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Natural Accent Talent: The magic of Urdu? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| pakiboy Newbie United States Joined 5655 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English | Message 1 of 33 08 June 2009 at 4:56am | IP Logged | |||||
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Since childhood, my family, teachers and friends have always appraised me of having an American accent (I am from Pakistan.) At that time I was small and didn't realize this. It was not until recently that I discovered that I do have a natural accent talent.
However, having natural accent talent does not equate to fluency. I am not that fluent in English but yet I can formulate a fairly good combination of British and American accent. (Yes I do pronounce some words in British and the rest in American which always perplex ppl... and I don't know how I developed that.) Anyways, I can pretty much formulate accent for any language I have ever heard... ranging from French to Arabic to Chinese. Here might be the reason why: Its partly due to my native language Urdu which is the only language in the world that contains all the sounds of any language in the world... from the French "r"... to the Arabic "ain".... to the Spanish "rr" ... you name it! What really surprised me is the fact that despite studying years of any language...most ppl fail to identify the correct sounds of the language. For instance, I have heard a lot of Americans speaking Spanish.. and what I found in all most all cases is that they confuse the Spanish "d" with English "d" and pronounce it like English "d" where in fact it should be pronounced like "th" as in English "the". I also had the opportunity to take French classes at an American university and what perplexed me was that our professor didn't distinguish between the different sounds of the letter "t". In most cases, French "t" is pronounced as English "t" as in "to" but from the native conversations I have heard ... I did find a lot of instances where "t" was pronounced as the Spanish "t". To make matters worst... there was no instruction on pronunciation WHATSOEVER!!! Moreover, in India where Hindi is the primary language ... students learning "French" are taught to pronounce "r" as like English "r" which is ABSOLUTELY INCORRECT!. French "r" is akin to Arabic "khe" and "ghen"... The reason is that Hindi does not have this sound at all! whilst Urdu does. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5782 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 2 of 33 08 June 2009 at 11:16am | IP Logged | |||||
I've heard others say that before. A Dutch friend always boasts of it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| MäcØSŸ Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5809 days ago 259 posts - 392 votes Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2 Studies: German | Message 3 of 33 08 June 2009 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is quite exaggerate, there are plenty of sounds that Urdu does not have. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 7011 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 4 of 33 08 June 2009 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
However, it's also provably false. Urdu does not have the close front rounded vowel ([y] in IPA), and the claimed "French R" is only a dialectical variation, and neither of the "standard" representations [ʁ] or [ʀ]. Note that I"m looking at this from a French Phonetics point of view, and going by what Wikipedia tells me about Hindi-Urdu phonology.. corrections welcome. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 5 of 33 08 June 2009 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
Unless I'm very much mistaken, there are no aveolar sounds (with the exception of the aveolar R) in Urdu, with it skipping from dental to retroflex. That means you have no equivalent of the English aveolar sounds T, D, L and R. I also understand that there are only two R sounds, and one of these is retroflex, so clearly Urdu doesn't make the distinction between the aveolar flapped and trilled R (Spanish R and RR). I was also under the impression that there is a non-phonemic difference between V and W sounds in the Indo-Aryan language family, so many people from the Indian subcontinent have a serious difficulty in making the distinction in languages like English. And unless I'm very much mistaken, Urdu is also missing a sound you yourself referred to: TH. Oh, and the other TH. Not to mention the lack of many palatised consonants such as are found in the Celtic and Slavic groups. You certainly don't have a Welsh LL, and I don't think you've got any of the Polish CZ, DZ, Dź, Dż, Rz or Sz . That's just for starters. If we want to talk about click-and-whistl languages, you're entering a whole new world of sounds that just don't exist in Urdu. So while I'm happy for you that you find it easy to learn new accents, please don't assume that your language is in any way superior to anyone else's. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| anamsc Triglot Senior Member Andorra Joined 6203 days ago 296 posts - 382 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Written), French | Message 6 of 33 08 June 2009 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think that's exactly it, some people have a natural talent for accents and you are one of them. Otherwise your Urdu-speaking friends and family wouldn't be so impressed because they, too, would benefit from this "magic of Urdu" and have good accents in other languages. I mean, I do think that one's native language can make it easier to pronounce another language (not ALL other languages), but I know plenty of Pakistanis with distinct accents in both English and Spanish, so I don't think speaking Urdu is a guarantee of any sort. Edited by anamsc on 08 June 2009 at 3:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hashimi Senior Member Oman Joined 6259 days ago 362 posts - 529 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)* Studies: English, Japanese | Message 7 of 33 08 June 2009 at 6:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
I agree with you. I doubt that our friend pakiboy can pretty much formulate accent for Arabic!
It is NOT absolutely incorrect. There many French who pronounce "r" like Spanish or Arabic. Even some Germans and Austrians pronounce it like that. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Paskwc Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 5677 days ago 450 posts - 624 votes Speaks: Hindi, Urdu*, Arabic (Levantine), French, English Studies: Persian, Spanish | Message 8 of 33 08 June 2009 at 8:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Being a native speaker of Urdu does not give you any sort of advantage over others. Now, you yourself may be particularly gifted at picking up accents but that probably says more about you than Urdu. Generally speaking, it is physiologically impossible to develop a native accent after puberty.
Without going off track, but most Urdu speaking people I know actually have non native accents. Should a Urdu speaking child want to develop a native accent, he or she would have to immerse himself/ herself in the language just as any other child would. The same would go for adults, except their likelihood for success will be lower. As to the Urdu superior and Hindi inferior notion, it seems that a bit of nationalistic zeal may be behind your argument. Firstly, as someone who speaks both, the spoken language is virtually identical except for the fact that Hindi does not make allusions to articles of Islamic faith. Secondly, it is hard to believe that every person (or even most people) learning French will be taught to pronounce in a single manner; their pronunciation is probably as varied as that of foreign language learners in Sweden, Zimbabwe, Mexico, or anywhere else. Edited by Paskwc on 09 June 2009 at 1:05am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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