Cosmere accents

[Tacitus he/him]

So, this is basaed off of a thread I made earlier, in which I explained how I gave everyone in Mistborn a french accent for a chapter. I figure this has probably been done before, but I couldn't find the thread, so here it is.

These are what I imagine cosmere accents as

Horneater (Unkalaki)- Sort of Russian (This mainly comes from the wording that Rock usually uses)

Duladen/Herdazian- I imagine these both as a sort of Spanish accent, with lots of clipped endings.

Bavlander- Scottish/ Cabbie driver brittish (You know the one.)

I can't think of more right now, I'll probably think of more later, but a lot of them are more subtle. (Teoish- Bold speech| Rosharan westerner- softer speech| Veden- loud, similar to Herdazian, but rougher)

I was wondering what accents, if any, other people on the shard give various cosmere nationalities.

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

1 hour ago, Omi the Counselor said:

So, this is basaed off of a thread I made earlier, in which I explained how I gave everyone in Mistborn a french accent for a chapter. I figure this has probably been done before, but I couldn't find the thread, so here it is.

These are what I imagine cosmere accents as

Horneater (Unkalaki)- Sort of Russian (This mainly comes from the wording that Rock usually uses)

Duladen/Herdazian- I imagine these both as a sort of Spanish accent, with lots of clipped endings.

Bavlander- Scottish/ Cabbie driver brittish (You know the one.)

I can't think of more right now, I'll probably think of more later, but a lot of them are more subtle. (Teoish- Bold speech| Rosharan westerner- softer speech| Veden- loud, similar to Herdazian, but rougher)

I was wondering what accents, if any, other people on the shard give various cosmere nationalities.

The Alethi languages are Semitic, and were specifically based on Hebrew. So I guess they’d sound Israeli?

South Scadrial and portions of North Scadrial sound Germanic.

And I imagine the Terris as having Italian accents, because ancient Terris seems kind of like Latin to me?

[Elerosse]

I definitely see Horneater as Russian, and Herdazian as Spanish (THE Lopen's gancho vs real world gringo).

Fjorden would be either Norwegian or Icelandic to me

Edited January 19, 2021 by Elerosse

[Fezzik]

19 hours ago, Elerosse said:

I definitely see Horneater as Russian

I see them as Hawaiian or pacific islander like the rock, or jason momoa. They seem to be using a limited alphabet, and the long names using apostrophes are very similar. Queen Liliʻuokalani sounds like Rock's cousin.

[Could Be Fire]

Scandrians - French. Staff speaks with a movie villain's German accent in my head but that's more a character read than worldbuilding read lol. Era 2 has more a New Orleans/Bayou accent which is my brain's interpretation of french + the old west. Nobles in Elendel have more of a Quebecois accent. 

Horneaters - Pacific Islander like @Fezzik I grew up in an area with a major Tongan enclave, so they sound like that to me. 

Herdezdain - Spanish. Lopen def has a LA/California style accent. Paloma has a 'fancier' one (more lisp-y like Spain spanish). Lift has an Ecuadorian one, but that's just because drawings I've seen of her remind me a girl I knew. 

Alethi - British / Indian English. Sort of on a spectrum depending on the character. 

In-universe I picture Rosharan's in general having very 'sing-song-y' accents compared to other worlds, a vestige of the impact of Singer culture. 

[Weltall]

Yeah, Brandon has called the Horneater language and culture a mix of Hawaiian, Russian and Scots, so I tend to imagine mainly the first of those given the words we know of. Likewise Brandon has said that a Herdazian accent wouldn't sound like anything we have, but he based the language on Spanish with a Mexican influence so that's where my mind goes there.

And Kelsier definitely sounds like Arsene Lupin in my head.

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

2 hours ago, Could Be Fire said:

Scandrians - French. Staff speaks with a movie villain's German accent in my head but that's more a character read than worldbuilding read lol. Era 2 has more a New Orleans/Bayou accent which is my brain's interpretation of french + the old west. Nobles in Elendel have more of a Quebecois accent. 

Horneaters - Pacific Islander like @Fezzik I grew up in an area with a major Tongan enclave, so they sound like that to me. 

Herdezdain - Spanish. Lopen def has a LA/California style accent. Paloma has a 'fancier' one (more lisp-y like Spain spanish). Lift has an Ecuadorian one, but that's just because drawings I've seen of her remind me a girl I knew. 

Alethi - British / Indian English. Sort of on a spectrum depending on the character. 

In-universe I picture Rosharan's in general having very 'sing-song-y' accents compared to other worlds, a vestige of the impact of Singer culture. 

