• Dharma Curious@startrek.website
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    1 year ago

    This is really interesting. Honestly, listening to it without reading your comment, I would never have guessed he was American. He speaks English with an accent that reminds me of Indian people who have gone through British education. Same kind of accent as the recreations of Swamiji Vivekananda. Do you have any idea if that was an affectation because of his relocation to the UK, or if that’s a lost American accent?

    • DearOldGrandma@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Both, I would think, but I’m not a linguist haha. Overall, American accents were different when he grew up and lived as opposed to now, like you mentioned. He was also given a “gentleman’s education” after being orphaned as a kid, so I’m sure that helped curate how he spoke (especially drunk and during his first public speech lol). But when this was recorded, he had already lived in England for 15 years - so he naturally picked up some of the accent.

      Source: I’m a sucker for Wikipedia, also https://www.loc.gov/static/programs/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/1888LondonCylinderRecordings.pdf 😁

      • Dharma Curious@startrek.website
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        1 year ago

        You and me both! I was homeschooled as a kid, which for me meant I got to self direct my schooling to a degree. One of my favorite things was my mom would let me just read wiki articles that I liked, but then I had to go do real research to confirm everything. Fucking loved that. Lol.