It’s not a mocking thing — really it’s not! I truly love hearing the lilt (or lack thereof) of different languages and accents. Sound and imitation have always been very important to me. (Apparently I’m also pretty good at making sound effects!) So you can imagine what a thrill it was for me to discover this site, from George Mason University’s linguistics program. Shame on them for not having anyone from Canada’s maritime provinces (now there are some wonderful accents!), but it’s still fun to go around the world and sample different speakers. After a while, though, you do get a bit tired of hearing about “thick slabs of blue cheese” and “small plastic snakes”…
You see, you really can hear a difference (besides the speaker’s voice tone) between accents from Vancouver, Winnipeg and Toronto. And listen to the difference between a French-Canadian speaking English and a “France French” speaker. Also, see how different a Catalan native speaker sounds from someone born in Madrid. Fun fun fun (for a few minutes, at least)!
P.S. For those not in the know, of course the subject of this post is a reference to this 1975 Monty Python film.