Identify this English accent

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Greetings.I am listening to the audio book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix read by Stephen Fry. In it, he voices a character named Nymphadora Tonks. The accent he uses for Tonks is one I'm not able to place. Perhaps someone here can help.The features of the accent which most distinguish it from received pronunciation (RP) are as follows. (I use SAMPA IPA transcriptions here.)(1) /V/ becomes /U/ and /U/ becomes /u/, as in Scouse(2) All s are rhotic.(3) Word-terminal /i:/ becomes /I/(4) /eI/, /U@/, /@U/ and other "long" vowels are noticeably less diphthongized, sounding more like /e:/, /u:/, and /o:/.All in all, it sounds rather Liverpudlian to me except for the very distinct rhotic /r/ everywhere.Regards,TristanV.-o Tristan Miller (en,(fr,de,ia)) &gt;`-' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= <> In a haiku, so it's hard (7 \ http://www.nothingisreal.com/ &gt;

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[nq:1]Greetings. I am listening to the audio book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix read by ... Tonks. The accent he uses for Tonks is one I'm not able to place. Perhaps someone here can help. [/nq]
I've got that audio book, so if you can give me a good chapter number I'll have a listen.
Matti

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[nq:1]Greetings. I am listening to the audio book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix read by ... Nymphadora Tonks. The accent he uses for Tonks is one I'm not able to place. Perhaps someone here can help.[/nq]
I don't know how good Stephen Fry is at accents, but I'll assume that the accent is authentic.
[nq:1]The features of the accent which most distinguish it from received pronunciation (RP) are as follows. (I use SAMPA IPA transcriptions here.) (1) /V/ becomes /U/ and /U/ becomes /u/, as in Scouse[/nq]
RP /U/ only becomes Scouse /u/ in words, e.g. "book" (which is usually something like (bu":x) in a strong Scouse accent). This can occur elsewhere in northern England too, though not usually with an (x).
[nq:1](2) All s are rhotic. (3) Word-terminal /i:/ becomes /I/ (4) /eI/, /U@/, /@U/ and other "long" vowels are noticeably ... /u:/, and /o:/. All in all, it sounds rather Liverpudlian to me except for the very distinct rhotic /r/ everywhere.[/nq]
(3) and (4) are not really features of Scouse, though they are common elsewhere in the north of England. Scouse tends to use (i) for final (e.g. "happy"), and has surprisingly RP-like diphthongs in "gate" and "goat".
(1), (3) and (4) all tend to suggest northern England. So I'd suggest a rhotic pocket somewhere in the North, such as Accrington in Lancashire, but I don't know why such an accent would be used in this context.
Presumably words like "bath" have a short (a) and not the long (A

of RP; if not that would rule out anything from northern England.

Jonathan

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Greetings.
[nq:2]Greetings. I am listening to the audio book Harry ... not able to place. Perhaps someone here can help. [/nq]
[nq:1]I've got that audio book, so if you can give me a good chapter number I'll have a listen.[/nq]
It's Chapter 2, on CD 2. You can hear the Tonks character speak at the following times (where the beginning of the CD is 00:00):

24:31 to 24:50
26:11 to 26:24
27:11 to 27:16
28:22 to 28:43
29:25 to 33:19
I'll post a link to a clip of that last section if I can figure out how.

Regards,
Tristan

V.-o Tristan Miller (en,(fr,de,ia)) >`-' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= <> In a haiku, so it's hard (7 \ http://www.nothingisreal.com/ >

Usenet · Answer

Greetings.
[nq:1]I am listening to the audio book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix read by Stephen ... Nymphadora Tonks. The accent he uses for Tonks is one I'm not able to place. Perhaps someone here can help.[/nq]
I've put a short clip of the audio book in question up at the following URL. It's about four minutes long and contains most of the Tonks dialogue.

Regards,
Tristan

V.-o Tristan Miller (en,(fr,de,ia)) >`-' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= <> In a haiku, so it's hard (7 \ http://www.nothingisreal.com/ >

Usenet · Answer

Ar an t-ochtÃº lÃ¡ dÃ©ag de mÃ Feabhra, scrÃobh Tristan Miller:
[nq:2]I am listening to the audio book Harry Potter ... I'm not able to place. Perhaps someone here can help.[/nq]
[nq:1]I've put a short clip of the audio book in question up at the following URL. It's about four minutes long and contains most of the Tonks dialogue. [/nq]
Nothing Iâ??ve ever heard before, and Iâ??d be surprised if he was aiming for an existing accent. Someone elseâ??s â??pocket-of-rhoticism-in-the-north-of Englandâ? comment about describes where I would place it, if I did believe it were an existing accent.

â??Ah come on now Ted, a Volkswagen with a mind of its own, driving all over the place and going mad, if thatâ??s not scary I donâ??t know what is.â?

