BuzzFeed recently published an interesting piece on why singers from the U.K. lose their accent when singing.
According to the popular website, linguistics professor at Hofstra University Josef Fioretta said “What gets lost in singing are the suprasegmentals. The tone, the intonation, the rhythm of a language; these all get lost in singing.”
Suprasegmentals is a linguistic term used to indicate qualities like stress, tone, and syllabification. Things like the rhythm of a song can limit a singer’s ability to pronounce words (especially vowels) in his or her usual style.
Simply stated, singing prevents singers from stressing syllables. Now we know why Ellie Goulding, Adele, Amy Winehouse and plenty others can sound American when they sing!
Check out the full article at BuzzFeed.com.
