Bonos accent

[johndarling]

I had often wondered about his accent for some time. I noticed too how he never spokewith a strong irish accent. I am canadian and lost my accent after about a year of living in scotland. It was easier to learn to speak like the Scottish, rather than everyone not understanding what i was saying. It started by just using the same words for things (ie crisps, bins,sweeties) then it just sorta took over my accent. I am married to a Scottish guy, so that didn't help me keep it! I think you just learn to adjust to wherever you are. When I go home, I revert back to my canadian accent pretty quick cos my mom doesn't understand me!!!

Absolutely agree

I've moved around and you do adjust principally because you get tired of saying EVERYTHING five times and having people look at you with this really desperate look in their eyes (like they're afraid they're never gonna understand you no matter how many times they say it) So you change your words, you speak their language. It's just easier. (And get sick of smiling politely at the silly accent jokes.)

But of course you don't forget your own and revert back to it when you are with family etc.

 

[Jeannieco]

back at ya!

 

[Marien]

I think Bono (when speaking in public) speaks what we call Mid-Athlantic Standard, this is a mixture of Eastern North American, British and Irish features and it has been developed in the media, especially by journalists but also by entertainers and businesspeople who work/live jumping from one side to the other of this ocean, just like Bono (listen to most people speaking on CNN for example).
I've watched him on some interviews in Ireland, and there he shows more of his native accent. He hasn't ever got (as far as I've listened to him) the strong Northside Dublin accent Larry can show, his accent has always been softer, I've always thought that it was because of his family accent.
What I find quite funny is how he keeps some very Irish features like pronouncing an -s when the word ends in -t or the aspiration of the wh-, you can even hear these when he's singing and, of course, many idioms.
As some people have said before I don't think he does it deliberately, it's a question of what you're hearing most of your time, in fact I've listened to him saying he speaks with British accent, while he's quite distant from the RP (British "Oxford" pronunciation).

 

[Anji]

My mum moved to the UK when she was 14, whilst she lost the majority of her Irish Accent, there were still parts she never lost. Certain words were the Irish pronounciations, such as With, this always remained wit. We used to tease her and try and make her say with but she always struggled with it

I think Bono just does what the majority do, and fit in where they are with their accents

 

[Marien]

I think Bono just does what the majority do, and fit in where they are with their accents

Yeah, even more than that I usually pick up accents the moment I travel to another place without even noticing it, when I was younger my mum used to worry about it because she thought I was making fun of people.

 

[folly]

Bono has an Irish accent, just not a country or northside Dub one.

But it's 100% Irish.

If you used the word brogue here people would think you were talking about a shoe.

 

[WildHoney]

My mum moved to the UK when she was 14, whilst she lost the majority of her Irish Accent, there were still parts she never lost. Certain words were the Irish pronounciations, such as With, this always remained wit. We used to tease her and try and make her say with but she always struggled with it

I love it when NI drops his "H"'s

Wit, Tree (for three), tought for thought

I think people do pick up the local accent, apparently when i return from Ireland i sound Irish

NI's still has his Irish accent (i told him i'd divorce him if he ever lost it - jokingly) but when he returns to Ireland they say it sounds English

As for Bono, i love it whatever it sounds like

 

[Anji]

Wit, Tree (for three), tought for thought

I think people do pick up the local accent, apparently when i return from Ireland i sound Irish

Yes those are the other examples my mum couldn't say either When we took her remains home to bury her, we were struck by the diversity of the brogue in her home town. One of her cousins we couldn't understand a frickin word he said and we were more than used to the Irish accent Very odd seeing as they were all from the same place?

NI has a sexy accent DON'T tell him I said that or he will tease me the next time I see him

Yes I think we all do it unconsiously, unless it is somewhere like Russia, when I don't understand a word they are saying anyway

Oh Oh Oh Just thought of another one! Butter became Buther

 

[EdgeIsTooSexy]

I think Adam has the heaviest accent out of all of them.
Bono's has definitely dulled down.

 

[blueeyedgirl]

I'm surprised noone has mentioned class yet. Larry's accent will be broader as he came from a more working class family than Bono's. And of course Adam and Paul will have that Home Counties middle class public school thing going on....

 

[Jeannieco]

Hey, check out the ny times op ed thread. Bono's column is up and the there is an audio link to hear his lucious voice read it to you!! OMG! Yum~!

 

[GracelandHarley]

I'm surprised noone has mentioned class yet. Larry's accent will be broader as he came from a more working class family than Bono's. And of course Adam and Paul will have that Home Counties middle class public school thing going on....

I believe it is somewhat the other way around. Larry's father was a civil servant, worked in management for, if I recall correctly, the local authority. I'll have to do a search if no one else recalls exactly what he did, but, according to Larry in U2 by U2, his father was an academic, very well-educated.

Bono's father was also a civil servant, he worked in the post office his whole career; as I recall from Bono's stories, he wasn't management, he was what we call a "working stiff", but this may have been colored a bit in the story-telling.

I think they probably were within the same "class" setting, technically speaking, but Larry's family was not more working class than Bono's, I'm sure.

 

[MsPurrl]

Hey, check out the ny times op ed thread. Bono's column is up and the there is an audio link to hear his lucious voice read it to you!! OMG! Yum~!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/opinion/11bono.html?_r=1

 

[rihannsu]

You have to remember as well that Bono did not learn Irish and famously flunked his leaving cert in irish which is why he got sent back from University whereas Larry as a youngster went to Irish school where as I understand it they teach in irish. So it would make sense that Larry's accent would be much thicker than Bono's. If Bono speaks Irish now it is because he went back and learned it at a later date when he got more interested in irish literature.

