Can you distinguish a white from a black speaker by accent?

"Listen to all the black British-born adults in Britain and then tell me if racial background affects all of them regarding accent. "

If you read some of the above posts you will see that accent and voice attributes are not the same thing. We can all usually tell a male from a female voice regardless of "accent". The same goes for people of from ethnic background. I live in the US and live near and work with many black and white people, all of whom are well spoken professionals, and YES I can usually tell by just listening to a person if they are black, and it doesn't matter what kind of "accent" they have either. As Milli mentioned, black and white people *typically* have a different texture to their voices and it is independent of any accent.

Paul made an absolutely correct and crucial point!

It's true, blacks often have a different quality to their voices than whites, regardless of accent. My guess is that there might be some morphological factors at play, since blacks and whites typically have some differences in face shape, especially around the nose and mouth. These can be seen in both the bone structure and the soft tissue, and probably have some effect on the production of sound. That said, actual individuals will vary tremendously, just as they do within the sexes, so sometimes you can tell a black or white voice by sound, and sometimes you can't. In the US, accent is also often a factor, which can complicate matters further.

I would agree with Paul and Uriel to a degree - there is definitely a perceptible aspect of "black voices" that can mark them down as distinguishable from "white" ones, even when the respective accents are quite apparent.

The UK has had two very prominent national broadcasters/TV newsreaders who are absolutely black - Sir Trevor Macdonald and Moira Stuart ( in spite of her THOROUGHLY Scottish name she is black as the Ace of Spades as they say*). Both speak in standard English English RP and if you didn't know who they were, had never seen them before and knew nothing about them at all, and you were to listen to their voices while blindfolded you would assume they were native British white.....snowflakes like me** But....if you concentrated deep and hard and listened accordingly, you would become aware of a really faint hint of what most of us would now recognise as something of the "black" voice as mentioned by Paul and Uriel. It must have something to do with factors governing the way people of certain racial groups vocalise.

The study of social history in the UK tells us that it wasn't until the late 1950s that most of Britain saw black people in the flesh for the very first time in any large numbers, alrthough there were small "colnies" in the larger cities, especially ports such as Liverpool, and it is there where black people still predominate, and spread out across the country as a whole whites form over 90% of the population. In this Parliamentary constituency of Edinburgh West 97.6% of the electorate are white. In some inner city areas of London there are some boroughs where the whites form just 55% of the population.

The UK's Black newsreaders:

An early morning national ITV black newscaster in the UK - familiar face but I don't know his name tbh with you. I think he is a Phil Something or other but I may be wrong. Anyway, to me as a Scot he sounds quite "posh" English English, but can you detect any trace of "blackness"? Close your peepers and see what gets through to you....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWB1cw_SG38&NR=1


Now here is Sir Trevor Macdonald - most well known of all black newscasters in the UK....do a wee bit of the old shuteye and see what you think....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dds3k6OcKTU

Moira Stuart - a black former newsreader in spite of her thoroughly Scottish names as I have already said. She is also seen in other programs now and again.......

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1W-HnMQUgk&feature=related

Can you detect any "blackness" in their very British (English English) sounding voices?


Right at the other end of the social and the educational spectrum - or lack of in this case - this black ned (or chav in this case as it is filmed in a poor neighbourhood in England somewhere - ned is what we in Scotland call scroats like this). Now you CAN detect a "blackness" in his voice I reckon. If you were blind I think you would be able to tell that this ned was not white.

From the accents this was definitely filmed in Northern England - North West England in fact, detectable from this scroat's accent and those of the police officers as well - I would safely bet a quid or two that it is in the Manchester area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cPNiCST1Ig

PS: please note - none of those police officers carried firearms (guns) - we are very proud of that especially when you consider all our social problems, such as this one so clearly demonstrated here with this highly gobby wee daftie.

Now...another kind of "black" voice - the Metro Ghetto Black Voice - part of the so called urban "gang/rap culture" where there is absolutely no mistaking the "blackness" in the voice especially that of black males, and younger black males in particular - it is a deliberate and conscious decision to sound "black ghetto" and it's as if they have organised their own form of English, distinguishable from any other.

You really don't need to play shuteye here.

Typical black London speak - especially from one of the guys - the one in the middle - a geezer called Bashy. Typical London "ghetto speak" - a deliberate form of speech used as an identifiable "Black lingua franca". This was filmed at the annual Notting Hill street carnival in West London - the largest such event in Europe laasting over the last weekend in August.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOFRILWbOOo&feature=related

*Spade is a taboo slang term for a black person - now on a par with Nigger - both are banned from acceptable conversation in the UK even though about 50/60 years ago they were used without any comeback at all.

