What accents should aliens have?

[Thaluikhain]

Way back when in 1973, the BBC made a Doctor Who story entitled Frontier in Space.

At one point, the Doctor goes to speak to the Draconian Emperor, who had a very noticeable upper class accent. The only problem was that it was an upper class Scottish accent.

Now, if that had been an upper class English accent, I'd probably not paid much attention, but Scottish somehow seemed out of place.

I was wondering, assuming you aren't putting on a made up space accent, do people think some accents just seem more appropriate for aliens than others?

[small]I'd also mention Blade Kitten, in which a number of characters have interesting choices of accents, but it doesn't matter so much because they are OtT silly versions of real accents.[/small]

 

[Alfador_VII]

You could just have them not speaking English, then it wouldn't really matter about accents.

Of course then you either confuse the audience or force them to read subtitles

If they are speaking English, I don't think it really matters what accent they use, so long as they're reasonably consistent with other members of their species. Also, try to avoid racial stereotyping, like George Lucas failed to do in Episode I, with the Trade Federation and their hilariously awful Japanese accents.

 

[Eddie the head]

I would think so. Some of it might be symbolism I imagine the prothean in ME3 having an african accent had something to do with how Africa is the birth place of the human race and the protheans are the birth place of well intelligent life. Or I am reading way to much into that.

 

[Ectoplasmicz]

Russian.

I mean seriously, how cool would that be!?

 

[JoJo]

snip

Just a head's up mate, you might want to edit more into that post you've got there as technically a video on it's own counts as a "low content" post and if anyone reports it to the mods, it'll be a warning for you :-(

OT: Having real accents rather than made-up ones can help convey the type of person speaking though stereotyping, I have to admit as an Englishman I love hearing my own accent in films so I don't mind if it's usually a bad guy speaking them, although in some contexts real accents do seem silly (such as in Halo, five hundred years in the future the characters are still speaking in American accents).

 

[DoPo]

I imagine the prothean in ME3 having an african accent

They have Jamaican accents... I don't know if that helps.

OT: I really don't know. Probably not a typical Earth nation accent. They are alien by definition they shouldn't have a recognisable accent. And the problem is that they (most probably, anyway) have nothing in common with Earth languages. I mean just look Earth itself - English, French Dutch and German are different and they are from the same group, but what about all the other languages - Russian very little in common and that originated on the same continent, how about Korean - it very clearly has nothing to do with those languages. And so on, and so forth. Aliens don't have the benefit of coming from meeting and communication with other Earthly nations for thousands of years.

That is before mentioning that aliens might not even be able to pronounce English due to difference in biology. But assuming they are able to learn and speak some English (for example), they should have distinctly odd accent. Think the G-man from Half-Life - he speaks English and doesn't have an accent but you are left with the impression that it is not a language he can comfortably speak. So I think they should speak somewhat like that.

Although, I would really be amused if there were aliens who learned to speak to humans but only in a odd language that isn't really popular, however, it was the only one the aliens could pronounce easily.

EDIT: Well, turns out French isn't from the same group as German.

 

[PotluckBrigand]

Although, I would really be amused if there were aliens who learned to speak to humans but only in a odd language that isn't really popular, however, it was the only one the aliens could pronounce easily.

Haha... like they've spent 5,000 years learning and incorporating perfect ancient Sumerian into their culture, and they swing back around to show it off and no one knows what they're saying.

That would make a funny short film.

 

[Total LOLige]

A Birmingham(England) accent or anywhere in the midlands. It would be so funny.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

English, French and German are different and they are from the same group

No they're not. German and English are from the Germanic language family and French is from the Romance language family.

 

[GrandmaFunk]

No they're not. German and English are from the Germanic language family and French is from the Romance language family.

Modern English derives heavily from both German and French.

 

[Xeldrak]

I think they should have their own accent - Peter Jurasik referes to his Mollari-Accent at "Eurotrash".

 

[DoPo]

English, French and German are different and they are from the same group

No they're not. German and English are from the Germanic language family and French is from the Romance language family.

Damn! My knowledge of languages has lied to me. OK, swap French for Dutch. I'll edit my post to hide mend my ignorance honest mistake.

 

[FamoFunk]

I think a Welsh accent would suit very well


"Alright, Boyo, I'll be there now in a minute, innit"

 

[Eddie the head]

I imagine the prothean in ME3 having an african accent

They have Jamaican accents... I don't know if that helps.

I am like 99.99999% sure it was not Jamaican. It might not have been African but I am positive it's not Jamaican.

 

[Sammaul]

Imagine them all having Bobcat Goldtwaith's voice.

 

[dobahci]

There's no wrong place for a Cockney accent. Make sure to sprinkle in liberal amounts of Cockney rhyming slang, with no subtitles or explanation.

 

[DoPo]

I imagine the prothean in ME3 having an african accent

They have Jamaican accents... I don't know if that helps.

I am like 99.99999% sure it was not Jamaican. It might not have been African but I am positive it's not Jamaican.

Well, here's the video with the leaked lines, I saw.


It does sound Jamaican to me, I may be mistaking.