Why Are Fantasy World Accents British?

kodiaktau writes "An interesting article from the BBC News Magazine explores the reasons why most fantasy worlds use British as their primary accent. Citing specific examples from recent and upcoming shows and movies like Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit and Game of Thrones, the article concludes British accents are 'sufficiently exotic,' 'comprehensible' and have a 'splash of otherness.' It would be odd to think of a fantasy world having a New Jersey accent, or even a Mid-West accent, which tends to be the default for TV and movies in the U.S., but how do UK viewers feel about having British as a default? More specifically, what about the range of UK accents, like Scottish, Welsh, Cockney? The International Dialects of English Archive shows at least nine regional sounds, with dozens of sub-regional pronunciations in England alone. In the U.S., there have always been many regional accents that might be used in interesting ways. Filmmakers should consider looking at speech accents from other areas of the world to create more interesting dialects."

Comments

Abstraction

[bigtomrodney]

I have to agree with this article, I've always assumed it was just the American preconception of "old worlde". Different enough to be remote but still in the same language.

On the other hand as an Irishman I often find it hard to find escapism in Irish TV and to a lesser extent, film. The familiarity of it all doesn't work as well while on the other hand so much of our media is American that even when I visit the USA there is an element of otherworldliness about the whole experience.

Re:Abstraction

[Tassach]

I have to agree with this article, I've always assumed it was just the American preconception of "old worlde". Different enough to be remote but still in the same language.

This is exactly why Tolkien chose to render Rohirric as Old English -- Rohirric had roughly the same old-but-understandable relationship to Westron (common speech) as Old English has to Modern English. (Incidentally, this creates one of the biggest challenges in translating LotR to other languages)

Tolkien was a linguist above all else, and as such was incredibly sensitive to linguistic nuances, something that's lost on most casual readers. Nevertheless, his work has had a huge influence on modern fantasy and sci-fi. Writers (consciously or unconsciously) mimic elements of Tolkien's style without necessarily understanding why he did it that way.

Re:Abstraction

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

So a New Jersey ("New Joisey") accent would sell in Ireland?

It does. Syndicated US TV shows are enormous in Ireland, to the point where most programming on Irish television, certainly drama programming, is probably made in the US.

It is effectively expected that in high budget shows, particularly crime dramas and films, the actors will have Americans accents. UK accents will be accepted, to a point, but a film like Die Hard either set in the UK, or having leads with UK accents will certainly not work.

One of the most unusual film experiences I had in recent years was watching "The Wind That Shakes the Barley", a war film set during the Irish war of independence and the civil war. It was frankly a bit surreal to see all the drama, conflict, tragedy, war, bloodshed, and death being played out by people with Irish accents. It was a mentally relieving whenever black and tans would show up to provide a more traditional accent to the manic proceedings.

Occasionally, the Irish broadcaster RTE produces dramas set in Dublin, etc and played by Irish actors. They invariably flop. People can't suspend their disbelief when a drama is set, literally, in their home town, in the very streets and buildings they've been in themselves.

Does Bugs Bunny sound sexy to you?

No. But I will note that when the UK director Gerry Anderson produced Thunderbirds, for a UK audience, he gave the puppets US accents.

(I also feel obliged to mention that, for myself personally, meeting someone with a US accent in the flesh is often a surreal experience. It feels a bit like some kind of a line---probably a glass screen of some kind---has been crossed. The effect has significantly diminished over time, now only a lingering one. And it only occurs for US accents.)

Re:Now think in American.

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember Rome. They used accents from all over the place (mostly UK variants it has to be said) to give a feeling of being different, but still understandable. It worked really well.

British accents tend to used for villains too... which could be seen as insulting... but actually is quite flattering when you think about it. Really scary villains are intelligent... really intelligent... and Americans associate British accents with being smart (wrongly, but there it is).

Re:Now think in American.

[Samantha Wright]

There's an air of traditionality about it, as well, I think; it's as if to imply that American accents are divergent from the original core. (Although this is somewhat in question, as the evidence says that English pronunciation was rhotic in the 18th Century, like the General American accent and not like Received Pronunciation.) It was particularly peculiar to hear Americans making movies about Russians where they all had English accents.

Actually modern American English sounds more...

[f97tosc]

"For Americans, I would assume it's because we associate fantasy with the Old World because that's where most of our myths and legends originate."

Yes, but we associate wrong because modern American English actually sounds more like old English than does modern British English.

Re:Actually modern American English sounds more...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but we associate wrong because modern American English actually sounds more like old English than does modern British English.

This is a popular myth, but not actually true. Both American and British accents have diverged greatly from the accents the Pilgrims would have had. They have diverged differently, but both would sound equally alien to someone in 16th-century Britain. Just because American speech retains some archaic features, like rhoticism, doesn't mean it hasn't innovated wildly in other areas! Your vowels have mutated wildly, for example.

And the speech of 16th-century Britain would itself have sounded rather strange to someone actually living in the middle ages when stereotypical fantasy is set.

Re:Obvious...

[Brannoncyll]

Do we even need to be asking such an obvious question? British is the foreign language that Americans are most likely to understand...

Perhaps the more obvious question is why do you consider "British" a foreign language? Or one that Americans need to "understand"?

As a Brit living in New York I find that alot of people find it very difficult to understand me (especially people with South American or Chinese descent), and even my girlfriend (native New Yorker) often has difficulty. She said that for the first 2 months after we met she understood about 20% of what I said. My accent is pretty standard for southern England and should therefore be pretty easy to understand. I often get the feeling that British English really is a foreign language.

Re:Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit are ABOUT Engl

[UpnAtom]

Lord of the Rings is also inspired by the Third Reich from an English perspective.

Now imagine that the North Sea was actually landmass. So starting from the Shire, Sauron is pretty much where Hitler was from England, you've got this big sea off to the West, the Elves and Dwarves correspond with Scandinavia and Aragorn is exiled in France.

Also, as others said, the West Country English accent is much like the medieval English accent whereas modern American accents didn't exist.

American is more associated with futuristic sci-fi.

Re:Now think in American.

[Tassach]

As I said in an earlier comment, Tolkien was a linguist and as such was extraordinarily sensitive to linguistic nuances like accent and the effect of social class on speech. If you render the common tongue as English, and keep in mind the history and social status of the various characters, choosing an accent becomes pretty obvious.

Actually if you wanted to Americanize LOTR, the Hobbits would have Southern accents (country bumpkins), the Rohirrim Texan accents (close to the Hobbits, still country but a little more refined), and the Gondorians a neutral General American/ Received Pronunciation accent (educated middle/upper-class).

I'd give the Elves a French accent (refined and a little snooty) when speaking the Common Tongue. Quenya played the role of Latin in Middle Earth (dead language used for formal purposes), and Sindarin was an everyday language evolved from it, so a Romance language would be the closest social analog to it. To an American listener a French accent would best convey the extreme refinement and cultured history (not to mention snobbishness) of the Elves. If you wanted to get even more specific I'd give Elrond and the Rivendell elves a French Canadian accent and the Galadhrim a Parisian accent. Linguistically, a Welsh accent would be most appropriate, as Sindarin was patterned after Welsh, but it just doesn't have the same social/class implications that French does.

If anyone had a Brooklyn accent, it would be a Dwarf. Tolkien explicitly equated the Dwarves with the Jews, and based Khuzdul on Hebrew... so a Brooklyn accent would be extremely appropriate for working-class Dwarves like Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur. Dwarvish nobility like Gimli and Thorin would have a milder, upper-class Jewish accent.