Actually, that’s correct for Straff. Northern Dominance had a more Germanic accent. West and Central had French ones.

However, the Alethi speak a Semitic language. English doesn’t even have all the correct vowel sounds!

Edited January 20, 2021 by Kingsdaughter613

[jamesbondsmith He/him]

Due to watching Lord of the Rings at a formative age, I imagine most dialogue in constructed fantasy worlds with some kind of British or European accent. Although let's be honest, any adaptation will just throw all this out and give them generic American accents, which I'm not sure I'll be a fan of.

Sometimes if I imagine an actor as a particular character they speak in the actor's accent. For example, I imagine Dalinar as Ken Watanabe, so he has a Japanese accent when I read his dialogue.

I agree with the reasoning that Scadrians would have French-sounding accents, but I'm pretty sure (Bands of Mourning spoilers)

Spoiler

the Southern Scadrians have German ones. Women are literally called 'frau', after all.

 

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

3 hours ago, jamesbondsmith said:

Due to watching Lord of the Rings at a formative age, I imagine most dialogue in constructed fantasy worlds with some kind of British or European accent. Although let's be honest, any adaptation will just throw all this out and give them generic American accents, which I'm not sure I'll be a fan of.

Sometimes if I imagine an actor as a particular character they speak in the actor's accent. For example, I imagine Dalinar as Ken Watanabe, so he has a Japanese accent when I read his dialogue.

I agree with the reasoning that Scadrians would have French-sounding accents, but I'm pretty sure (Bands of Mourning spoilers)

  Hide contents

the Southern Scadrians have German ones. Women are literally called 'frau', after all.

 

SoScads (and some NoScads) have Germanic accents.

[+robardin he/him]

If it would help the Shallan haters, try imagining her Veden accent in Alethi (and her laughing) as being exactly like Fran Drescher's.(Note that "help" could go in either direction)

 

(FWIW I am also from Queens, so no harm no foul right?)

[AquaRegia he/him]

I'm glad others have started this conversation, because it's something I literally cannot help but think about while reading the novels.  I often find myself reading dialogue OUT LOUD to myself, trying to get the starvin' accents right.  But I also think it's appropriate for us to muse upon because Brandon has put serious effort into giving us so many different cultures, and he even goes out of his way to describe accents to some degree in Stormlight and quite a bit in Mistborn Era 2.

Obviously, as a native U.S. English speaker, I picture everyone on Roshar 1) speaking English, and 2) having some variant of recognizable accent.  I know neither of these is realistic... but how can I help it?  Rock definitely sounds Russian to me; I even omit the word "the" from his lines to make it extra realistic.  The Lopen is absolutely Mexican (think Cheech Marin from Cheech & Chong), while the Mink is more suave, like Antonio Banderas.  Szeth will ALWAYS, in my mind sound like David Carradine in the old "Kung Fu" TV series.  It's taken me a while to adjust to the idea of the Shin being the caucasian-looking but asian-sounding culture, but I'm pretty much there now.

I also can't help but take the clues from Brandon regarding style of culture and skin colors when assigning accents on my head, so Makabaki people usually sound African, Purelakers Indian, and the Azish remind me most strongly of Persians, so Sigzil has a faint Middle-Eastern accent, although of course his Alethi is better than many native Alethi members of Bridge Four!

I love the way (did anyone else notice this?) the Heralds speak in a more casual "modern" style than any other characters?  Ash is the only person in 4 novels to use the word "yeah", and Kalak especially reads like a straight-up present-day Earth human.  So I picture them using the most familiar standard US dialect.  Nale sounds like Samuel L Jackson in my head.

I picture some stuck-up Alethi lighteyes with British accents; also Taravangian - highly educated Oxford dialect.  I really don't have a clear mental image of what singer accents would be like; sometimes, it's Caribbean (like Jamaican), sometimes African, and sometimes Native American.  Although we are told explicitly that former-parshman singers simply spoke the language of the places they lived, so really only the Listeners and the Fused would have their own unique native languages and accents.

Moving to Scadrial, the obvious "wild west" motif in Mistborn Era 2 makes "cowboy" the obvious choice for denizens of the Roughs... but Wayne is CLEARLY speaking with an Australian (or Kiwi) accent.  There is just no other reasonable way to read his dialogue given the way it is written, especially when he thickens it on purpose.  So maybe we're supposed to be inferring Aus/NZ for everybody in the Roughs.  Elendel, equally obviously, is the cosmopolitan center and melting pot, so upper-crust Londoner or rich New Yorker for the nobles, and a wild mix of Cockney, Aussie, Irish, Brooklyn, and generic redneck hick for everyone else.  Constable Captain Aradel definitely sounds like the classic overworked New York cop. 

