Talking funny

In Taiwan, if you don't have a whiney North American accent, you're considered some sort of freak. 

If you're a teacher, your employment prospects are immediately stunted. Parents demand teachers who are unable to spell colour properly. Students stare blankly as they struggle to comprehend you when you say “banana”. School bosses warn you that you're lucky to have a job at all - what with that spazzy accent. You know, that British accent. That one accent we all have across the whole of the British Isles...

My Taiwanese girlfriend's polished Californian brogue is something to be proud of. I can't wait for the day when I'm good enough at another language to have a discernible accent. But, unfortunately she also takes great pleasure in teasing me about my speech patterns and vocabulary. And one night, when she told me that she thinks that an Afrikaans-English accent sounds “mysterious and noble”, well that really hurt. Surely that's the section of the market us Brits should have cornered?

So, considering the near constant barrage of abuse I receive for having a non-North American accent and vocabulary, it's probably naïve of me to pick fun at another's – but crikey, the Newfoundland accent's a bit weird isn't it?

It's a bastard mix of Irish, Canadian, French and god-knows-what-else. It sounds like a Hollywood actor in a period-piece who got stuck with an awful voice coach. A Newfoundlander I met in a Taipei bar took great pride in telling me his island's history (which is fascinating, by the way, and goes some way to explaining the accent).

Take Leonardo DeCaprio's awful lilt from Gangs of New York, add reactionary Catholic bigot and racist Mel Gibson's attempt at a Scottish accent in Braveheart and mix them together. Then I suppose you're getting close.

But don't take my words for it. Listen to some samples:

An overweight gentleman in a baseball cap speaks about something or other.

A younger man with stick-on eyebrows made of felt makes a telephone call.

A rubbish song, sung by a man called Barry Davis who made a CD of songs about Newfoundland which, presumably, didn't sell.