Dana

 

[last unicorn]

I believe it is somewhat the other way around. Larry's father was a civil servant, worked in management for, if I recall correctly, the local authority. I'll have to do a search if no one else recalls exactly what he did, but, according to Larry in U2 by U2, his father was an academic, very well-educated.

Bono's father was also a civil servant, he worked in the post office his whole career; as I recall from Bono's stories, he wasn't management, he was what we call a "working stiff", but this may have been colored a bit in the story-telling.

I think they probably were within the same "class" setting, technically speaking, but Larry's family was not more working class than Bono's, I'm sure.

Bono comes from a working class family.

Not that I care, though.

 

[blueeyedgirl]

"The Unforgettable Fire" by Eamon Dunphy.

 

[The Sad Punk]

"The Unforgettable Fire" by Eamon Dunphy.

Unfortunately, it's apparently not the most reliable book on the market for U2 history, even though it has a lot of neat information in it.

 

[blueeyedgirl]

Unfortunately, it's apparently not the most reliable book on the market for U2 history, even though it has a lot of neat information in it.

"That's a dirty lie" Eamon Dunphy

 

[Anji]

You have to remember as well that Bono did not learn Irish and famously flunked his leaving cert in irish which is why he got sent back from University whereas Larry as a youngster went to Irish school where as I understand it they teach in irish. So it would make sense that Larry's accent would be much thicker than Bono's. If Bono speaks Irish now it is because he went back and learned it at a later date when he got more interested in irish literature.

Dana

It would not have been Irish they were taught then, it would have been Gaelic The term "Irish" for a language never got recognized until 2005

 

[rihannsu]

It would not have been Irish they were taught then, it would have been Gaelic The term "Irish" for a language never got recognized until 2005

Well, I just said it way because that's the way it was worded when I read it.

 

[rihannsu]

Unfortunately, it's apparently not the most reliable book on the market for U2 history, even though it has a lot of neat information in it.

But you can cross reference with other sources that are more accurate, like say U2 by U2. Bono and Larry both were from working class families but they were from different areas of Dublin.

Dunphy's book does have errors and I wish someone could put together a tip sheet on exactly what things are wrong but it's no where near as inaccurate as Mick Wall's Biography of Bono. That one should be shelved as non-fiction since it probably has more errors than facts. There are things in it that are mentioned in no other U2 books that I have been able to find but he doesn't source anything so you can't figure out where he came up with them and since the stuff you can cross check is mostly wrong you get the feeling he was making things up out of whole cloth.

Dana

 

[Anji]

Well, I just said it way because that's the way it was worded when I read it.

Ya I know I hope it didn't come over bad

My mum used to get So cross about it, she was like Irish is what I AM, Gaelic is the language I LEARNED and English is the language I SPOKE albeit with an Irish accent.

An American once said to her "oh you are Irish I can tell as you are speaking Irish", she got cross and said "NO I speak ENGLISH the same way as you do" If I spoke in the Irish language you would not understand me

God love her, she may as well have been a red head, because she did have one hell of a temper

 

[rihannsu]

Ya I know I hope it didn't come over bad

My mum used to get So cross about it, she was like Irish is what I AM, Gaelic is the language I LEARNED and English is the language I SPOKE albeit with an Irish accent.

An American once said to her "oh you are Irish I can tell as you are speaking Irish", she got cross and said "NO I speak ENGLISH the same way as you do" If I spoke in the Irish language you would not understand me

God love her, she may as well have been a red head, because she did have one hell of a temper

No worries, that's why the wink. I used to be careful to say Gaelic all the time and not Irish but it seemed the Irish themselves were calling it irish from the things I was reading so I quit worrying about it.

Dana

 

[Purplereign]

i'm an enormous sucker for the old irish accent . . . used to work in an irish pub in london in the 90's and would sometimes just close my eyes and listen to all the regulars chin wag away. . . heavenly . . . and, apparently, if i get really reeeeaaaaaallly squiffy, I've been told I adopt a very strange sorta kinda irish accent myself . . .

 

[folly]

Lolsers.

Nobody in Ireland says Gaelic when speaking about the language. It would not have been called Gaelic when Bono was in school. Gaeilge if anything. But they are two completely different words.

Also whether you speak Irish or not does not affect an irish persons accent when speaking english.

 

[Marien]

Every language you speak affects your pronunciation, lexicon, idioms, grammar and, of course, your accent. This is not me, this is a linguistic axiom.

I've heard many Irish friends say Irish, Gaelic was used at uni.

 

[MooMoo!]

Irish is one of a few types of gaelic, Id use gaelic as more of an umberella term.

 

[Marien]

Yeah, in a sense you're right, but we used Gaelic when we were studying its influence on English language, we never used Irish in that context, maybe because it was clear we were talking about Ireland.

 

[MooMoo!]

As far as Im aware, the types are all very simillar anyway. I spose its like comparing spanish and portugese.

Is Welsh a type of Gaelic? God knows thats in its own little world...

 

[Marien]

We called all them Celtic languages and, yes Welsh has a high Celtic substratum, but Irish is supposed to be the only spoken language that can be considered completely Celtic, the other have been so much mixed with Germanic or Romanic languages. But I would stop here, I'm such a freak language loving...Sorry for all the buble..