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So let’s say that five an a half years ago you had this great gig going selling Minecraft
servers to middle schoolers and you made $172,000 in one year, which was amazing, but you were
a teenager so you didn’t really understand how taxes worked and, crucially, that you
had to pay them, and then a few years later you started a YouTube channel and it got pretty
popular and then a few years after that you started getting calls from the IRS, which
you somehow missed, but then you started getting knocks on your door, which you also somehow
missed, and then you look at the internet and it tells you that you only have six months
left for the statue of limitations to run out on tax crimes.
If that were the case, a good place to go would be Antarctica.
That’s because, during the seven month period from around March to September, no planes,
boats, or anything visit the continent due to the harsh conditions and so the thousand
or so individuals staying there will be totally and completely isolated.
Of course, plenty of countries have research stations in Antarctica, but we want to talk
about those of the British Antarctic Survey—not because we’re all about that BAS, but rather
because they have something strange going on with their accents.
Now, just two of the British stations are occupied year-round—Halley and Rothera.
During summer, Halley will have about 70 inhabitants while Rothera will have up to 130.
In winter, though, staffing is reduced to the bare minimum needed to keep the facilities
running—about 20-30 at Rothera and 10-15 at Halley.
As you can imagine, being stuck mostly indoors with so few people for eight months, the overwinterers
get close.
Closer than Joe Biden to a women.
So close, in fact, that as a group they develop their own unique accent.
This was discovered by a group of researchers from the University of Munich, so shoutout
to you Jonathan, Michele, Mary, and Florian.
I’m sure being in an HAI video is the recognition you always dreamed of.
They recruited eleven overwinterers—eight Brits, one American, one German, and one Icelander—from
the British Antarctic Survey and recorded them saying 28 different words before their
departure.
Then, these eleven went to Antarctica.
Now, what’s interesting about this scenario is that it’s one of the few ways to simulate
the environment of isolation that created new accents hundreds of years ago.
This is basically colonialism, just without all the pointy hats and killing natives.
In the case of the British colonization of Australia or New Zealand or the US, the accents
developed through an isolated group of largely British settlers slowly altering the way they
spoke as a group, in part thanks to different non-British immigrant groups coming in.
At the time of their founding, living in one of those colonies was just as or perhaps more
isolating than overwintering in Antarctica today.
Now, a big way that an American or Aussie or Kiwi accent differs from that of a British
accent is in the vowels.
For example, in my super-cool mid-Atlantic American accent, I pronounce the vowel in
trap the same as in bath, however, in most accents from England, Australia, and New Zealand,
the vowel in trap will sound like my trap, but the bath will sound more like bath.
Meanwhile, when I say pin and pen, they sound completely different, but in New Zealand the
vowel would be pronounced exactly the same—it’s pin and pen.
Also, in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand they would pronounce it as “paid maternity
leave” whereas in the US we would say “what?”
Given their importance in accents, vowels are what this study focused on and the 28
words were chosen to be indicative of six different vowel pronunciations.
They included words like keyed, kid, jockey, code, queued, and cooed.
Upon arrival, the recruits were recorded again every six weeks for the entirety of their
eight-month stay, and then the recordings were plugged into some fancy linguistics analysis
software computer sciency electronic something to make it objective.
They then used some fancy data analytics confidence modeling math numbers something to assure
that any changes observed were significant enough that they could not be explained by
chance.
But now for the big question: what changed?
Well, first of all, the average vowel length increased by up to 30 milliseconds, which
is interesting and significant, but that’s only sort of an aspect of an accent.
What definitely is is vowel pronunciation.
It was found that, on average, after the winter cooped up together, everyone’s vowel pronunciations
became more similar—as in, they were shifting towards one common pronunciation.
The biggest example of this was with the “ou” sound.
Now, listen closely, because the difference is subtle, but they started out saying “food”
but by the end, it sounded closer to “food.”
What’s changed here is where in the mouth the vowel is formed.
In “food” its further back, whereas in “food” its further forward so this is
evidence of a shift towards what’s called vowel fronting.
Therefore, one of the first aspects of this Antarctic accent is vowel fronting.
Now, the study’s authors are careful to warn that the results from a small sample
size of eleven are hardly conclusive, and they certainly were influenced significantly
by the one German participant learning to speak English more similarly to a native speaker
through exposure, but they still do conclude that these changes are indicative of the mechanisms
through which a common accent begins to form in an isolated group.
For example, one author points out that, when humans first colonize Mars, a Martian accent
will begin to develop in this exact same way and, given the much longer period humans will
be away for such a mission, such an accent will likely be noticeably distinct within
just a few generations.
Of course, if you end up popping out to Mars, you’ll have a long trip, and the best way
to fill up that trip is by downloading videos offline on the Curiosity Stream and Nebula
apps.
Now, I do have a recommendation for a first series to start on.
It’s called Working Titles and it’s where a bunch of educational creators go and analyze
the title sequences from their favorite TV shows.
For example, City Beautiful—you know, the guy who makes urban planning videos—just
released one on the Parks and Recreation title sequence, and then there are fourteen others
already out.
As you probably know by now, the best way to get access to Nebula is through a subscription
to Curiosity Stream.
They’re, of course, the streaming site home to thousands of top-quality nonfiction shows
and documentaries, whereas Nebula is home to original content by your favorite educational
internet creators, myself included.
The two are available as a bundle deal that costs as little as $20 a year by going to
CuriosityStream.com/HAI, and signing up for any subscription.