For some reason, I always pictured the Terris speaking like "British colonial" Indians; Sazed sounded like Morgan Freeman (but with a faint Indian accent) to me even before he Ascended to Godhood.

Wow, I didn't intend to type for so long.  Seems like I have some opinions about this!

 

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

18 minutes ago, AquaRegia said:

I'm glad others have started this conversation, because it's something I literally cannot help but think about while reading the novels.  I often find myself reading dialogue OUT LOUD to myself, trying to get the starvin' accents right.  But I also think it's appropriate for us to muse upon because Brandon has put serious effort into giving us so many different cultures, and he even goes out of his way to describe accents to some degree in Stormlight and quite a bit in Mistborn Era 2.

Obviously, as a native U.S. English speaker, I picture everyone on Roshar 1) speaking English, and 2) having some variant of recognizable accent.  I know neither of these is realistic... but how can I help it?  Rock definitely sounds Russian to me; I even omit the word "the" from his lines to make it extra realistic.  The Lopen is absolutely Mexican (think Cheech Marin from Cheech & Chong), while the Mink is more suave, like Antonio Banderas.  Szeth will ALWAYS, in my mind sound like David Carradine in the old "Kung Fu" TV series.  It's taken me a while to adjust to the idea of the Shin being the caucasian-looking but asian-sounding culture, but I'm pretty much there now.

I also can't help but take the clues from Brandon regarding style of culture and skin colors when assigning accents on my head, so Makabaki people usually sound African, Purelakers Indian, and the Azish remind me most strongly of Persians, so Sigzil has a faint Middle-Eastern accent, although of course his Alethi is better than many native Alethi members of Bridge Four!

I love the way (did anyone else notice this?) the Heralds speak in a more casual "modern" style than any other characters?  Ash is the only person in 4 novels to use the word "yeah", and Kalak especially reads like a straight-up present-day Earth human.  So I picture them using the most familiar standard US dialect.  Nale sounds like Samuel L Jackson in my head.

I picture some stuck-up Alethi lighteyes with British accents; also Taravangian - highly educated Oxford dialect.  I really don't have a clear mental image of what singer accents would be like; sometimes, it's Caribbean (like Jamaican), sometimes African, and sometimes Native American.  Although we are told explicitly that former-parshman singers simply spoke the language of the places they lived, so really only the Listeners and the Fused would have their own unique native languages and accents.

Moving to Scadrial, the obvious "wild west" motif in Mistborn Era 2 makes "cowboy" the obvious choice for denizens of the Roughs... but Wayne is CLEARLY speaking with an Australian (or Kiwi) accent.  There is just no other reasonable way to read his dialogue given the way it is written, especially when he thickens it on purpose.  So maybe we're supposed to be inferring Aus/NZ for everybody in the Roughs.  Elendel, equally obviously, is the cosmopolitan center and melting pot, so upper-crust Londoner or rich New Yorker for the nobles, and a wild mix of Cockney, Aussie, Irish, Brooklyn, and generic redneck hick for everyone else.  Constable Captain Aradel definitely sounds like the classic overworked New York cop. 

For some reason, I always pictured the Terris speaking like "British colonial" Indians; Sazed sounded like Morgan Freeman (but with a faint Indian accent) to me even before he Ascended to Godhood.

Wow, I didn't intend to type for so long.  Seems like I have some opinions about this!

 

The weird thing is that NoScads actually sound French!

[Shob the Voidbringer]

related question, what race are the characters, because on the covers it shows kaladin and other alethi characters as white, but fanart shows them as much more tan or dark skinned, and it's so frustrating

[Kingsdaughter613 she/her]

2 hours ago, Shob the Voidbringer said:

related question, what race are the characters, because on the covers it shows kaladin and other alethi characters as white, but fanart shows them as much more tan or dark skinned, and it's so frustrating

Middle Eastern/Far Eastern mix. So... basically not Sub-Saharan African, but everything else is technically accurate. More yellow and green tinted skin than pink, probably. And the eyes are more Far than Middle Eastern in terms of the angle.

In terms of skin shades though, everything from fair to very dark brown goes, as Middle Eastern and Far Eastern skin runs the gamut.

Jasnah did not look white, btw. She actually looked Middle Eastern and I was very happy to see it.

Edited February 1, 2021 by Kingsdaughter613