BassTractor Posted October 29 Share Posted October 29 (edited) Edit: Title should've been "Pitch range in speech ...." I'll leave it so as to show why the posts are what they are. What do you say: Is using a sixth or a seventh in speech, within a word or between two words, "normal" or special or annoying or ... what? Background: "Nordic countries have the widest (?) frequency range in speech", some linguist claimed. I'd always thought it was the Brits, but may of course be totally wrong. Here, we have a newsreader who can well jump a seventh within a word. She's infamous for it, and some people switch off the sound when she comes on. One Annie Hulley doing the voice-over on "The Yorkshire Auction House" jumps a documented sixth at the very least, and it made me wonder: How does that come across in Britland? Is that nice, normal, special, insufferable ... something else? (To me, a cheesehead living in a cold country, it comes across as fake cosey and totally over the top, but then I tend to be the odd one out, and also can't remember such speech from my native Goudaland.) I'm interested in hearing the British perspective on things (based on my old belief that you guys are the frequency range masters). Might well be that's she's the ultimate voice-over reader in your neck of the woods, Idunno. Comments appreciated. It intrigues me. Edited October 30 by BassTractor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekomatic Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 Do you have a clip or link as an example? I’m not sure most people will have considered this in such depth! Having some familiarity with Swedish, I can believe the claim that Nordic languages score high on the pitch range metric and the suggestion that it’s more so if the speaker is trying to come across as super-friendly or engaged. I always thought of English as a fairly middle-of-the-road language on that score. What about tonal languages like (any form of) Chinese? 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rosie C Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 (edited) I don't know much about this subject, beyond my piano teacher claiming that mothers tend to call children using a falling major third e.g Tom-my! and that feels like a fairly large gap, so a sixth or seventh sounds a lot. Edited October 30 by Rosie C 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bagman Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 Trying living in Aotearoa where every sentence sounds like a question 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gjones Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 I would think that the Outer Hebrides accent wins as far as frequency modulation is concerned. Here's a wee example. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimR Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 Mine used to frequently jump 2 octaves when I was 14. Not on purpose though. 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hellzero Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 Bert, aren't you mistaking frequency and pitch? Brits have high pitch voices lacking low mids frequencies and Scandinavians have loads of low mids in their voices, but can go as high if not higher than Brits, so they certainly win when it comes yo frequency range... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BassTractor Posted October 30 Author Share Posted October 30 (edited) Thanks, for the comments, folks! For brevity, I (misguidedly?) decided to leave the different Chineses out of this, but the very thought of those languages made me think that probably a listener's response is not only influenced by the intervals per se, but much by what one is used to in that language. As to @Hellzero's comment, I think he's right in that I used the wrong term. For attempted clarity, I wonder both about the total pitch range in a certain culture and about individuals' ranges and intervals. I've always had the feeling that Brits are more welcoming to pitch ranges and intervals than say the Dutch or the Nordics ... and then came this linguist's comment. As to the two examples I mentioned: Here's an example of Northern-Sami, which is one in a North-Western group of Finno-Ugric languages, and this footage starts with the regular use of it. Segment 8 (clickable below the vid), shows the less regular version I mentioned by a journalist named Kaisa Aikio. https://tv.nrk.no/serie/oddasat-tv/sesong/202410/episode/SANY70102924 An Annie Hulley example from the spin-off series Celebrity Yorkshire Auction House (embedding disallowed) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cYO-qRi3rE I couldn't find a good Series 1 example ("in beautiful North Yorkshire, in the pretty town of Kirkbymoorside ..."), but to my ears, by seaon 5, she seems to have mellowed somewhat (sounding more "reasonable" to my ears) : Edited October 30 by BassTractor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beer of the Bass Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 10 hours ago, Rosie C said: I don't know much about this subject, beyond my piano teacher claiming that mothers tend to call children using a falling major third e.g Tom-my! and that feels like a fairly large gap, so a sixth or seventh sounds a lot. Just realised I do this with my dog, with the first syllable lengthened. "Iiii - vor!" 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stub Mandrel Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 No way, definitely the Nordics... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nekomatic Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 Well I just picked a video of people speaking Dutch at random and I'm going to say that while they do talk in a bit of a monotone much of the time, once they get excited about something there's plenty of pitch variation. Maybe it's not so much about the language, more the national character. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Downunderwonder Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 I think the Brits would acknowledge Irish lyricism is more acute. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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