Talk:Language in the Twelve Colonies/Archive3

Radio Alphabet

Discussions moved to Talk:Colonial Wireless Alphabet by Joe Beaudoin at 20:07, 10 October 2005 (EDT).

Aerelon Accent

(It is probably some subtle nuance that a Colonial character like Baltar could notice, but that is indistinguishable from an American accent to the audience).

No, listen. None of these characters are actually speaking English. The whole thing is a conceit to make it intelligible to the viewer. I'm sure that in the fictional universe of BSG, Boomer does speak with a "trace of an Aerelon accent", but since the show chooses to represent this as Standard American English, there's little point speculating about phonological variations that we can't hear. It's not a matter of Baltar being able to hear something we can't, the showmakers have just chosen not to give us the information. --Peter Farago 01:38, 10 September 2005 (EDT)

Yeah. I tend to agree. My agreement is influenced by a couple of things in addition to the above.

One: I have a BA in Linguistics. I know a bit about accents and the sounds of human speech, etc. I'm also somewhat used to hearing differences in sounds that most Anglophones aren't used to (like distinctions that are meaningful in other languages, but not in English). These two things make it hard for me to believe that, after reading about this theory and listening to Boomer speak with the purpose of hearing an accent, I'd somehow be unable to hear it simply because I'm missing it.

Two: I'm a rather large Tolkien dork and am familiar with the idea of "translating" something into English for the benefit of English-speaking viewers (to say nothing of over-dubbed versions of this show for non-English-speaking viewers. Additionally, being familiar with Tolkien's special flavor of language-centric crazy, I don't get that, well, vibe from RDM. He seems much more interested in the story and the cinematics than correctly representing the names of people from Dale as corrupted Old English names in order to show their long-ago linguistic connection to the Rohirrim, whose language is tacitly represented by Old English--as he should be.

If, for whatever reason, the BSG production/directorial staff were interested in drawing parallels to Colonial accents with the use of English accents, it would be much more apparent. What is more likely is, as Peter posits, they aren't giving us the information. That's been screened out if for no other reason than the fact that they didn't really think about it. It's not a big deal. I think this is evidenced by Baltar's remark about Boomer's accent, actually. If they were keeping tabs of language enough to care about accents, they would realise the extreme unlikelihood that even a stereotypically recognized majority of an entire planet's population would have an accent that was the same. I mean--What's the most common (and thus, best seen as stereotypically Earthly) accent on our world? Chinese. Which is, you know, not precisely an accent. ;o)

I think, actually, that the BSG crew are paying attention to accents, however. It's just not in a way that identifies characters geographically or--whatever. They pick accents that will predispose American and British (and, thus, probably Australian) viewers to certain preconceptions about their characters. Baltar speaks, more or less, the Queen's English, which will predispose Westerners to assume he's intelligent, wealthy, well bred and well educated. Baltar is these things. Kara Thrace speaks pretty standard American English and does it with a fairly high volume. She assumes the stereotypes of the loud American, so to speak. Notice, too, that the reporter had an English accent. At the end of her documentary, I half expected her to say, "This is D'anna Whatever, BBC news." I don't even get the BBC in Texas.

This is getting absurdly lengthy. I apologize. I tend to do this when words are at issue. Anyway, one final point: I don't think the same thing can be necessarily said for "race". Since where your genes are from, geographically, is a rather more visual thing, I tend to think that this would more easily occur to a TV producer as something worth keeping track of. That doesn't mean that it did and they are, but that most of my arguments here don't apply to that case much. I'll, ah, I'm done now. ;o) --Day 03:31, 10 September 2005 (EDT)

Well said. --Peter Farago 04:01, 10 September 2005 (EDT)

It is true that Grace Park is a fluent speaker of Korean, but her English--either as Sharon Valerii or as herself in interviews--bears no trace of a Korean accent whatsoever. I am married to a native Korean speaker, have friends and colleagues who speak Korean either as their first or second language, and have been studying the language for a few years myself, so I am absolutely certain that Korean has no bearing on what might or might not be considered an Aerelon accent. --BlueResistance

