The Barovian Accent

[LegallyTired]

Greetings,

I have a question mostly directed to the french speaking members of this forum but any tips would greatly help me.

The center of my future Ravenloft campaign will be most likely in Barovia. Sadly enough, I'm having problems finding how to portray a barovian accent( in french).
Would it be similar to a Transylvanian accent? And in this case how do you portray a Transylvanian accent correctly?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.



Edit: Thanks for the answers everyone.

[Gemathustra]

Go with Romanian, or Czech, if you ask me.

[Jasper]

Replace all 'we' sounds (went, week, werewolf etc: ) with a 've' (vent, veek, verewolf).

Long 'a' sounds- 'Ah' (dAHnce, crAHft)

Hard "H' sounds.

Strong 'I" sounds.

[Don Fernando]

Replacing "we" with "ve" sounds more German than Romanian or Czech. I would advise to go with a stronger accent such that of russians. I also would include some Balkan accent into it. Like Croatia, or Slovenia. Those countries look also more like Barovia to me...

[Brandi]

I bet a book like this, if you can find one locally, would help you (and I'd probably go with Romanian).

[Gorthaur]

Well as a german, I can tell you, that "ve" replacement sounds more french

Just keep on rolling the "r's" and mix it with stretching the words in length. This way it sounds more barrrovian!

[Ronia Sun]

I lived in Transylvania for the better part of a year and a half, and in Wallachia...and I can tell you that Romanians have a really hard time with that 'th' sound. Make it a hard 't'

And though it may also sound 'German', 'w' in Romanian is, in fact, pronounced 'v'...

Though I've got no idea how you'd reproduce that while speaking French. I never heard any Romanians speaking French, just Romanian and, occasionally, English...

And 'q' does not exist in Romanian, and since Barovian is supposed to be based on Romanian...I imagine they haven't got it either.

[LegallyTired]

Thanks for the answers everyone.
I'm still practicing

Seems I don't have much talent regarding the creation of voices, and the motion/gestures aren't enough to really give each NPC something unique when I portray them.

Practicing is the key I suppose!

[Carcer]

I haven't heard any Romanian that I can remember, but I have seen (not read) Romanian and it looked closer to Italian than German. I don't know if that would effect their accent, but its something that might be worth considering.

[Ronia Sun]

Hey...'Carcer'...I'm guessin' you're a Night Watch fan, then?

Romanian is, in fact, a Romance language--closest living language to Latin, as a matter of fact. However, it has a whole lot of Slavic mixed in--basically, it's like speaking Latin with a Russian accent.

A lot of their synonyms are Slavic versions of a latin word, in fact.

So yes, while Romanian is close to Italian, accent-wise it isn't really. More with the guttural, sibilant accents of Eastern Europe.

Admittedly, my accent's gotten a bit rusty these days, but Romanians still understand me just fine.

[alhoon]

"At the veekend, a verewolf attacked us! So ve vent away as soon as ve could! Thankfuly the verewolf was a bit veak, so ve managed to escape vethout a scratch!"

[ScS of the Fraternity]

That's good, but where are the nuclear wessles?

[alhoon]

Ve vent by the vessles as ve vent avay from the veak verewolf.