| rdfs:comment
| - When aliens helpfully speak English (or any other Earth language), an issue comes up - what sort of accent do they have? As is the case for any language, "unaccented" English doesn't exist (although if argued, it could be in Oxfordshire, the origin of the modern English vernacular and the RP dialect) When you don't notice someone's accent, that's because they're speaking with a very familiar accent - either your own, or a "broadcast standard" like American Broadcast English in the US and Received Pronunciation in the UK. So what sort of accent would an alien, a being with a wholly unearthly language background, have?
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| abstract
| - When aliens helpfully speak English (or any other Earth language), an issue comes up - what sort of accent do they have? As is the case for any language, "unaccented" English doesn't exist (although if argued, it could be in Oxfordshire, the origin of the modern English vernacular and the RP dialect) When you don't notice someone's accent, that's because they're speaking with a very familiar accent - either your own, or a "broadcast standard" like American Broadcast English in the US and Received Pronunciation in the UK. So what sort of accent would an alien, a being with a wholly unearthly language background, have? In movies and television, the most common answers are the most pragmatic: The accents of the actors playing the aliens, or if any of those accents would stand out too much, The accents of the audience. Those are the easiest solutions, and viewers often don't think about it as long as the accents are unremarkable to them. Have an actor speak with a strong and identifiable accent, though, and the same people who wouldn't think twice about an alien talking like a Londoner or a Midwesterner start wondering why the extraterrestrial sounds like someone from New Orleans, Sydney, or Manchester. You also see this reaction when shows reach other countries and new viewers are puzzled (or amused) at the entire rest of the universe speaking like Brits or Yanks. Naturally, ignoring the issue of accents isn't the only option. After all, if the aliens have learned how to speak English, they could have their own accent, shaped by their alien language (and possibly their alien mouths). On the other hand, if the aliens work very hard in their language classes, then they might learn to speak with a particular human accent, perhaps that of their teachers or one of the broadcast standard accents. Going the easier route, if translation technology lets humans understand aliens speaking their own languages, then what accents the translator uses are entirely arbitrary; this could be the accent of the manufacturer, one of the broadcast-standard accents, or just an option changed with a turn of a dial. Now, representing some of these choices is trickier in certain media than others: writing "he spoke with a Rigellian drawl" is vastly easier than making up an accent and coaching actors to use it reliably. That doesn't stop some television or movie productions, though. After all, it's always possible to cheat by boldly mangling an accent or exploiting a foreign actor's own real accent when most of the the audience is unfamiliar with it. Still, getting this week's guest star to properly "talk like an alien" may be easier said than done... Again, this isn't simply an English-language trope - every language has accents, and the same issues come up in Science Fiction works in those languages. Examples of Aliens of London include:
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