I tend to agree, but felt like someone would bring up her bilingualism inevitably and that it would be better to address it directly. If Grace Park (and thus Boomer) has a trace of any accent, it ought to be Korean, so I felt it worth a mention. --Peter Farago 02:31, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

You said that Grace Park's bilingualism would come up eventually. I would recommend limiting discussions of her bilingualism to the actress' bio page. The label "Korean" doesn't meaningfully describe anything that's going on when Sharon/Boomer is speaking. My own Korean is getting good enough that I'm approaching true "bilingual" status, but nobody would use "Korean" to describe my English. --BlueResistance

Discussing Park's bilingualism on the actress' bio page would not shed any insight for a reader of this page, nor would it allay any questions that such knowledge might raise. I understand that her spoken English is flawless, but the fact that it is not actually her first language is at least marginally relevant here, and is given the footnote it deserves.

As for her "northwestern" accent, I don't truly believe that that's any different from General American/Standard Midwestern - the only phonological difference I can think of is the caught/cot merger, which is too subtle to deserve the name "accent". --Peter Farago 03:00, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

Perhaps it should be specifically noted here that her Korean fluency doesn't seem to have any impact whatsoever on her English accent. I agree with Peter that it's important to note it here, so that someone who doesn't know any better doesn't come along and think we missed that point and that they've solved our problem by mentioning a (non-existent) Korean accent. Sometimes, when you are making an argument or assertion, you have to mention some things that are, really, irrelevant in order to make clear that they are, indeed, irrelevant so that others will not wrongly think that they are. Make sense? --Day 03:08, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

I was just about to say something like that. Thanks, Day! --BlueResistance 03:10, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

Tried to make it a little more forceful. You can tell that this wiki is great because we spend whole evenings discussing single sentences. --Peter Farago 03:18, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

Nice edit. And I hope you were being serious. I spent a lot of time in college working on a print publication and for the last couple years, I was the Editor in Chief (kind of a joke because there were only six of us on staff). In any case, it was a humor publication and sometimes we'd spend hours debating about the wording of a single sentence in order to deliver the most punch. It almost always paid off. In this case, we're not looking to be funny, but I still think it pays to make sure a sentence communicates exactly the information we intend: no more and no less. --Day 17:48, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

Quite serious. Concision is nothing without precision. --Peter Farago 23:48, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

So, you're not really the Concision Fairy. You're the Concision/Precision Fairy. Which is less concise, but more precise. Maybe you're the (Con|Pre)cision Fairy. Phleh. --Day 16:16, 20 October 2005 (EDT)

I just watched "Dirty Hands" last night, and the accent Baltar speaks with is unmistakable to an English girl like me - it's a Yorkshire accent :) so I've edited to reflect that, the accent isn't "diluted", but Yorkshire accents are different to a more general north English accent therefore it could seem that way. Marianne 06:38, 19 June 2007 (CDT)

Which is somewhat impressive, given that the actor's bio says he was born and raised in London, so for him Yorkshire is a "second accent". Not as impressive as any American actor *credibly* doing anything other than another American accent. but I digress.Toddsschneider 08:15, 25 July 2007 (CDT)

Racetrack

Is it just me or does Racetrack have a vaguely Canadian accent in her scene on the Raptor early in Final Cut? --Peter Farago 02:10, 10 September 2005 (EDT)

Stating the obvious

Mister (Mr), Miss, and Doctor have all been used, but Missus {Mrs} has not.

