If you're dealing with a southern or Confederate
character do not get sucked into the temptation to use
a heavy southern drawl, or accent.  They didn't exist
during the war.  Period accounts from Europeans and
other Americans show that southerners spoke pretty
much the same as northerners and if anything, they
spoke with an English accent, more so the higher up
the social scale you climb.
  There are many accounts of Civil War scouts,
pickets, and advanced units not being able to
determine if the soldiers to their front were Union or
Confederate, because...both sides spoke pretty
identical.  Also you would find Irish, Creole, German,
French, and Italian sounding accents throughout the
south.  The heavy southern drawl doesn't seem to
appear until later in the 19th C. and is mainly
derived from celtic language sources.
  Dave Naumec

--- Beth Ilyssa Tischler <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> As an ex-professional actor, i have to qualify deb's
> comment: a) mel gibson
> may be professional, but he is not an actor :) b)
> any stage actor worth his
> salt can learn almost any accent, but it may be more
> hassle than its worth as no
> one knows exactly how they spoke and consistency
> among actors will be hard
> with no standard to work from. Certainly, I would
> recommend using classically
> trained stage actors -- it will be easiest for them
> to get rid of the
> colloquialisms of today and go to a neutral place
> for a period piece.
> Also, as a Philadelphian and someone who knew some
> of the historic Philly
> people, the whole Historic Philadelphia situation is
> really a shame. They pay
> enough for good actors to work for them (its a great
> day job for actors and
> summer job for acting students), but they don't
> recruit the good actors, and the
> good ones that do work for them usually end up in
> the singing groups or the
> specifically "acting" troupes, not the living
> history stuff.
> don't let them ruin your trip to philly! come visit
> me at the Atwater Kent,
> where I begin my internship on monday :) <A
>
HREF="www.philadelphiahistory.org">www.philadelphiahistory.org</A>
> beth
>
>
> [log in to unmask] writes:
>
> > Accents: don't. Even most professional actors
> can't do them well.
> >
> > As for speech patterns, read diaries, journals,
> plays and popular literature
> > of
> > the time period to get an idea of how people
> spoke. If you can find examples
> > from the same geographical area you are in, that
> is even better. Wearing the
> > period clothing helps too. If you wear it long
> enough, you'll find that it
> > will
> > change the way you move which will help your
> "character". Period dances of
> > the
> > time are good for teaching that as well.
> >
> > It's my experience that speech patterns and
> mannerisms are much more
> > effective
> > for conveying a character than accent. You should
> be able to tell that
> > someone
> > is "different" without them having to utter a
> word. Thus, it is better to
> > forget about the accent (because until
> phonographs, we really don't know
> > what
> > people sounded like anyway). And again, very few
> people can really master
> > accents and thus instead of adding to a character,
> they usually become
> > distractions.
> >
> > A funny side story, a British friend and I were
> walking through the historic
> > part of Philadelphia and cringing at the bad
> "English" accents being used by
> > the living history people. He said to me, "You're
> accent is probably more
> > correct than mine for this time period." The fact
> that the women had
> > draw-string mob caps didn't help much either. Tisk
> tisk Philly, you guys
> > should
> > know better.
> >
> > Deb
> >
>
>
>
=========================================================
> Important Subscriber Information:
>
> The Museum-L FAQ file is located at
> http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may
> obtain detailed information about the listserv
> commands by sending a one line e-mail message to
> [log in to unmask] . The body of the
> message should read "help" (without the quotes).
>
> If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one
> line e-mail message to [log in to unmask]
> . The body of the message should read "Signoff
> Museum-L" (without the quotes).
>


__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Calendar - Free online calendar with sync to Outlook(TM).
http://calendar.yahoo.com

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).