Southern Scadrian Accents

[Aspiring Writer]

Wow, it has been forever since I've made a topic here. 

So in the past year, I have finally gotten my friend to start reading Mistborn. He's gotten hooked and is on BoM currently (I'm making him read Secret History after in the hopes of getting him addicted to all things cosmere). He sometimes asks me how I have imagined a character so we can compare, just for fun, and sometimes the accents of the characters get brought up. He always is trying to give accents to characters, and his most recent one is saying that the Southern Scadrians sound like germans (Don't ask me why). So, how does everyone imagine their accents being like? Cuz I definitely did not go german. More Scottish, I think.

[+Oltux72]

23 minutes ago, Aspiring Writer said:

He always is trying to give accents to characters, and his most recent one is saying that the Southern Scadrians sound like germans (Don't ask me why). So, how does everyone imagine their accents being like? Cuz I definitely did not go german. More Scottish, I think.

Scandinavian. The one verbatim sentence we got was very Scandinavian.

Quote

"Hanner konge?"

That is likely "Hann er konge". He is king. Not German at all. But even farther from Scottish.

[Quantus]

Honestly I never really imagined them with accents on the logic that the Connection medallions would strip them away, leaving at most the coloquial/regional usages.  

[+Invocation]

I tend to imagine them with Polish accents, honestly. It just seemed right.

[Halyo_Alex]

7 hours ago, Quantus said:

Honestly I never really imagined them with accents on the logic that the Connection medallions would strip them away, leaving at most the coloquial/regional usages.  

Actually, there's a WoB that you could get a better accent by tapping Connection AND storing Identity (aluminum), so we know it doesn't truly wipe accents just by tapping duralumin.

[Quantus]

Just now, Halyo_Alex said:

Actually, there's a WoB that you could get a better accent by tapping Connection AND storing Identity (aluminum), so we know it doesn't truly wipe accents just by tapping duralumin.

INTERESTING!  That implies that Identity and Connection are more functionally adjacent than I thought.  If the language is on the Connection side but your accent is on the Identity side, that implies that Identity is the Internal equivalent (in some ways at least).  That has potential...

Edited August 9, 2021 by Quantus

[AlexanderKai11]

I always imagined them having a Russian accent, IDK why.

[+Oltux72]

12 hours ago, Quantus said:

INTERESTING!  That implies that Identity and Connection are more functionally adjacent than I thought.  If the language is on the Connection side but your accent is on the Identity side, that implies that Identity is the Internal equivalent (in some ways at least).  That has potential...

They are talking about accent in the book. The explanation was that he still knew that he grew up on another continent, so his mind figured that he should have an accent.

Apparently Identity is also a property that determines the degree of influence of personality and experiences on Arcane effects, for storing Identity would presumably not blank his memories.

[AquaRegia]

Given 1) how much we hear about the power and importance of accents from Wayne, and 2) the known fact that Brandon pulls inspiration for character and place names from real locations around the world, I think it's quite reasonable to speculate about how the characters must sound.  For Allik, I also imagined something vaguely German, probably because of his use of "yah" for "yes", reminiscent of German "ja".  Turns out, though, that "Ja" is also Norwegian for yes... and the name of Allik's vessel, Brunstell, is also Norwegian (translating to "brown frame").  It would seem Scandinavian is an excellent guess.

I have no doubt that Brandon spends time and effort planning how his characters sound to each other.  In the case of Wayne, his 'natural' accent - in other words, the way he speaks when he's not playing a different role - is intended to be taken as Australian Cockney.  At least, that's how I interpret the creative spellings and word choices Brandon uses there.  However, I also think it can be dangerous to carry any ideas about perceived similarities to our world and languages too far; it IS a fantasy Cosmere, after all.

Complicating this debate will be the audiobooks, in which narrators, voice actors, or directors may make different choices about how characters sound than Brandon would.

Here is an earlier discussion of the topic of accents... I forgot how far down the rabbit hole I went there.  We all have our weird interests, don't we?