Why do we have accents? | James May's Q&A (Ep 31) | Head Squeeze

[@legitimategaming1968]

I don't understand why people call James May boring, I find the stuff he talks about interesting.

[@copenkagan]

It's probably a bad trait for me to have, but I think less of people who don't care about learning.

[@DoselH]

That is just a Top Gear joke

[@ashishsamabraham3794]

It coz we're boring ourselves:)

[@jaganmangat1989]

Because Jeremy made us.

[@nothajzl]

you realize this video is scripted, right? Some people can be boring in day to day life with they're endless "knowledge" on everything.

[@RobPierce103]

when i go on a top gear marathon i find all my thoughts are in a british accent for the next few hours.. lol

[@josephshelton6385]

+Robert Pierce I know, it's wierd

[@eelsemaj99]

My thoughts are always in a British accent

[@eelsemaj99]

(RP) - a bit like James May

[@RobPierce103]

+James Lee lol well im just a yank. i see you are from the UK though! thats awesome, ive always wanted to tour the UK. hopefully someday.. :p

[@maxmustermann-ie6ic]

Robert Pierce Hell I'm german and I think in english quite a lot :O

[@redactedcomment709]

I could listen to james may all day. Hes a fantastic speaker and super intelligent

[@mariacassandrataruc2574]

Collection Of contention same

[@mohammedomerabu-talib6294]

I don't have an accent, I have a Subaru Legacy

[@mratican]

Excellent choice in accent,sir

[@muffinproject]

+Mohammed Omer Abu-talib Sorry, I've got some bad news. You could have had a Dacia Sandero instead...

[@mohammedomerabu-talib6294]

I got another Legacy, 😛

[@mratican]

+Sander te Hennepe Thats gold right there lol.

[@mratican]

+Mohammed Omer Abu-talib We all know you wanted a Skoda Yeti though...

[@fishrsa9046]

Well wicked, innit bruv?

[@stumbling]

***** isiiiit doh u get meh?

[@yetanothergamingfail]

***** I CANNAE UNDEASTAND YERR BANTER. HAVE YU GOT MAH HAGGES YEET?

[@harrylonsdale3142]

Sick bruv

[@harrylonsdale3142]

Bjoern Toby Wilde would you please translate the cockney rhyming slang my good man?

[@harrylonsdale3142]

Bjoern Toby Wilde thank you.

[@coal6tamarack2374]

I wonder how a child would speak if everything it heard for the first 5 years or so was a Siri-Like computer voice.

[@nathanglennon]

well probably quite similar to the Siri-Like computer voice

[@Owiko7]

"so kids. whats 2 + 2" Kid-"Im not sure what you said there"

[@oliviakolompar6651]

GhuuuuzX

[@epfizerdoolittleajl2165]

Elliot Rodger

[@sMASHsound]

interesting

[@joshualee3144]

My cousin went to Germany and stayed for about 4 years and when he came back I could hardly understand him but after a while his American accent came back but I think its cool how different we are, that's why I also want to travel and see new things...I couldn't imagine if we were all the same the world would be so boring

[@851852093114208513]

A Serbian exchange student told me I have the strongest American accent he'd heard. I still don't know what that means, and neither did he, as it were.

[@Rammstein45]

James May is Great Brittan's Morgan Freeman.

[@OMGLOL381]

*Britain's

[@OMGLOL381]

Beta Fascist how about no?

[@narcojauy]

Wrong. That is Patrick Stewart. James May sounds intelligent because he is intelligent. Not because he reads a witty script.

[@CoolioXXX52]

Ncojay Morgan Freeman is intelligent

[@nihilanthropus]

Ryan Herich not really

[@Impact_Player]

From now on I'm going to refer to all of my friends as 'goaty chums'.

[@ktarnik]

I'm from Croatia and my English teacher always said that we are learning Queen's english. She was furious when someone from class answered her question in the way that answer sounded American.

[@CoolioXXX52]

Was she from England?

[@ktarnik]

Ryan Herich Nop, Croatian.

[@carlhenry515]

I heard Germans learn the queens English but they speak and answer in American english.

[@RoelTheWorld]

Most european countries learn English the "original" way. But I think many students answer the American way is due to popular film and video games, which is dominated by the US English.

