Character accents?

[Kaizeschtossen]

Here's a question...

Would it be possible for our characters to have specific accents that tie to the real world?


We see that a few races have distinct accents: Draenei sound particularly Arabic or Indian (depending), Dwarves have a thick Scottish tongue, and Trolls can be tied to Jamaicans... But most of the voices in WoW are clearly done by American voice actors. I don't think I've ever come across an NPC with an Australian accent, or a Malaysian accent... Or British, or Russian... I could go down the list for a while.

If NPCs in WoW can have an accent that's tied to a country that only exists outside of the Warcraft universe, why can't we expand the spectrum of possible accents for our own characters? I'm sure a lot of people would jump at the chance to have a hunter character with an Australian accent, or slap on a British one for their assassin/rogue type. Not saying that those accents must be tied to those sorts of people or classes, but you get the point.

So, hypothetically, would it be acceptable to have "Has a broad Italian accent" in one's TotalRP summary, even thought Italy doesn't exist at all in WoW lore? Or do people agree that the 4-or-so accents implemented in the game is good enough.

If this was possible, worst case scenario is that everybody has some weird, unfitting accent, like a Spanish one, and then every time someone says something in a crowded tavern, you'd have to translate it in your head... As if hearing a Spanish accent inside the Warcraft universe doesn't seem outlandish enough. But it's possible! And it could be delicious if done well.


Thoughts?

And apologies in advance if I left out a few races.

[Saiyuu]

Probably would, but you might want to take a look and ask around for existing accents that are similar to the ones found in our own world.

The ones I know so far are...

Stormwind - Something like Southern USA accent.
Hillsbrad - Irish, pretty much.
Alterac - French, or so I heard.

Those are for humans, of course. ^^

[BountyHunter]

You're allowed to describe it as like an 'x' accent if you wished, it's simply making OOC comparisons to a real world thing.

[Etmosril]

I like to pretend that Sehinu has a hilarious over-the-top Italian accent.

Otherwise? /shrug. It's silly how some races (Trolls and Dwarves, for example) have a single racial accent, while humans in canon have many.

Not to mention we've got to stick to accents we know and love; you just can't describe an accent. You have to hear it. Which essentially wrecks the whole idea of having unique accents on Azeroth which aren't based on our own.

[ImagenAshyun]

Every race has an accent. Orcish Orcish is very distinguished compared to Trollish Orcish and Tauren Orcish. I picture, when a Tauren speaks in Orcish, he speaks with a Taurahe accent. The same applies when Night Elves speak Common with a Darnassian accent, or even Draenei when speaking either Common or Orcish (considering their history).

If you look at how Common is actually spoken, you'd see it's nothing like actual English. The same for Orcish as it is understood. Then you consider voice actors in Warcraft in WoW, where the actors almost never bother with an accent unless it's to portray a specific race (such as the dwarves or trolls) or to assume a specific cultural manner of speech (if you haven't noticed yet, observe how Night Elf, Draenei, and Tauren NPCs speak. They're surprisingly verbose).

For comparing them to real world accents, you can make assumptions, but as said above, you can't actually describe them. The real world counterparts are simply for assumptions as we understood them, as well as a comparison so we can react accordingly. Otherwise, it'd be pretty hard, even for Blizzard, to peg down an actual in-universe accented standard for the likes dwarves, trolls, and the like. I've noticed some inconsistencies when I observed the Draenei accent, but eh. Fantasy video game. Make what you will and apply the best you can .

For me, I actually tend to picture every race and their languages have regional accents and lexicon that translate accordingly in English., based on their history and environment. For example, while you can say all dwarves have a real-life counterpart of a Scottish accent, Dwarvish among Wildhammers and Bronzebeards would differ. In addition, while all trolls in-universe all speak Zandali, I like to imagine different dialects of Zandali, like how real-life tribes would have different variants of the same language.

This is all me just taking into account my anthropological studies, of course. Blizzard would probably ignore my speculations.


For the record: Dino has a Venetian accent, which sounds like a mingling of Castllian Spanish and Parisan French to an Italian-ignorant listener (which, in that case, native Italian Standard is a variant of Florentine), but it's also changed some with specks of Swiss German here and there. IC, he has a Kul Tiras accent with specks of Alterac here and there.

All of my Draenei speak a variant of Draenic that sounds suspiciously similar to Tagalog, which has the same crisp tones, curled "r"'s, and thick consonants of faux-Russian, except the vowels are pronounced very flatly and "v"'s are subsituted with "b"'s and "f"'s with "p"'s. This is mostly personalized stylistic choice in how I RP, but it doesn't really apply with real-world counterparts in WoW. Polore has the most pronounced accent of my Draenei, and Kapre the least.

[Reese]

Ah, accents, where would RP be without them?

It'd be without Gregg. That's for certain.

[Wuvvums]

I think I've seen an undead here and there rp with a british accent. I think it can be done :B

[Jester]

Why not? Undeads were with flesh and bones (not only bones) before they die. So they would keep that accent.

Of course keep the accent that they had before they die. I mean if it was a dwarf, his afterlife accent would be dwarfish, if it was a troll his afterlife accent would be trollish, etc..

[Kaizeschtossen]

Alright, well thanks everybody for the input. Learned a few things today :P

You make good points too, Imagen. I never really looked at it that way... Kinda makes my OP seem shallow.

[ImagenAshyun]

No worries!

I do enjoy when people take into account accents. I just love studying other languages, even if I can't converse in them. The closest I usually get are accents, contextual meanings and how they apply to culture, and how language affects thought and vice versa. I just apply the same to Wow for fun .

[Holynexus]

Accents are fine, let's just not make comparisons to French, etc.

Each nation (mainly for Humans, Troll clans, etc) has its own sub-dialect with special words and grammatical forms, and of course consonnants - but there is no such thing as "French".

[Aphetoros]

I like to pretend that Sehinu has a hilarious over-the-top Italian accent.

Otherwise? /shrug. It's silly how some races (Trolls and Dwarves, for example) have a single racial accent, while humans in canon have many.

Well, with Trolls it makes sense because they use an entirely different system of speaking and writing (Zandali) that I will now compare to Chinese/Japanese. Most people wouldn't understand a difference between the accents of a Chinese/Japanese person unless they actually have heard both, often (which is weird, to me, because I totally notice a difference...)
Anyway, I'd almost assume it's like a dialect thing with them, where the way Zandali has them pronounce words makes them sound similar when speaking Common even though a Troll could probably distinguish what region/tribe a speaker came from just by their voice. Unless that troll wasn't really... well-traveled. Then he'd probably be like...

[Wuvvums]

I think we can somewhat imagine what a French accent would be, mostly due to the fact that we seem to have a stereotype for each accent. I mean, could we say there's a Jamaican? Because that's how we pretty much describe trolls.

[Skaar]

Well, with Trolls it makes sense because they use an entirely different system of speaking and writing (Zandali)

Zandali does not have a written form.

[Aphetoros]

It has glyphs, though. At least according to the trolls on Yojamba-- what are their troll tablets written in?