Accents

Derek Strong (derek@zhmort.com)
Sat, 16 Aug 1997 18:00:01 -0700

----------
> From: Anders Sandberg <nv91-asa@nada.kth.se>
> Subject: Re: self-transformation
> Date: Saturday, August 16, 1997 1:08 PM
>
> And I'm happy to hear you liked my accent. My main worry about my
> talk wasn't that I would be boring or have a nervous breakdown, but
> that I would be simply incomprehensible due to my accent. But as
> somebody said, after 10 minutes of listening to me, I'm
> understandable :-)

For me, it goes way beyond that. I noticed a few years ago when first
conversing with Sasha Chislenko that english spoken in a European accent
(by a smart transhuman, of course) is a good deal more interesting than
"normal" english. The rhythm and pronunciations are novel, yet regular,
predictable, and pleasant. My vague guess is that hearing the words and
phrases emphasized differently (but nonetheless intelligently) gives my
brain more to process than usual. This extra information (which is
normally not information at all, if you speak with the same accent) brings
the words alive.

----
Derek Strong
aka Derek Ryan
derek@zhmort.com
http://www.zhmort.com/