[@johnburns4017]

ktarnik She was right. I recall a guy who had a very strong Liverpool accent and learned French in Paris by a lady who spoke perfect French and insisted he pronounced French her way. He ended up with a well educated French accent, but spoke English with a rough Liverpool accent.

[@chilcottjack29]

James may is one of my favorite people on the planet, he is so down to earth. right next to Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson and that has nothing to do with top gear. I just love their documentary's.

[@joh1372]

It has nothing to do with top gear... Really?

[@chilcottjack29]

+JOH well it has a bit to do with topgear I just didn't want to label them for just that, I love all their program's.

[@TransistorBased]

I know I modify my accentuation when dealing with customers at work. I use more annunciation, higher or lower pitch, and even a bit of a drawl depending on how the customer speaks to me. I guess I'm subconsciously trying to sound as inviting as possible to them.

[@durango-CODEBUILDER]

i wasnt gunna subscribe... and then james said "be part of the cool club" then i subscribed and lost my shit because i was in the cool club. Yay acceptance.

[@mariacassandrataruc2574]

Barney Quinn same

[@BorksmithandTheBeef]

Barney Quinn _ONE OF US, ONE OF US_

[@illyshaieb]

Was not expecting that (5:25). I've learned so much from James May.

[@SirConnorJD]

Accents do change very easily at a young age, I can speak from personal experience. I grew up in England from the age of 1 to 8, I had a strong English accent. But then I moved back to Australia ( where I was originally born). I am now 16 and have an Australian accent. It did not take me long either to go from an English to an Australian accent. Its because I was so young that my accent could be manipulated so easily.

[@epatman07]

Why isn't this on anymore? :( I really want this to still be a show plz

[@buckfusters]

WELL WICKED INNIT BRUV

[@Adjuni]

So much cringe. XD

[@jsebright11]

You ain't no muslim bruv

[@nomadben]

hahaha my friend is from south London and he talks just like this

[@RoundMangos]

"Well wicked init bruv!!" xD Brilliant.

[@drivesthecar3247]

I went to school with lots of military brats because of the giant Air Force Base nearby. Sometimes kids would return home after their parents had been stationed in England, (some) would have English accents for a few weeks or months! But, not so with the kids coming back from Germany, Japan and Korea... Funny!

[@greypilgrim228]

or because the English accents are far more closely related to their American cousins. French for example is quite nasal, while say German or Russian can seem aggressive, and then Japanese is an entire continent away, so there are many words and terms which don't translate very well.

[@protozilla4092]

greypilgrim228 That's true also, but they still wouldn't speak to the local people anywhere near as much as they would in England, because they speak a different language, and less interaction with the people means less picking up of accents.

[@WeekzGod]

well wicked innit bruv

[@johnburns4017]

I never got that. thx.

[@poundlandspeedwagonrequiem]

_this is incredibly amazing, don't you agree my non-related brother?_

[@chE3z1]

wikid

[@ChasingAananda]

"which is well wicked, innit brav".....

[@willhatfield362]

James has a great accent.

[@Steaphany]

I've had people ask me if I'm Canadian, English, and even Australian Hmmm... For a Long Guylander / New Yorker, I must have watched too much David Attenborough and "Skippy The Bush Kangaroo" growing up.

[@johnbriny1126]

Steaphany yank

[@jeaniebird999]

Awww, those little rebellious goats were so cute! I fear their parents aren't feeling the same, though. Not at THAT age!

[@calidabrisadeverano]

There is a video that explains that(it's called "Things To Avoid When Learning a Foreign Language"), it has to do with how immersed you are in a language. It happens to me as well.

[@JaimewissnerCreate]

Well wicked indeed my good sir.

[@andyb1653]

The "well wicked innit" at the end made me chuckle.

[@randomangelaa]

To say James May went to Oakwood School (from Rotherham) he sounds pretty posh compared to us Rov-erm-ers!

[@teehee1604]

Probably from working in the media at a time when regional accents were looked down on as making you sound quite thick. He'll have been forced to enunciate in order to progress, so that will have just stuck with him.

[@BaileyBP]

You know it’s funny. I was watching clips of Top Gear here on KZbin I thinking about the British accent and then my brain thought well why do we have accents. And here pops up James May😂

[@americansmark]

I study Appalachian accents as a hobby. It is amazing how quickly the American Midwest accent left this area and the hill talk moved in. You can tell the difference between a central, west, and eastern Ohioian easily. The changes from Ohio to my parents Eastern kentucky accent is astounding.