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]I've got that audio book, so if you can give me a good chapter number I'll have a listen.[/nq]
[nq:1]It's Chapter 2, on CD 2. You can hear the Tonks character speak at the following times (where the beginning of the CD is 00:00): 24:31 to 24:50 26:11 to 26:24 27:11 to 27:16 28:22 to 28:43 29:25 to 33:19[/nq]
It's actually Chapter 3, and I've now listened to most of the Tonks utterances. They started off as Rochdale, then wandered off around Bolton and Bury for a while. Then we crossed the Pennines for some Giggleswick, and the unexpected rhoticism of Dorset set in. Later on there were some distinctly southern vowels short "broom", for example. So it's one of Fry's peripatetic accents, with nods to Gracie Fields, Fred Dibnah, Alan Bennett and the Wurzels. No Liverpudlians were injured, however.
Matti

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Greetings.
[nq:2]I've put a short clip of the audio book in ... minutes long and contains most of the Tonks dialogue. [/nq]
[nq:1]Nothing Iâ??ve ever heard before, and Iâ??d be surprised if he was aiming for an existing accent.[/nq]
Well, he voices other characters with passable approximations of existing accents, so I was assuming that he isn't making this one up. If it weren't for the Scousey vowel shifts, I might have thought he was trying to impersonate an American.
Could the accent be from somewhere in Lancashire? IIRC some of their accents are rhotic, and their proximity to Merseyside might explain the vowel treatment.
Regards,
Tristan

V.-o Tristan Miller (en,(fr,de,ia)) >`-' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= <> In a haiku, so it's hard (7 \ http://www.nothingisreal.com/ >

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[nq:1]It's actually Chapter 3, and I've now listened to most of the Tonks utterances. They started off as Rochdale, then ... Fry's peripatetic accents, with nods to Gracie Fields, Fred Dibnah, Alan Bennett and the Wurzels. No Liverpudlians were injured, however.[/nq]
In other words, it's as genuine as Martin Short's accent in "Father of the Bride".

I believe in traditional marriage. It'll cost you five talents of gold and a camel to marry my daughter.

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Matti Lamprhey typed thusly:
[nq:2]It's Chapter 2, on CD 2. You can hear the ... 26:24 27:11 to 27:16 28:22 to 28:43 29:25 to 33:19[/nq]
[nq:1]It's actually Chapter 3, and I've now listened to most of the Tonks utterances. They started off as Rochdale, then ... Fry's peripatetic accents, with nods to Gracie Fields, Fred Dibnah, Alan Bennett and the Wurzels. No Liverpudlians were injured, however.[/nq]
Having listened to the clip, I am convinced that the wandering accent must be intentional - it travels too far to remain unnoticed by the director. I note that the character is a Metamorph and can change her appearance at will. Perhaps the variable accent is an audio representation of this.
Matti is right - there is no Scouse at all.

David
==
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[nq:2]Nothing I've ever heard before, and I'd be surprised if he was aimingfor an existing accent.[/nq]
[nq:1]Well, he voices other characters with passable approximations of existing accents, so I was assuming that he isn't making this ... somewhere in Lancashire? IIRC some of their accents are rhotic, and their proximity to Merseyside might explain the vowel treatment.[/nq]
I'm not able to decipher *.ogg files, so haven't heard the clip referred to. However, I'd like to chip in with an observation that there is very little geographical accent diffusion effect from the City of Liverpool other than in contiguous areas such as the Merseyside boroughs of Wirral, Knowsley and Sefton, and in the "new towns" of Skelmersdale, Runcorn and Winsford, to which thousands of Liverpudlians have been "decanted". In particular, the St Helens area, although nominally politically tied to Liverpool in some senses, displays very little of the Scouse accent (except, of course, in the cases of Liverpudlians who have bought houses there - a category which once included myself).
The former "Metropolitan Borough of Knowsley" is a good case in point. Formed from all or parts of the former local government units of Huyton-with-Roby, Kirkby, Prescot and Whiston, most of it (especially Huyton and Kirkby and the Halewood area of the former Rural District of Whiston) are Liverpudlian in all but name.The people of those settlements are Scousers (much as it may pain a few of them to admit it). They have not acquired their accents by mere propinquity to Liverpool. They are Liverpudlians, either by birth and upbringing, or by being the offspring of people in that group. But, in the central belt of Knowsley (an odd-shaped crescent of a borough, clearly designed to prevent Liverpool proper from being enlarged), the settlements of Prescot (the town on top of the hill) and Whiston (the actual place, not the whole of the former Rural District to which it gave its name), the inhabitants speak with a broader Lancashire accent which owes little, if anything, to Liverpool.

The demarcation between those accents is as stark as one can find on land - with well under than a mile between the easternmost extremity of built-up Huyton and the western edge of Prescot. No diffusion or proximity effect there.

Identify this English accent

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