Custom Accent And Idiolect Creation: A Rough Sketch

Basis for the construction a "cool" personal idiolect:

The basis of coolness, conceptually, is always in violating conservative rules. But this can only be done to such a degree that the result is a feeling of "freshness" without a single tinge of discomfort-causing "freakishness". Yes, it is pretty subjective. One simple observation is that Europeans with a very nearly perfect English accent (just a little almost unquantifiable bit off here and there) sound much cooler to me than Americans. Meanwhile, people who natively speak a language sharing no heritage with English tend to sound very uncool because their 'interpretation' of the language violates too many rules and becomes "freaky" and uncomfortable. (Exceptions I have witnessed often involve an inordinately gifted and unique learner.)

When extremely fluent and accurate European language speakers break grammar rules in English, it can often be in a way which seems like an 'innovation' rather than something which makes the language incomprehensible. People who speak completely unrelated languages will often break rules that leave the actually meaning of their speech ambiguous and therefore irritating. Sometimes I read song lyrics written by a Swede or German and realize words are being used in unique ways which I feel are innovations that an American would never ever have used. But, yet, I cannot say that they violate any rule to such a degree that it becomes ungrammatical. This is /cool/, and is a great basis for constructing an idiolect if one can figure out a way to harness it. (Though actually doing so might not be such a trivial exercise!)

Also, for those who don't like the idea of going "foreign" for innovation, if you've ever listened to any of the writings of the American Founding Fathers on audiobook (specifically — as oral reception of language, imho, really does feel completely different from reading the same) you may have thought that their phrasings and sentence constructions have an amazing intellectual flavor rarely seen in any writing today. I would very much like to emulate it in my speech — but I haven't thought of a way to 'bring' more sophisticated wording into the mundane daily use of language in my life. (Of course, in an interaction with a store clerk, for example, just a single uncommon word used innovatively at the proper time can change the entire atmosphere about the speech being employed.)

Am I Crazy? No one will accept me.

An unfortunate fact about mankind, and one that I believe unnecessarily inhibits every person both in his native tongue and when learning to speak another language with a proper accent, is the strong association of identity with speech patterns. Nobody, upon growing up, is allowed to "recreate" themselves into who they really wanted to be. Our friends and families will do their best to force us into the shackles of the identity (including degree of social inhibitedness or gregariousness as well as linguistic patterns and accents) we developed through a serious of mere accidents during the course of our maturation to adulthood. This is an unfortunate and significant challenge anyone will have to deal with if he decides to customize his idiolect to any significant degree.

How would I pull it off? As fate would have it, I may have no choice but to return to my native land in the near future. I will very likely end up living somewhere where I know only one person and thus it will be a perfect opportunity to become who I decide I want to be instead of who I accidentally became. (And I mean, for real, it's the way I pronounce words and make sentences — what's the big deal anyway? Who the hell's business is it to interfere with that? People talk about basic freedom and human rights — but I promise you that even most of these 'tolerant' pro-rights folks won't let you change your accent and continue to be their friend, at least not without extreme resistance and harassment.)

Here are some examples of points for consideration in innovation:

(1) Accent. Since copying an accent associated with a national identity will only lead people to think you are obsessed with intertwining yourself with the identity associated with that accent, the only easy option is an accent which cannot be readily recognized by the majority of folks in your country. In an ideal case — and given enough time and effort — one could presumably round up several foreign accents he thinks sound pleasant, transcribe the sorts of transformations that occur in those accents into IPA, and pick and chose his favorites to create an entirely new "eclectic" accent of a foreign speaker of a language which does not actually exist. In my case, I do not have the linguistic training required to work with IPA and analyze individual sounds in such detail. Thus, I would rather collect recordings of several nice but very slight accents and shadow each of them until they have jumbled about in my brain such that I can effortlessly speak with the lot of them harmonized together in some manner. Haphazardness with tweaking may just be, in my estimations, the exact formula necessary to creating something truly unique.

(2) Word Pronunciation. I realized that a number of words in English have a variable number of syllables. When I heard the (Swedish) singer of Falconer pronounce 'toward' with two syllables I began to think my typical American one syllable version is rather ugly. Thus I integrated this and several other word expansions I heard in the singing of the beautiful lyrics into my own English. I only wish there existed a sort of reference book that would allow me to be more systematic in this endeavor.

In this category those not interested in foreign innovations can also make an eclectic mix of their favorite variations found around their own country. A few common America English examples off the top of my head:

wash ► warsh
white ► huwhite
pop ► soda or soda-pop
bag ► sack
retard ► retart
cappuccino ► cup-a-chi-no

For anyone who has seen the movie Bruno — you could also do something like constantly say "Ich" instead of "I". After just a few minutes of watching I realized I no longer actually heard the "ch" — but just subconsciously heard the word "I" with a certain Austrian flavor injected. Your mileage may vary.

I have an uncle originally from a certain region of Pennsylvania who has a very "mafia" (the best I can do in describing it) sounding accent in which he enunciates in a very "lazy" manner (in contrast with the effort/movement required to match television English) and transforms all the th's to d's. I have at times come to so adore his speech patterns that I have spent a day or two using them myself. It never sticks — but I have considered permanently adopting some aspect of it. Existing local accent findings like this are especially fortuitous as the patterns have already been integrated into the local speech community and people who have never heard your old patterns won't bat an eye hearing you employ these already accepted ones.

(3) Grammar. This is extremely difficult to do in an innovative rather than violative manner. Americans can adopt the Canadian "eh" question marker. Spending enough time with my Slavic language native speaking friend I have found myself employing things like "What he's doing?" (meaning: What's he doing?) — but haven't made any definite decision as to whether or not to use it on an on going basis. My ideal would be to steal away some of the "innovative" but not violative things I've encountered in lyrics written by Swedish metal bands. But, to be honest, it is quite hard to find innovative things which can be employed in daily speech. Poetic wording probably won't help me get my Big Mac meal as promptly as I'd like.

(4) Word Choice. The easiest word choice mod with which you will still be completely understood is the adoption of slightly archaic sounding vocabulary. Whether you consider "reckon" to sound archaic or redneck, I've found using it now and then can at least can give my speech a little bit more flavor. The ideal option is to spend hundreds of hours combing writing and dictionaries for innovative words which have wide currency and can be integrated into one's daily speech in a way which gives you personal "flavor" but which doesn't make anyone uncomfortable or confused. If you are allowing yourself a few years to prepare a new idiolect, it might not be necessary to explicitly spend time on this activity. Just keep your eyes and ears open and make note of words that you think could use a revival.

Anglo-sphere adoption is also a simple and convenient option to give your speech a bit of diversity. I've never set foot in Australia or English but I cannot stand the disgusting American alternatives to my beloved “dodgy” — “shady” and “shifty”. (Mind you due to unusual circumstances I actually learned the American equivalents later.) I also try my best to use “mucking around” as the American alternatives are quite vapid in my opinion. Prawns anyone?

Another obvious choice is new slang. If you pay careful attention to the speech of your friends you will find that some adopt new words more willingly than others. The reason I dislike this option is that some of these words become 'uncool' just as fast as they appeared in Hollywood movies and comedy skits. Using them can give you the identity of being a 'trend follower' more than that of an innovator. Finding your own gems can give you ammunition that will let you sound unique for a lifetime.

I consider the topics visited so far to have barely grazed the surface of the possible considerations involved in idiolect creation. I hope to learn more, know more, and thereby be enabled to write more on the topic sometime in the not-so-distant future! Adieu.