Game of Thrones Accents Tutorial

Game of Thrones Accents Tutorial

My name… is Jon Snow. Other northerners who have this accent are Samwell Tarly, Robert Baratheon, Ygritte and of course Bronn. And the other northerners which include Eddard Stark but none of the other Starks, not Arya, not Sansa, not Bran which is just weird! Robb Stark has a mixed accent between the North and the South. It’s not super strong either way. Theon Greyjoy does speak with some aspects of the Northern accent but I won’t include him as a full northerner because his accent isn’t super strong either way.

So how do you speak like a northerner? Well, first we need to change some sounds. For example: the sound /ʌ/ is represented by this symbol. Now we can see examples of this sound in words like… It’s that /ʌ/ sound. In the northern accent the /ʌ/ sound changes to an “…” sound. So “Up” becomes up… We all know the famous motto: “Winter is coming”. But knowing that the /ʌ/ sound in “Coming”, sounds more like… This would, in a Northern accent sound like… Also notice that there is R linking there… There is one major difference which separates separates Northern English accents to Southern English accents, that’s what we call the trap bar split or the trap bar split. And that is where, for example a southerner might say, bastard, northerners would say, bastard. So that long R sound is replaced by a shorter a sound. You are the bastard though, the busters in low , let me give you some advice bastard, what the hell do you know about being a busted.

Other words that this applies to, would be, in southern English bath. In northern English bath… And where a southerner would say Castle black, northerners would say Castle black. And we learned something very interesting. You know nothing Jon Snow.

This one, this symbol represents the O sound. There are two words in her famous line that have the O sound, know and snow. So listen to how they sound. You know nothing Jon Snow. So the O sound is replaced with an ao sound, which is similar to this sound… And then we add a bit of drama to it… You know nothing Jon Snow.

So if an O sound changes to more of an ao sound, how do ao sounds sound? Well, we have to look at words like, north and sword. They have the ao sound. North, sword, they change to North sword. So let’s have a test. Read this sentence like a northerner of Westeros or England. In the southern English accent, you’re a funny man. In the northern English accent, you’re a funny man. The a in funny changes to fo, funny, funny man. You’re a funny man.

Also up north is Davos, now he doesn’t sound exactly like Jon Snow although he’s from the north. His accent in the real world is called a Geordie accent. This accent comes from a place called Newcastle which is a real place in the north of England. In the Westeros world it comes from, I think just Davos. One interesting difference is how they pronounce the T. Let me give you an example. In a southern English accent we might say, “There’s a war to fight”. In the Davos accent, the Geordie accent, “There’s a war to fight!”. Notice how it’s not exactly a glottal T. It’s not… It’s stopped by the tongue, hitting the back of the top teeth. There’s a war to fight. In fact for most Ts, the tongue stops that sound, rather than the teeth.

Which accent? which voice should I break down next? You tell me! Let me know in the comments, and I’ll include it in a future video. Until next time HODOR! Ah that’s sad.