This site was brought to my attention by Tycho from Penny Arcade.
It's close to every dialect in the world speaking a single english phrase. As a total fan of accents and speech being a decent mimic from an early age I found it fantastic. There's only one slight problem - the showing from England is woefully poor.
Although 'Birmingham' purports to be represented the person speaking clearly doesn't have much of a 'Brummie' accent and the site is missing such classics as Cockney, Geordie Bastard, Scouser, Essex Lad, Mancunian Lout, Yorkshire Farmer, Somerset Smallholder and many many more.
In fact there are more US accents represented than UK ones whereas despite being significantly smaller the accents found in the UK are as least as, if not more diverse by nature of the ancient and mixed lineage of the isle - certainly if compared by region and distance.
One thing is particularly lacking and that is a dialect which one heard almost exclusively just 40 years ago - that wonderful english which is now berated as 'posh' or 'upper class'. I'm convinced it exists somewhere but I could certainly do with hearing someone speak the sentence properly.
In the words of the deadpan comedian Jimmy Carr:
"I'm from the home counties, no I don't have an accent this is how things sound when they are pronounced correctly"
Enjoy the site! I'm listening to a quality Tagalog recording. I can't wait for the words "Fresh", "Five" and "Frog" :D
(btw, for the uninitiated Tagalog speakers tend to pronounce 'f' as 'p')
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at March 27, 2004 03:02 AM