Do you speak with an Okanagan accent?
UBCO researchers want you to speak into the microphone as they attempt to identify regional dialects here
The Okanagan accent is characterized by a nasal twang that’s noticeable when we pronounce Vancouver as Vangcouver. Say what?
The way people talk between Sicamous and Osoyoos is distinctly different from other regional accents around North America, two UBC researchers believe. Now, they want you to help them prove it. Volunteers — especially people who’ve lived in the Valley all their lives — are being sought for a new online linguistic study.
The main task is reading a short story into the microphone on your desktop or laptop. Then, Bob Pritchard and Molly Babel and their student assistants will analyze all the recordings to see if they can pinpoint the unique features of English as spoken in the Okanagan.
“The accent may be very slight, but I do believe there is one,” Pritchard, a professor in UBC’s School of Music, said Tuesday.
Pritchard is from Vernon, and over the years has developed something of a knack for recognizing students who come from the Okanagan, based on the way they speak. There’s a certain twang in their pronunciation, Pritchard said, mentioning words such as drama, pasta and bagel in which he believes he can detect a unique Okanagan accent.
Across North America, spoken English is being increasingly homogenized by the influences of mass culture and the ease of travel. Many distinctive English accents are easily identifiable, of course, such as those found in Newfoundland and the New England states.
But Canadian English has not often been studied for its regional variations, especially not in the western part of the country. Pritchard said.
“The assumption among researchers is that everyone from Winnipeg to Victoria speaks with the same accent, and I don’t think that's the case at all,” Pritchard said.
Such regionally focused studies as have been done typically used a very small number of participants, sometimes as few as a dozen people. Pritchard and Babel hope that hundreds of Okanagan residents will participate in their study, which they’ve dubbed DRAWL (Determining Regional Accents with Literature).
To participate, see blogs.ubc.ca/drawl.