So, Selluwud in the "Word Association Game" mentioned the word 'dialect', and I started thinking. (A dangerous thing to do). Seven years ago, I visited England for two weeks. In that time, I was exposed first-hand to four different dialects: Mancunian (spoken in Manchester), Scouse (Liverpool), Cockney (working-class London), and RP (Received Pronunciation, aka "The News"). Prior to my trip, I also listened to four other dialects spoken in England: Geordie (Newcastle-on-Tyne), Sussex, Brummie (Birmingham), and Yorkshire. I found these dialects (and the subtle differences between them) interesting, and fairly easy to understand. I also understand why these differences exist, and why there are so many. But now I'm wondering: how difficult (or easy) is it to learn a dialect, despite not knowing it from birth? I mean, actors and actresses do it all the time. Gary Oldman, Viggo Mortensen, Cate Blanchett, Daniel Day-Lewis, Kristin Thomas etc. But when I looked this up on google, that was no help. I got results that mentioned "accents" - as in "American accent", "British accent", "Australian accent" etc... and, of course, I thought: "What? There's no such thing! Not every American, Brit, or Australian person speaks the same. What is this absurdity?" So ... what's your view? I'm just curious.
I think (therefore I am...LOL) long exposure to one's town, home, community, geographical location, and social interactions come into play to affect one's dialect. I have a distinct accent which sounds like I'm from a different part of another state, but some of the people native to my area speak similarly but not all. When I moved to another part of the country for several years, my accent mutated to a combination of the old and the new and really became an unholy gobbledegook of mumbleese which only a highly trained ear could decipher. I find language and dialect highly entertaining and interesting. Oh, and by the way, if you listen to most actors very carefully, they all slip up somewhere in their dialogue and put the wrong em-FAS-is on the wrong sa-LIE-bul.
