Sep 16th, 2006, 06:38 PM
Just a random question of racial tendencies
How much difference does race affect vocal timbre? I mean, in the United States we think of everything in terms of black or white, and the black community tends to be so united that even well-educated and intelligent blacks (OMG WHAT AN ANOMALY SETHOMAS IS RACIST) have a distinct timbre, although they often deliberately separate themselves from the whole ebonics accent and such. So, no, I'm not talking about a twang or anything. Beyond America, I've only heard a handful of blacks speak in British English. While it was distinctively British, it still had something of a similarity with the overtones of American blacks, even though they tend to have a much less burdened history that would put them into a cultural niche where it was convention to speak in a given way.
Oddly, when I would speak French with people from Sub-Saharan Africa, they mostly shared a distinct tone but it was somewhat different from American and British blacks. That could just be a mental quirk for me listening to something in a second language I barely grasp at an intermediate level, or maybe just from them speaking it (very well, usually) in a second language of theirs. Often it's hard to distinguish timbre from an accent or twang, something I had to always wonder when talking to my Kentuckian relatives.
To apply it elsewhere, I've met a great many people of Middle Eastern descent who grew up in a pure American-English environment and they'd sound as we think of a "white" voice, but I've met others from similar backgrounds who still have a different timbre. Even as course as we tend to stereotype the Arabic language, I find that such people have a very soothing timbre in most cases. The same goes for Asians; Asian countries are often very good at teaching English, so I've met many people who would carefully articulate their words in a clipped tone (as people say that I do often) even if they seemed to be struggling for proper vocabulary. I've met Asians who sound perfectly "white" who mostly grew up in American households, barely aware of their family's mother tongue, but I've met people in the same circumstances who still had a distinct "Asian" timbre. Again, same caveat about regional accents and such. One of my good friends at Chicago was American-born of I believe Korean and Chinese parents, and she would always insist that she looked and sounded white when neither was the case.
I just wonder because anthropology is a fascinating subject to me. And don't think that I believe every word of the Bell Curve--if I did, I'd have reason to be embarrassed when an urban black man whiped the floor with me when I played chess with him. I know how controversial it is to EVER mention genes when dealing with things like propensity and tendency, but having compared attitudes between African Americans and people born in Africa, I'm convinced the whole Bell Curve BS is more sociological than racial, not to mention bad science in itself. Just consider the fact that the hot spot for theology and politics these days is Sub-Saharan Africa with brilliant minds like Francis Cardinal Arinze, Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, and the like.
|
Linear Mode