[@hebbejebbe]

I love you James May! By far the BBC's greatest talent.

[@RangerHouston]

Did y'all know the Southern Accent has more in common with Received Pronunciation that any other accent in the United States? I took linguistics and dialectics classes in college and learned this, you can hear the similarities in various words from the two.

[@azbrowne]

I fooled an Englishman into thinking I was English. It was interesting to see how well my English accent had improved to the point I could fool a native.

[@dudeonlygamingandotherstuf7791]

Alex-Zander Browne and what is your background?

[@massiveferguson9466]

Alex-Zander Browne I fooled an Englishman into thinking he was important. Hence Brexit.

[@filomenarocca2794]

I am a very reclusive person, and apparently my speech accent at home changes depending on who I watch on KZbin.

[@marksak6988]

I saw the google glass ad on this video and when they showed the things you can do on the google glass, i just admired the places where these people have been.

[@crashTestGuru]

The video was good but that last sentence was just excellent. nothing quite like hearing May say something like that.

[@AmbiCahira]

Ok, so, I am Swedish. Northern Sweden. I got a friend in southern Sweden. When we talk online she mimics me and I mimic her and voila! A third accent. I am so good at mimicing accents that I often have to work my way out of an accent after just watching a movie or meeting new people. After 2 weeks in a new place I was mimicing the accent so well that I had to tell people I wasnt really from there. A lady thought I had been living there for six months or more when I asked her to guess.

[@le8nsajan]

i came here after watching a 7 second clip in 2022 of james may saying INNIT BRUV.

[@Taino21]

Yes that was awesome explanation. I loved. That's what I'm talking about James May..!!!

[@Happyfaceshock]

Not even each county, where I live in Northumberland, each town has a distinctive accent, of course there are similarities, but you can tell a distinct difference between the two nearest towns to me (5 miles in one direction, 13 in the other). Time also changes accents a lot, you can hear the difference between someone born 20 years before you, as well as 40 years before etc.

[@tomcas411]

This is such a great channel, thanks James!

[@FrozenMonkey14]

Rapidly tap 2 on your keyboard.

[@Zsolt345346]

***** 28.

[@christhekook6748]

222222222228

[@Zsolt345346]

What is so nice in this thing?

[@epic_gamerz6472]

FrozenMonkey 2×I 22221222222221222222222212×2212223222232×2432232

[@moeezahmedshahaab]

2222222222222222222

[@NobleNemesis]

That ending was great.

[@R3D7STUDIOS]

Haha that ending

[@shananagans5]

My mother is funny. She grew up in North Carolina with a strong accent. After 30 years of living in the Southwest her North Carolina accent has all but disappeared until we go to visit her family. As soon as we get on the jet her North Carolina accent starts immediately & it lasts for the entire time we are there & then it goes away as soon as we get back home to New Mexico. What makes it so funny is she is totally unaware she does it. She was shocked when I played back a recording of her accent

[@chinmaygupta1530]

More james may videos please!

[@toneoyay1]

James May just said "well wicked". Life complete.

[@jamessquire8397]

Brilliant vid as always.

[@Artsy444]

I was born in the U.A.E lived in Scotland, North of England and near london and I'm from egypt. I've always thought I have a good British accent but some people told me it sounds different but I still speak good english

[@AzamFahmy]

the editors are amazingly funny

[@chrisstenderfoot7992]

best way to answer that is to look on different forums on the net, each forum you will find, has its own digital accent and its own jargon, kinda like text speak. for example the words like "trolling" "lol" and "ROFL" are entirely born on the net, so if anything language will get morr diverse

[@dreamtheater_92]

I'm from New York. We don't have a "twang." That's a southern accent.

[@massiveferguson9466]

Mark Richman You have an accent that trumps all others. In this instance that's not a good thing.

[@artrocks8392]

Accents can remain flexible for much longer than the first twenty years of our lives. My own example was to develop a Leeds drawl from my mid-20s, losing the harder Castleford speach of my youth. The two towns are approx. 15 miles apart. And my dear sister - a Yorkshire lass - moved to the East Midlands in her mid-20s with the finest of regional Yorkshire accents. Twenty years later she speaks a sluggish Northamptonshire. Poor girl.

