Accents of the Imperium

[NerdDegrees]

Still fairly new to lore, I don’t get much chance to read and mainly consume lore through a variety of Lore-Videos. But I had a question. When I hear most things about the Imperium of Man, the peoples accents seem to be mainly leaning towards British accents, which I get as GW is a British based company. Are there any examples though of accents reminiscent to other earth accents in lore? Is there a Space Marine chapter with a Deep South Creole, is there a Guard regiment that sounds like Italian natives? 

[Terminatorinhell]

I'm not totally sure if it's true but: 

I'd imagine white scars have an eastern Asian accent. Thousand sons could have like an Egyptian/Mediterranean accent. Death Korps of Kreig can have an eastern European accent. I mean in theory most can have any accent. 

 

Lol it's actually a peeve of mine in sci fi or fantasy for everyone to just have a random British like accent. 

[Noserenda]

The Voice actors are British because the job is based in England, i suspect if their recording studio was elsewhere the accents would vary too :D 

Im not a big fan of monocultures though, if i can tell someone is from the next town over because of how they speak, the Imperium is going to be a seething mass of full blown low gothic dialects let alone accents! 

It does bring up an interesting point for organisations like Space marines though, Chapter command or veterans might be preserving accents hundreds of years out of time, mixed with hints from all over the galaxy, im sure the Anthropology of it all would be fascinating to the right expert :D 

[AutumnEffect]

The White Scars and Salamanders are portrayed in the audio books with an accent. It's also remarked on in-universe that the White Scars have trouble learning and speaking in Gothic. It's stated several times that it's easier for someone to learn and speak their native language, Korchin than it is for a native of Chogoris to learn and speak Gothic.

 

World Eaters and Space Wolves I believe are also portrayed with accents though I can't speak on that with one hundred percent surety. 

Edited May 31 by AutumnEffect

[Cpt_Reaper]

Apparently Nostromons...Nostominites...Those native to Nostromo speak with a vaguely Eastern European accent. Very stereotypical of portrayals of Transylvania in pop culture. Which never once occurred to me that it was their accent until I heard the audiobook of the Night Lords novels.

[The_Worker]

It will be essentially impossible for someone speaking Low Gothic from one planet to understand someone speaking Low Gothic from another planet - this is why High Gothic exists. Local languages and dialects of the same are an entirely seperate kettle of fish! There are about 7,150 recognised languages on Earth right now, and that doesn't recognise pidgins, creoles, or dialects. If you looked at, say, a hive world, you'd likely find the low hivers speaking entirely different dialects to the uphivers, if not outright different cants or languages.

Within the fiction, specific battle-cants are frequently discussed, and groups like the Sisters of Silence even have sign language (which we now know is canonically British Sign Language thanks to the animation The Tithe). Language is even a plot and character point with the indigenous inhabitants of Gereon in Traitor General.

In terms of what these languages and accents are, the reality is that they will be as different to our languages now as those spoken by people 40,000 years ago in the neolithic are to us today, but amplified by the wild isolations caused by the vast gulf of time and space. You might find that for example two planets initially colonised by, say, Arabic speakers would have two distinct languages that might still after 15 or 20 thousand years share root words in much the same way as proto-indo-european language root words can be identified in languages spoken across Europe and Central Asia today.

As far as depictions and portrayal of these languages go, it would be great to see (and hear) more widely varied accents and difficulty of understanding each other within the fiction, particularly within the Imperial Guard's different regiments - where I can see officers talking High Gothic to each other and the existence of perhaps an Imperial Guard Low Gothic that is hypno-indoctrinated into all Guard troopers during their initial training.

[Gamiel]

In the Rogue Trader video game do many of the followers have notable accents or dialects.

[grailkeeper]

My own head cannon is that most Chaos Space Marines speak gothic in a Cadian accent because that is the one they hear it spoke in most frequently. 

[The_Worker]

 

In the Rogue Trader video game do many of the followers have notable accents or dialects.

 

Absolutely! This is particularly notable with Jai Heydari, and the Space Wolf. More of this I think would be good.

[CatchyUsername715]

There's definitely massive variation planet to planet. Terrans and near Terrans probably have a British accent, or maybe a roman accent? Latin has some weird pronunciation in real life, particularly with U, V, and W. Basically U and W do not exists in latin, with V making the english U sound, and actual Vs making a W sound. Imperium would actually be Impervium, and pronounced Imperwium. Planets probably have different accents or even dialects to languages based off of how far departed they are from Terra.