• PugJesus@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    American accents sound too ‘modern’ because American English wasn’t a thing until the Medieval period had long passed, and most fantasy is medieval or medieval-adjacent.

    I’m all for broadening the use, though. I love that the Witcher games gave Geralt and the other Witchers of the School of the Wolf American accents. And Dragon Age (back when it was good) giving the dwarves American accents.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        I heard it was Southern English which was closest to Elizabethan English.

        In any case, reality doesn’t matter. Perceptions matter. Britain is an old country, and America is a new country - so in ‘translating’ an accent to a past period, we tend to see the accent of the ‘old country’ as more appropriate.

        • merc@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I’m not sure how they measure how close an accent is. But, they can tell how old accents sounded by looking at songs and poetry for the meter and rhyme of words. If two words rhymed, they were probably pronounced the same way. For example, in Shakespeare’s time they know that “proved” and “loved” rhymed.

        • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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          1 year ago

          well for one from times and places where there was a lot of casual writing there are just straight up people writing about how people speak, which is pretty convenient.

          but additionally you can compare different recorded and modern speakers to figure out trends which let you at least vaguely reconstruct what people from the past would probably have sounded like.

          and more specifically with new england that’s just wholesale a bunch of people from england who settled a colony, so you effectively have a twin study where you can compare it to modern england.

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      American English wasn’t a thing until the Medieval period had long passed

      Nor was modern British English. One of the defining features of modern British English is the lack of rhoticity (dropping the “r” sound), but that’s very modern, only happening in the 19th century. They have managed to recreate how English sounded in Shakespeare’s time by looking at words that were supposed to rhyme, and their meter. To me, it sounds like “pirate English”.

      https://youtu.be/uQc5ZpAoU4c?t=299

      Whether modern American English is closer to Shakespeare’s English is a matter for debate. I’d say it’s closer than RP, but not as close as some rural British accents.

    • Belgdore@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      That may be true for regional us dialects, but the core of American pronunciation is older than Received Pronunciation

    • Tedrow@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is actually a misconception. The modern English accents are a result of fashionable language of London. This developed after the United States of America was formed. So after the Middle ages. It’s more likely English speakers in the middle ages sounded more American than English.

    • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Actually, modern American English apparently is closer to the English from old days than modern day British English is. Always found that to be an interesting tidbit.

    • evening_push579@feddit.nu
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      1 year ago

      Xenoblade 2 had a nice use of the various English accents, generally each nation/group in the game used a particular accent (eg Mor Ardain = Scottish, villain group Torna spoke American English). One unique character (a blade) had a southern grew-up-on-a-farm accent.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      American accents sound too ‘modern’ because American English wasn’t a thing until the Medieval period had long passed, and most fantasy is medieval or medieval-adjacent.

      OP mentions Australia, which wasn’t even established as a penal colony until 5 years after the US was recognized as an independent nation under the Treaty of Paris.