[@cellokid5104]

Innit bruv

[@GreedyCapybara7]

Actually it might be something completely different. The "language evolution" hypothesis suggests that along with the assimilation mentioned in the video the accumulation of a communities unique slang over time may have just as big a role. Obvious when these communities are separated and left to drift apart but not so when you think back. For example do you think George Washington spoke with a Southern (American) accent or a British (English) accent? LE suggests it would be a hybrid of the two.

[@RetroGamerVX]

yesk, my sister in law moved to wales for a year, 6 months after getting back, she's still trying to get rid of the welsh accent she developed :o)

[@DynamixWarePro]

A friend of mine is Northern Irish. He lived in London, then Sweden and moved back to N. Ireland and his accent sounds a bit odd and like a slightly posh slightly southern USA accent with a hint of a Northern Irish. I think when you move somewhere else for long enough, you hear words pronounced a bit differently from how you say them and you unconsciously start saying them a similar way, but not exactly the same as your accents different and this changes how you speak, sometimes in a odd way.

[@wyattmacwatt6469]

Yes I am /Eskimo from canada and my grandpa from Scotland. will be visiting London this summer. #brain squeeze

[@MelindadelosSantos]

By golly, that IS a thought! I was amazed when Gary Oldman did a spontaneous imitation of Robert de Niro! :)

[@amojak]

the animations are cool, it stops James's smooth tones from driving you to sleep :D

[@Raidogen]

3:57 was unnecessarily scary...

[@HoodedScot2108]

He is, but their 20th series just finished on sunday here in the UK

[@MartinWillett]

Not always, tribes split up at about a four times faster rate than languages do. What used to be one tribe becomes two separate tribes but the language/dialect start identical and only diverge slowly, starting with accents. Millennia later there are still many similarities.

[@Kassidar]

we are good at detecting unfamiliarity. we mistake accents because we're not really familiar with the one we think we're hearing or the one we actually are hearing .

[@OmegaCraftable]

Awesome video as always. Personally I prefer speaking in a well spoken Queens English manner, it's clear and easy to understand.

[@estavs]

uh North Carolina to Washington to California to England My accent is difficult to explain

[@lamarr912]

My accent is a cross between West Country, Canadian and Southern American. I try to keep my Southern American accent under wraps, because I don't like living in the south.

[@estavs]

IT'S SO CONFUSING!!!!

[@hanslee1133]

My accent is a mixed of UK English and Malaysian.

[@estavs]

***** wow you can fuck off then

[@hanslee1133]

LOL, btw Malaysians are meant to talk like that, every country has its owns ways of talking whether disgusting or not, however I myself don't talk like the average Malaysian

[@kylemohler2402]

Great question

[@TheITASUPERSTAR10]

love the plug-in

[@JoaoPessoa86]

For as long as I can remember I tried to keep my language accent free, which may have been a detriment. Even at the age of six I was not so much mimicking my parents as I was correcting their pronunciation.

[@zachary159]

Its cool how in England there are so many different accent's even though the country is small. well noticeable differences.

[@moonchild9381]

Southern belle YA'LL! From North Carolina, I have noticed many words that Northern say differently than Southerners. For example: coupon. Some in the Northern states seem to say coopen instead. It's very interesting to me. Guys with accents are hot!

[@brocklanders6172]

That's because 'coo-pon' is the correct pronunciation regardless of accent.

[@thyron]

I just whatched the video, pretty interesting! Thanks :)

[@Qardo]

Well for me I grew up (and still live in) the Midwest United States, Missouri to put it down, west side, Kansas City. I say that we have a bit of a flat tone accent compared to rest of the country. Though if you go down to Southern Missouri (most of my family lives) you hit the backwoods and Southern twang of Accents. Now this flat accent is rather a good thing as it is clearer to understand than someone with a heavier accent and it is one that people typically go for when it comes to the media. Reason why there are a lot of reporters who typically come from my neck of the woods or come to school around here to learn how to speak clearer and the like.

[@ylracci]

Lovely jubbly..brilliant stuff

[@Tarnartor]

Because they use alternating current usually and the camera doesn't record at the same frame rate as the current changes so you get flashes in the video.

[@pepinux]

May is the only reason i subscribed...

[@SupaNeo7]

James that ending was astonishingly convincing. Scary stuff.