The concision fairy frowns in disapproval. Why is this interesting? --Peter Farago 02:26, 17 September 2005 (EDT)

Nothing much since we haven't seen anyone married. Given the gender equality in BSG, however, it may well be that "Mrs" is not used. --Redwall 17:20, 17 September 2005 (EDT)

General American

On a somewhat smaller matter, there is no linguistically accepted version of English called "General English," with a capital G. I am willing to accept a lower case g, "general English," to indicate "common sense" notions about the accent/group of accents. --BlueResistance

You are correct. The article previously referred to Standard American English (SAE), which I have encountered in contrast to African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in sociolinguistics. As I'm sure you can tell, I intend to refer to the mid-western "newscaster accent" used throughout the entertainment industry.

As for Wikipedia, they referred to this accent as Standard Midwestern until last February. It was then moved to General American based on User:Angr's statement that "the accent is not standard in any official sense, nor is it limited to the Midwest."

Since they are serving as our primary reference, I am inclined to follow their conventions on the matter. Perhaps you could take up your point with them? I realize that we are not powerless to employ our own terminology, but consistency strikes me as a self-evident virtue. --Peter Farago 02:31, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

Sigh. General American bothers me. I'd much prefer Standard American English. I mean--that's a term that linguists use when discussing American accents. I wish Wikipedia had a page entitled that, but I don't want to get into a land war there (or, really anything there as time is finite). A few things have to be understood about SAE (or, as it stands, General English):

1) It doesn't really exist as a spoken dialect. No one grows up learning SAE the way one can grow up speaking Texan English or any of the various sub-dialects of AAVE or whatever. However, Americans seem to be able to sense what it is. This is still under research.

2) When used in a non-scholastic setting (like this wiki), saying someone speaks SAE generally means that the region they learned English in is not identifiable by the way they speak. Apollo speaks SAE, for instance. However, Jamie Baber or however it's spelt, is British and really speaks some form of British English dialect (I've not heard him speak myself).

With these two things in mind, using a term like SAE to refer to dialects of characters is perfectly fine. I mean--the dialect is a kind of mental construct and so doesn't really exist and the characters, likewise, don't really exist. ;) OK. That was a joke. My problem with the term "General American" is that I've never seen it before in a linguistic context. "Standard American English" is a term used in all caps like that in many texts by various authors. I'm tired and I think I'm losing coherency. Does my point about, for lack of a better word, officialness come across clearly? I sure hope so. --Day 03:04, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

I would be happy to have the relevant links marked as Standard American English and go to Wiki's General American article through pipes. The term General American was introduced on October 8th by Troyian - I'd like to know if he is personally in favor of the term, or was just matching wikipedia's terminology. --Peter Farago 03:09, 19 October 2005 (EDT)

Commander-in-chief

With regard to the recent edit by OTW, I feel its a bit obvious that she is in a capacity of being a commander-in-chief. After all, she is the one who promotes Adama to admiral. Also, Adama is later ordered by then-President Baltar to settle New Caprica; so, yes, the President is a commander-in-chief, and does have ultimate command of the military.

As to the issue of her not exercising her control over Adama, not to mention Cain later on, it's because she needs the military as much as the military needs the civilian fleet. They're really dependent on each other, and tied at the hip. -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Sanctuary Wiki — New} 17:32, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

The issue arises over Roslin and Adama's relationship in the Miniseries. It's that not Roslin had to compromise and make a deal with Adama, but he barely recognized her authority and thus she agreed to share power with him for the time being. Similar to Cain. Theoretically she could order Cain around, but Cain wouldn't listen. She is similar to early Adama there. --Serenity 17:42, 22 August 2007 (CDT)

Another indication comes from the mini-series when Lee Adama, aboard Colonial One, defers to Laura Roslin's authority as president, rather than his father's orders. As for the real-politik power-sharing between Adama & Roslin at the beginning, as time passes and they come to understand and have greater confidence in each other, it appears the office of president as head of government and military has been restored and re-asserted in preservation and continuation of the Articles of Colonization and pre-attack Colonial society (a theme echoed in the mini-series, and episodes such as Dirty Hands). --Fredmdbud 02:30, 23 August 2007 (CDT)