**As with all "-isms" one side of a social divide can say what the hell they like about the other with impunity, but the opposite party has to keep the gob firmly shut and the tongue tightly tied or else the heavens would fall in and it would be the end of civilisation as we know it!

On a late night tube train in South London last year a mate and I could be openly addressed as "snowflakes" by a group of about seven or eight young black youths about five or six years younger than ourselves with no comeback for them at all (apart from us two wading in among these guys with our fists flying ---- as if!) but no way would we have got away with calling them either of the above taboo words, altough the train compartment contained no other people but my mate and I and those scroats as it was heading for midnight anyway, and we were under a very predominantly "black" area of Sahf Landun (that's Sarf Landun for South London) - Brixton or Clapham, I can't remember which.

Anyway, it was a relief for both of us to get to very safe South Wimbledon in the end.

Ooops - I got Moira and Trevor all muxed ip - reverse the links and you've got 'em right - in the Moira clip Moira is the black lady that follows on from the white guy who introduces her and in the Trevor Clip Trevor is the black guy wearing the red toie who finally goes into slow motion mode. Sorries all round.

I'm still a wee bit bladdered and blootered......just come in from a noisy early evening down the pub with very noisy mates.......

[But....if you concentrated deep and hard and listened accordingly, you would become aware of a really faint hint of what most of us would now recognise as something of the "black" voice as mentioned by Paul and Uriel. It must have something to do with factors governing the way people of certain racial groups vocalise. ]

Just a few days ago, I would have thought all of this was marmalade; however, so many of you have mentioned an inherent difference in the voice production that I'm inclined to have a change of heart.

If there IS something physically different between the "black" voice and the "white" voice, it might have something to do with the actual physical shape of the vocal cords. If this sounds at first a little flaky, please remember that the leg bones of an African-American are considerably more bowed than the leg bones of a European-American; I know this from my studies in forensic science.

If there has been any research done on the respective shapes of the vocal cords, I'd be much obliged to hear about it.

Damian in Edinburgh, you are so helpful, and humorous as well.
I would definitely listen to the talk in the links you gave!
You are incredibly kind! LOL

<The same goes for people of from ethnic background.>

Nonsense. Go to Britain!

It's not nonsense. Perhaps you are just not around enough people from different ethnic backgrounds to notice the difference.

I doubt it's the vocal cords; it's probably a change in mouth shape that makes the resonation a little different.

And when I took forensic anthro, they said the skull is virtually the only group of bones that can accurately reveal race; the long bones are far less useful as a racial predictor. If all you've got are post-cranial bones to work with, you're taking a lot of measurements and plugging them into an index, with a lot less percentage of accuracy.

∆ I see, Uriel. Forensics is absolutely absorbing topic, isn't it? Almost as absorbing as linguistics....

<Perhaps you are just not around enough people from different ethnic backgrounds to notice the difference. >

No one is saying that there is no difference among SOME people, but if you are claiming that one can almost always notice a black person by the way he speaks, I say, again, GO TO BRITAIN and listen.

Why Britain particularly? Why should Britain be singled out in this respect?

I've already illustrated some British "black voices" in YT links in a previous post of mine featuring people here of varied educational and cultural backgrounds, and in all of them I really do think that there is a common thread running through all their voices nevertheless, but admittedly this is more prominent in some than in others.

Again as I said before, it can be artificial as well, as there is a distinct "black culture" in Britain, especially among certain groups, the majority of the black people concerned being urban/metropolitan young males of Caribbean/African origin from the more educationally/economically deprived sections of the community. They are definitely the most disadvantaged people in British society, the reasons for this being quite controversial really but that's a whole different ball game altogether.

These metro black people have intentionally developed their own kind of rap based culture with their own form of spoken English, which is very distinctive.

In short, metropolitan "Black English" is now simply another one of the UK's many dialects and accents even though it is largely restricted to a relatively small section of the community overall.

In some parts of London, for instance, as London is very much the focus for all this sort of thing with Birmingham and Manchester following on, this "ghetto" speak has even been adopted to varying degrees by similarly deprived young white males (mostly) off the estates*.

*Estates = rented accommodation on local authority owned housing developments.

Agree with what Damian said. There is little sense in singling Britian out in that respect.
With this thread, I listened to the well-educated Obama's speech more carefully and I could immediately sense the blackness quality in his speak.
BTW, Damian is really reader-friendly.
Your note on Estates is helpful.

As to the voice links Damian posted-

I could tell on Lord Trevor and Phil what's-his-name, but not on Moira or the chav kid. And the recorder I could tell.

If that clip with the chav was real, they swear a lot less than I would have thought. If that was filmed in East LA it would have been one continuous beep.