[@rabit818]

Bette Davis, Clark Gable, amongst other film stars from that era have a transatlantic accent - quite posh sounding.

[@Cr4zyKitty]

I was born and raised in the north east, yet I have a bit of a Manchestern accent because my mum was born in Manchester.

[@lewiswhatley687]

Because breathing and eating are done by different tubes, so unless you breath in REALLY hard when you have food in your mouth, your food goes down your esophogus (food pipe) straight to your stomach. And if you do breath in when you have food in your mouth, you'll most likely just choke rather than have it go down to your lungs.

[@DieselBlade93]

Can often tell roughly what country someone is from by their face, for a lot of ethnicities

[@CTlynxer101]

That ending was top stuff! Haha

[@BryonLape]

Heck, just cross the river from Cincinnati and the accent is incredibly different. Onced you get down in thar hollars it gets different agin.

[@DemolitionTurtle]

Great video as always! ;D Loved that end too! ;D

[@benpress8884]

I always wondered why English people and people from places like Boston put an R on the end of words that end in A, for example Amanda becomes Amander. And words that end in R are pronounced as if they ended in A. Car becomes Ca.

[@Frutoses]

By association. You point to a thing and say "wood" and since it's arbitrary, it would be a different word for each community.

[@Pablo-V]

We all have a unique way of speaking, but May has an unique accent.

[@beadyslay]

When is a "mispronunciation" or "grammar error" attributed to accent or called a mistake? Like when people attribute broken English to a non-English accent as opposed to grammatical errors and vice versa.

[@_sourgrapes_]

+Button Nose There are certain phonological rules that are standard to English and its variety of dialects (given the dialect's particular vowel and consonant make-up) that we understand to be correct. For example, aspirating our voiceless stops (t, p, and k) at the beginning of words, or not having more than three consonant sounds in a row.

[@_sourgrapes_]

+mrsboocowskee Half the time, when we attribute an error to an accent, it's really just a stress thing. I can't prove that statistic, but it seems to be the case from the corrections I've noticed. E.g. hárassment vs. harássment.

[@656hookemhorns]

I'm a non-native Spanish speaker, I learned from my wife, who is Mexican, and my Puerto Rican aunt says I sound Mexican when I speak Spanish. Although no one can tell where I'm from when I speak English, my native language. I guess my German grandmother, who spoke with a British accent, affected my southern twang.

[@ReganMcKee]

Okay I definitely want to buy that incredible James May shirt that he wears. !!!

[@RKH1502]

I'm bilingual between Norwegian and English (American English). I live in Norway. My mother is from the United States, and quickly mastered Norwegian after she moved here, but you can still tell that she's from out of the country. What drives the locals nuts though is that they can't find out where she is from. They just know that she's not Norwegian.

[@ericrevollo]

well the thing is you don't usually listen to jamaican and australian speakers the less contact you have with them the harder to understand. it's an interesting field woth some reading for example I can understand brazilian portuguese even I don't speak a word of it, but I can't get much from Portugal portuguese, as for jamaican english you can search "Creolization and mixed languages" if you want to know more.

[@thyron]

Accents are pretty funny. I am a spaniard working abroad, so I use english in my day a day life, and when I am talking english with someone native, my accent is quite better than when I do it with non native speakers.

[@demoniack81]

Thanks.

[@H_Oscarsson]

That -t-shirt is a must have. We're can one get one of those?

[@jiberish001]

Something to think about. If "stone" had evolved to mean what "wood" does, and vise versa, you'd be asking that question in reverse. Another thing about words, that many often seem to forget, is that almost all of the modern words we now use have evolved as combinations of many words. To make communication easier and shorter. Using primitive words, that would have taken a lot more time and energy for me to convey. Make a short sentence, now replace the words with their meaning and make it work.

[@Ang.0910]

Dude got punched out for saying Tomato “wrong” 😂

[@alexnj0y]

Now I get it ). This is a specific of russian language and the reason of russian accent. "З" - is like english "Z" (zebra), "Ш" - like "SH" (shop), "Ж" - specific, just similar to "J" or [ʒ], but more like french one (Dijon mustard - similar to this sound), "Ц" - hard to find similar sound, like "TZ in some cases (Blitz or Alka Seltzer).

[@MrTheboffin]

in france in the middle ages two town separated by about 8 miles (half a days walk) would be incapable of communicating with out the use of latin