"You can do a Corellian accent can't you?" Core accent questions

Yeah that's pretty much the point I was trying to make. Thanks . But I guess from the movies we know that they're all not exactly the same accent. I'm thinking about 1) during AotC when Obi-wan goes to visit yoda about the missing planet, and I think that the kid that answers the question sort of answers with a mostly 'american' accent, IIRC, and then 2) in RotS, when anakin walks into the council chamber to dispose of the younglings, the kid that asks him "what are we going to do?" seems to have more of an 'english' accent. This doesn't help my theory, but w/e.

Now I'm just wanting to know how the other characters speak. What accent does Mara have??

 

So really, the Jedi should have an accent of their own (probably more tinged with Coruscanti than anything else).

Human jedi maybe. Aliens can have their unique accents because they have different organs. For example master Xamar had spoken diferently then most jedi.

 

The Twi'leks in the Ryloth Trilogy don't have French accents, so I suspect that Aayla's accent comes from Quin, which in turn indicates that Basic in Kiffar's sector has that accent... which fits with the "colonial-era North Africa" aspects of Kiffar culture and also, incidentally, suggests that Tholme mush have a French accent too...

(There's also a smattering of random Gallic vocabulary in canon, enough to show that it represents another language, like English-for-Basic. I'm tempted to start a page for it at Wookieepedia. )

As to Coruscanti and Corellian accents, I suspect that there's probably more than one of each. The so-called "Coruscant" accent seems to me to be simply a posh "Core" accent, and probably covers "polished American", like Leia's and Han's more "polite" accent, as well as the artificial-British Obi-Wan accent. I doubt that the average working-man on Coruscant actually speaks like Obi-Wan.

It's hard to avoid, reading Traviss, the idea that Mandalorians speak like non-posh south-of-England blokes. Fenn's accent fits into that, as a non-urban (Justin Lee Collins) rather than a Keldabe (Clive Owen) one.

What I want to know is where Palpatine got his underlying Scottish accent, which sneaks out on occasion (most notably "I'm afraid the deflektur shield will be quite operational")...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

A good many Russians have what sounds to the American ear like a Brit accent; this has to do with the teachers they learned the language from, and the radio and TV broadcasts they listened to for practice. The English-language broadcasts on the old Radio Moscow were notable for the density of the fruity pommy-Brit accents, and very few of the announcers sounded even mid-Atlantic.

On the other hand, a good many English-speaking Russians do have regional American accents; a gentleman of my acquaintance, a retired KGB-type who moved to the U.S. to be an electrical engineer after the Big Breakup, sounds like a Dallas Texan, unless he consciously switches to Vermont. People he meets often refuse to believe he's a naturalized citizen...

 

I like.

I was always under the impression that the "Core" accent was England, with all the variation therein. Note that Queen Amidala affects such an accent, whereas Padme does not.

From the writing, it's also possible that they're speak like British colonials - notably, Kiwis. Unfortunately, judging by the audiobooks, this may have been Traviss' intention, but that may not actually be that bad...

You see, both humans and the Taung are from the core. It's not surprising, then, that the cultural descendants of the Taung speak a variation of that dialect, and then the offshoots of that culture - people from Shogun, Concord Dawn, etc. - speak in their own variations on that variation. After the Clone Wars, the GCW, and the Vong War, it's possible that a rather increased percentage of the people living on Mandalore did not used to live there - this is actually supported by the canon - and so the Mandalorian (from Mandalore) accent switches from an urbanized English accent to a more Kiwi one, with the original, rugby playing bloke accent still existing in the minority.

 

But is a Geordie accent still fashionable in the GFFA by that point?

 

Is a Geordie accent ever fashionable, per se?

 

Funny thing is, it seems that the only place that it's fashionable to speak with a regional dialect in the UK these days is if you work in the media. When you're over there, it's impossible to turn on the TV or radio without hearing a Geordie, Mancunian, or Scouse accent.

 

Given that she was raised by Palpatine on Coruscant, I'd imagine a Coruscanti one, naturally, though I'm certain she can duplicate a wide range of accents for undercover work -- she's probably using an American/Corellian/Rim one throughout TTT, for example. After years on the run using such an accent, she might have fallen into using that naturally for the rest of her life, especially as everyone she knew in that portion of her life probably met her while she was using it.

But, as with everyone else, living on Coruscant for most of their lives means their accents probably developed that way. Due to Coruscant's prominence as the homeworld for the heroes, it's downright frightening when you consider that Luke, Han, and Leia have all probably picked up a bit of a British accent, and Jacen, Jaina, Anakin, and Ben probably all spoke with a British accent naturally.

We've had reference to downlevel Coruscanti accents, which seem to draw more from Cockney (see Obi-Wan's performance gaining entry to the Temple in the ROTS novelization). The more RP accent is probably restricted to the uppermost segment of Coruscanti and Core society and those doing or looking to do business with them (see Amidala affecting the accent, and Leia kinda affecting it in dealing with Tarkin).

