[Wikipedia-l] Re: Conference report from South Africa

[Jimmy Wales]

Mark Williamson wrote:
> Timwi, if you doubt the accent problem is a real one, you clearly have
> not heard many different accents in your life.
> 
> Even when spoken slowly and clearly, there are some accents that are
> well near unintelligible to those with a certain different accent, at
> least without being around them for a while.

At least for English, and at least in my own experience, the accent
problem is not a very big deal, in the context of people speaking slowly
and clearly, especially if they are careful to moderate their accent to
some widely-held standard and avoid particularly local expressions and
accents.

> Some people would say that any accent other than the "standard" (with
> English, being official in more than one nation, there is no single
> "standard", but people often being ignoramuses we can expect that they
> will say "Sure, the ____ and the _____ have their 'standard accent',
> but ours is the only correct one." (making little imaginary quote
> marks around "standard accent")

Well, if people say things like that, then they are wrong.  Simple. :-)

There's no one particular way of speaking English which is correct, but
there are ways which are easier and harder for most people to
understand.  This presents an obstacle to spoken wikipedia, but not an
insurmountable one.

I talk to a lot of people who speak English with different sorts of
accents, and it is very seldom a barrier to communication at all.  It
might be a bit surprising to listen to an English article read by
Anthere, who speaks with a distinct French accent, but she's still very
easy to understand.

--Jimbo