companion to the body

[kaigou]

...would be the voice.

George Mason University's Speech Accent Archive

When it says "all over the world," it really does mean it. So for next time when you want to know whether someone really could tell the difference between someone from Atlanta versus someone from Pensacola...

Comments

[onthehill]

Ha! I'm such a geek! I have absolutely no reason to look at that site, but I just spent 10 minutes browsing and listening. Its COOL :D

[tanuki02.livejournal.com]

It is fun to listen to these. I played mostly with the US variants. Couple of things struck me: they have a significant gap in the West/Southwest (I suppose the site's still under development), and that older speakers tend to have a more pronounced regional accent than younger ones. The ones from Ft Worth and New Orleans, for example, aren't nearly as distinctive as the people I know from those places. Now I'm wondering, too- in many places in the South, the local dialect often differs between black and white speakers. So, what would be even more informative would be a pool of sample speakers from a certain area, rather than a single representative. Still, it's a terrific resource. Thanks!

[stinky-horowitz.livejournal.com]

I had so much fun at this! I used to work with English speakers who were originally from Hong Kong, Korea, Vietnam, and Cambodia. It was so neat to listen to people who sounded like Phil, Kimmi, and Mr. Li--I miss them. Especially Kimmi--she was tiny and full of the bloody stories. We had a company lunch one time that was so poorly run she compared it to a refugee camp she'd been in. Once she'd bent me over laughing that time, there was no shutting her up.

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

Ooo. I lost the link for a little while, and now I noticed that they still don't have a recording by a native Javanese speaker. Let me see if I can offer my own....

[kraehe.livejournal.com]

Too cool! I've always had an interest...