Wednesday, October 08, 2008

STELLLA!!!! We need a big toy frog!

"Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station. "

First off, I'm not sure the store sells snow peas by the unit "spoons." Secondly, how thick exactly do you want your slabs? I'm not sure scooping blue cheese into a bag is the best idea. And by Wednesday, it may not be smelling all that great. Plus, by then, won't Bob have gotten his own snack?

These are some of the thoughts that confronted me as I listened to that paragraph over and over at the GMU Speech Accent Archive. You can browse by birth language, region, or native phonetic inventory. But no matter which clip you listen to, it's about Stella, her shopping list, and your upcoming rendez-vous on Wednesday. A few favorites:

* South African
*Northern Australian
*Macon, Mississippi - sounds like Tommy Lee Jones sometimes
*York, UK - this is pretty close to the local accent here
*Viscaya, Spain - requires a little more patience than the others.

If you find a cool one that I missed (which shouldn't be that hard), post it in the comments for me.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow, what a find.

Think we have an accent?

Maren said...

Thanks- I wasn't sure what to do with all my copious spare time today.
I like Iceland and the intonations in the Maltese woman's voice.

There is a remarkable resemblance between the woman from Istanbul and the woman from Brasilia, Brazil.

Just Katy said...

Yeah, that site is a time black hole!! Dangerously distracting.