 

That all makes sense. So I guess then we'd have to just wonder if the kids' accents have been impacted more by their parents or by their friends/where they grew up. If they had english accents that would be weird, but awesome.

 

With me it is

 

Ben is explicitly stated to have a Coruscanti accent. Sooooo....awesome.

 

So should Jaina, Jacen and Anakin Solo.

 

Traces of it, I guess, but they spent most of their formative years, like...well, everywhere.

 

Somehow imagining Jacen saying some of his lines in an english accent just makes them funnier. idk...

 

Given their background, the Solo kids probably has the biggest influence on their accents from their parents, Winter, and . . . Threepio. Think about it. But they were also immersed in upper-class Coruscanti society since they were starting to speak, and I can't imagine that that wouldn't have a significant impact.

We also have talk of Jacen, at the least, and I think also Anakin at some point, being able to "do" a Corellian accent -- that is to say, Han's Corellian/American accent is something the Solo kids can duplicate faithfully, but it's not theirs. As odd as it may seem, the children of Han and Leia sound less like them than they do Obi-Wan.

 

Doesn't mean they sound Coruscanti - in fact, given their lives, I'd be rather surprised if they did. I imagine them sounding a lot more like army brats or the children of diplomats, kids that end up moving a lot or attending international schools - that is, their accents are probably difficult to place.

 

But the thing is, they haven't moved around that much. They were born on Coruscant, and went to New Alderaan with Winter and really no one else (who would logically have the same accent as Leia) for about a year, went to Anoth with absolutely no one other than Winter for under a year or so, and then spent the next twelve years in an upper-class Coruscant context. They didn't move anywhere, and they were already fourteen, of an age to have pretty solid accents, when they started attending Yavin IV. Their life wasn't nearly as dislocated as we tend to think of it, mostly because both we and later material emphasize the whole "hiding out with Winter on various worlds their first two years" thing. Their only real influences are going to be the Coruscanti accent, Threepio's super-prissy Coruscanti accent, Han's Corellian accent, Leia's Alderaanian accent, and Luke's Tatooinian accent (all of which are American variants). If they don't sound Corellian, the only other real options are Coruscanti and Alderaanian. And we've seen with Ben, at least, that the Coruscanti influence tends to override the parental one, and Ben was in a far, far less Coruscanti context than the Solos were in.

 

It's possible, of course, but if Han is sounding a bit more Coruscanti, the kids sure as hell aren't more set in their ways at fourteen when they go to Yavin. Granted, I know kids who obtain Americanized accents while here for school and probably return to their other accents the minute they get back home, so...

 

The Duros of KOTOR has "Asian" spech styles, I noticed. The game was culturally broad, I was pleased to see. Star wars needs a good Gambit accent.

Do you not agree?

 

Yay!

I suspect that a Core accent is a "posh", "proper" or "affected", not a specifically "British" one. Mace Windu, for example, probably has more of a Core accent than a Korrunai one, and some posh Corellians, like Thrackan Sal-Solo, probably sound like Southern aristocracy.

Fenn Shysa, in contrast, seems to have a "British" accent, but not a "posh" or "Core" one.

I just don't hear it.

The Mandalorians seemed more football-obsessed to me. Maybe that was me bringing in some preconceptions. I'd thought of them as a mob of football hooligans rather than a large rugby bus, but perhaps I need to re-read some Traviss.

It's certainly reasonable to suppose that Basic-speaking Mandalorians will have a variety of accents, though. I "hear" at least three: Keldabe, Fenn's, and Concord Dawn.

The puzzler is what Fenn's accent is: Irish and West Country have both been suggested, although now I'm wonderin' if he's Southern...

There's nothing to say that Obi-Wan's fake Dickensian accent is specifically Coruscanti. If I'm right, the nearest parallel would actually be a Keldabe accent.

As to the Solo kids... I suspect that they're able to switch, much like Leia does, between an "informal" accent that's slightly Corellian, and a "formal" accent that's more audibly "Core".

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I'll have to listen again. Admittedly, I'm writing based off the Wook, right now, since you've caused me to doubt my memory...

Yeah, football hooligans is more on the money. Sorry, I like baseball.

 

Is the twilek language in the CW series and Kotor the same?

Kotor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUEa1yM0z18

CW.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHD2AgmFXPg&feature=related

Seemed diferent to me.

 

4000 years'll do that.

EDIT: This is what Middle-English sounds like.

 

I want to agree with this, and it does make sense, but

this is probably the best answer. I think it all depends obviously on who they spent the most time around. If Winter had an Alderaanian accent, then I would bet that is the accent that they have. Hopefully the kids didn't take after the droid too much

From just reading the dialogue, I get the impression that Jaina's speech patterns are similar to Han's, so I have a hard time thinking of her having a Coruscanti accent. But, like I said before, I can definitely imagine Jacen having a Coruscanti accent. Unfortunately that doesn't make any sense, because I'm sure whatever accent one twin has, the other has as well.