this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2023
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Right so don't really know if this is bait... but that's one kind of accent (and the tickest pronunciation at that) in ulster, specifically greater Belfast/co. Antrim and very few people speak that thick. For the most part they should be quite understandable from the perspective of anyone who consumes any English language media outside of only American or only London (RP) English. The number of times I have had people have trouble with my accent in Europe and then I ask them what they watched when learning English and the answer is American TV is astounding.
This is me getting on my wee podium now but I have a huge problem with the Americans and Brits for this, they marginalise the fuck out if our dialect, make fun of it for being unitelligible (after making no effort to understand it), and often deny it any legitimacy.
In reality Irish English is spoken by 5-7million people, as large as some dialects of European languages (eg. Austrian/swiss German, Belgian/Swiss French, etc) and if you learn French or German you still get some exposure to those dialects and if you out your mind to it understand it.
I mean I know you're talking about the wider world and not just this thread, but you started the conversation by being disingenuous about Americans and their dialects. It's kind of hard for people to take "I have a legitimate dialect" seriously when you just got done trashing half a continent's worth of dialects
Maybe if we all broach the topic with a little more understanding, you and everyone will feel better about it. For example Appalachian English and Northern Ireland English are both dialects with their own rules of pronunciation and grammar. They're both legitimate. But it's not surprising they'd have trouble understanding each other because they have so little interaction. But with patience and mutual respect it can happen
Most German speakers make fun of how unintelligible the Austrian German dialect is. It's so bad sometimes that translators are required.
As a native german speaker I have to say swiss german is unintelligible gibberish.
You just also seem to have a problem of marginalizing US English and UK English. They vary drastically. Just like how you just stated accents in your own country can vary.