Speaking English

Heard a great piece on CBC radio today about a site called "Babel", pronounced "babble", which explores the trials new Canadians with foreign accents endure trying to fit into our society.  Facinating.

One linguistic expert who helps newcomers overcome accents and sound like "native speakers" tells her clients that in every English word, only one syllable is accentuated -- regardless of how many there may be in the word.  So, for example, with a word such as "understood", only the "stood" is emphasized.  In "satisfaction", only the "fac" is pronounced.  Likewise with "unCANNy", or "WINdow", or "HAbit", or "exTREMEly", or "expeDItious"........you get the picture.

She also noted that to speak "Canadian", one has to drop most vowels.  We include the vowels when we write, but not when we speak.  I had not thought about this, but it's quite true.  Accents occur when the speaker includes the vowels.  So, a word such as "fundamental" is spoken by a native speaker as "fundmntl".  That gets rid of the accent.  Vowels gone.  "Invocation" becomes "invcashn", "original" becomes "rignl", "ordinary" becomes "ordnry".  It's amazing.

Those whose mother tongue is not English pronounce all the vowels, thus producing the accent.   It's true in French too, where the "ne" is usually dropped when using the negative tense.  Native French speakers never say, "Je ne pense pas....."  They say, "Je pense pas...."  Who would've thunk it?