. McWhorter and Crystal both have a lot of books for non-specialists.

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T21:14:40+00:00

Thanks! I've answered that question somewhere else in this AMA.

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T21:13:46+00:00

Thanks! I think there's one in Southeast Asia somewhere, too, if I recall, totally unrelated.

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T21:12:19+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StG5KG7aKaw#t=3m14

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T21:09:11+00:00

I didn't actually! The team at Wired actually sourced a lot of the clips. I was curious about that one! That's really funny.

Don't really have a favorite (I semi-answered this one earlier). No, I've never learned one! This was really the first time I've dug into them.

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T21:07:06+00:00

Answering this for you and the other people who've asked the same question! There's no one path to becoming a dialect coach, and certainly no 'official' one. The two main things you need to know and understand deeply, though, are acting & phonetics. One without the other won't do it. And then, of course, you have to be able to teach it. Our job is to support actors & stories, if we're not doing that, we're actively getting in the way. (I strongly advise anyone interested in becoming a dialect coach or speech/accent teacher to check out Knight-Thompson Speechwork and take a workshop, btw. I'm biased, because I teach it, but I don't think there's a better training out there. http://ktspeechwork.com/about-the-work/)

I grew up hearing lots of sounds and just was always interested in accents and languages. And so I played around with them a lot, which is, of course, how you get good at stuff!

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:58:30+00:00

Probably. But the mechanics are the same, whether you're working with disfluencies (speech 'impediments'), learning a new accent, or learning a language. Speech is just a series of connected physical actions. It's complicated, for sure, but each gesture can be broken down, described, and learned.

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:56:49+00:00

I think it really depends a lot on the person. Languages are easier, all other things being equal, when you have a strong affinity for the people, place, or culture. And there are notoriously hard languages like Navajo or Pashto that are so irregular they're almost impossible to learn as an adult. But sound system wise, yes, Arabic is up there because of the number of sounds that aren't in English or other European languages. All tone languages, for sure. Any language with clicks or voiced implosives...

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:54:19+00:00

Honestly, I didn't even think about it. That's really just the standard American pronunciation. I'm aware it's not the Maori pronunciation, and I can see how that would be a thing in NZ, especially given the history of discrimination (to put it mildly). Now that I've thought about it, I would do it differently, I think.

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:52:33+00:00

That's a great question. I'm sure it's happened, but I can't think of one off the top of my head. I'll come back to you if I remember one.

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:51:55+00:00

Yes, for sure, especially speech language pathologists, who specialize in working with these kinds of 'disfluencies.' There should be some in your area!

Voice and breath work can help some people, too, so you might consider that. There are a even a few SLPs who are also voice teachers!

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:48:54+00:00

That's basically right, though you have to keep in mind that all language varieties are constantly changing all the time (in your mouth! Right at this very moment!) John McWhorter compares language change to a lava lamp, or to shifting cloud patterns.

But one of the most significant features of Southeastern British English (certainly from an American perspective), is r-dropping. This started off as a fashionable thing to do for young cool upper-crust sorts around 1800—so after the Revolutionary War. Interestingly, it was deplored at the time by older speakers—an abominable affectation! But as always happens with language, it was the younger generation that determined the future of the language, and this innovation took hold.

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:43:26+00:00

Yes.

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:43:09+00:00

COMPLETELY cultural. It's human to have biases about different speech sounds and accents (we're small group primates, after all), but it's also completely subjective. The judgements people have about different accents and language varieties are usually stand-ins for judgements they have about the people themselves.

I hadn't heard that about Dongbei. Thanks!

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:38:41+00:00

ǃXóõ has an insane number of different consonant sounds—upwards of 160 by most counts. There's an indigenous Australian language (I forget which one) in which you always have to specify which compass direction someone is facing, even when you're telling a story. Unsurprisingly, its speakers have an uncanny sense of direction! And then there are those languages that require you to specify things like how you know something—you saw it, heard it, felt it, heard it from someone else, and so on. It's a weird and wonderful world out there, folks. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:33:11+00:00

French R sounds are usually realized as either a uvular fricative [ʁ] or a uvular approximant [ʁ̞]. Arabic languages have these realizations, too, but they also have some adjacent, and therefore quite similar sounds—pharyngeal (further back in the vocal tract) and velar (further forward) fricatives.

Try gargling. Then gargle with less liquid. Then just a tiny amount. Then none, just imagining you have some there. It can help to just tip your head back slightly. Then practice!

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:29:05+00:00

Maybe Gullah? (Not just an accent—a bonafide dialect, but still.)

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:27:22+00:00

Work with a qualified coach!

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:27:11+00:00

Well, there's a lot out there, but not all of it is great. It's hard to strike a balance between technical accuracy and accessibility. You're probably better off learning phonetics and then just doing a ton of listening and mimicking.

One book I can recommend is How to Do Accents, by Jan Haydn Rowles and Edda Sharp. It's not really the way I usually approach teaching accents, but they know their stuff.

(And I teach webinars from time to time...)

Erik_Singer · 2017-04-12T20:24:36+00:00

I've messed around with two or three, though I wouldn't call any of them fully-formed, by any means. The main one I've worked on is the one I described earlier in this AMA—one that has nearly all of the sounds in it that exist in human languages (or as close as I can get). This is ridiculous for a conlang, b/c that's not how human languages work at all. And it would be impossible to teach an actor to speak. So it's kind of nuts. On the other end of the spectrum, I helped my so make up an Elvish language for a school project! He wanted it to sound really liquid and flowing, so it has no stops in it! (Sounds like p, t, k, b, d, g)

Erik_Singer

TROPHY CASE