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[Naryar]

What's that nonsense about Frenchmen being "smoking nihilists" or "eccentric, randomly stupid and slightly mad" ?

We French are supposed to be arrogant and selfish. As Chaotic Neutral, I'm fine with being called both of these, but I REFUSE to be called a nihilist or a stupid person !

[Starver]

So what would a Canadian accent be used to convey?

Well, Canadian accent would obviously convey skill in woodcutting, trapping, hunting, small animal dissection and animal training. NO EXCEPTIONS 

Don't forget the old tradition of wearing of gender-inappropriate[1] clothing...


[1] YMMV!

[Supercharazad]

I was messing around with that scotranslate website.
It's amazing the profanity it can translate:

Awa' an' bile yer heid, ye boaby sookin piece o' jobby. Yer maw is a pumpin' boot, 'n' yer family howfs lik' a skunk's bahookie!
Git a taste o' this magma!

So, for elves?

[Mister Always]

I like to think of my dwarves as just kind of shouting half-intelligibly at everyone they meet, in no particular accent.

"Greetings, dwarves of Gravelsnarled! We, the humans, have come to trade!"
"AAARRHARRWELLYEC'JUSSUNLOA'YERSHOITINNNETRADEDEPUTTHARRLADDEH"
"...come again?"
"HAAAARRRLESSAVVUSABREWEREWETALKTRADEEH?"
"...(turns to other merchants) I think they've all gone fucking bonkers after that last badger attack."

[Detonate]

I classify how dwarves talk by profession, for whatever reason. Military dwarves sound, to a degree, like the stereotypical Scottish accent due to all the missing teeth. A terrible reason, right? Miners sound similar, but they are more intelligible, etc. Elves sound Welsh, humans have no real accent, and speak Latin. Pardon my limited rougelike and tabletop RPG experience, but kobolds speak in a mixture of hisses and chirps. Goblins would speak their language from the raws in very raspy voices. I really see no point in giving dwarves accents, as they are drawn from a multitude of sources, including folklores and mythologies.

[Halnoth]

So what would a Canadian accent be used to convey?

Honestly, your average American, if they think about Canada at all, think of it as another state almost. You know the whole joke "Canada is America's hat." but Katta is right, if they are used at all it is usually to convey a gullible character but most of the time no one bothers. They can just as easily and more recognizably use a southern or texas accent to convey the same thing since that type of character is generally seen in a small town person in a big city type production.

And ya, Darkmere Americans are horribly arrogant and if you mention it usually get extremely offended which just shows how arrogant they are. Too arrogant to admit they are arrogant.

A note here, ya the statement Americans are arrogant is a stereotype and a generalization but really such sentiments are reflected in American culture as a whole. Like I said in my first post watch any movie. Unfortunate but true.

[Darkmere]

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/arrogant

As in, using your opinion as proof when making a grand assumption about another country. Taking every single American as arrogant, is arrogant. It's human nature, but something about acceptable targets seems to make hypocrisy okay.

Well let's see about every single movie then.

Arrogant, pompous: Carter Burke, Paul Riser's character from Aliens. He's a bit pompous, duplicitous, and yet educated and supportive before he backstabs everyone. Not British. Basil from Austin powers: very British, yet more of a goof and certainly not refined (it IS shit, Austin!). Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park... Independence Day...

Criminal: Easy, the murderer Skynet revived in the last Terminator movie. IIRC, Iowa accent. If that's not enough, Hammer from Iron Man 2. Nedry in Jurassic park.

Insane but likeable: Brad Pitt, 12 Monkeys. He wasn't Irish in that movie.  Any role Leslie Nielsen did later in his career. John Hammond from Jurassic Park.

Outdoorsman/survivalist... Bear Grylls would be the poster boy I suppose, but that's not a movie. Muldoon from Jurassic park. He was from Nairobi.

Your dwarf description: See Hugh Jackman. Bonus points if he's Wolverine. He wasn't in Jurassic Park, but he was in the Prestige, which is quite good.

There are some pretty dumb, arrogant Americans. There are probably a lot of them. But using a single media as a basis for judgement means all of Germany is Rammstein and all of England is Prodigy.

[Halnoth]

As in, using your opinion as proof when making a grand assumption about another country. Taking every single American as arrogant, is arrogant. It's human nature, but something about acceptable targets seems to make hypocrisy okay.

Well let's see about every single movie...

First, not just my opinion, it was a general sweeping statement sure but you took it to the extreme. It is a bit pedantic and ostentatious to require every statement to be followed by a caveat or disclaimer.

Of course not every movie (although I did say any movie, pedantic again, should have said alot of movies) is like that but thats not the point; what I described is an understood if cliche practice, especially in movies where the focus is say action instead of plot.
 
Here is a bit of reading on the subject (the first focuses on Bristish accents over all and the second is about Disney but I'm not going to bother providing links to all this stuff when if you are really interested you can check it out yourself). However, I'm done with this thread my posts were not meant to be more than a light discussion but this seems to be turning into a bit of a flame war.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A891155
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/popcult/handouts/wenkeric.htm

[Karakzon]

-ahem-

i belive any accent is fine, since anyone whos read english before, and spoke english before, can appreciate how not everything is propper. and the same for any other language.
The british isles are used because in general, we switch accents every 10miles. Thats alot of accents. Up north anyways, i know alot of the south are posh speakers even if their not posh folks.

I personaly like the scotts accent, the welsh and irish are humerous when angry as well. Its something different from the norm preceived by the majority of people. Thus it is a good peice of narritve use when used propperly. Your always going to have someone take it too far. Welsh and scots speak just the same as english people in normal conversations, its just when their angry/talking fast that they skip sylibals.

also: if any of my spelling is screwed over then i must apolagise, i can quite happly talk the talk. just not write it down as well.

[Cespinarve]

So what would a Canadian accent be used to convey?

Honestly, your average American, if they think about Canada at all, think of it as another state almost. You know the whole joke "Canada is America's hat." but Katta is right, if they are used at all it is usually to convey a gullible character but most of the time no one bothers. They can just as easily and more recognizably use a southern or texas accent to convey the same thing since that type of character is generally seen in a small town person in a big city type production.

And ya, Darkmere Americans are horribly arrogant and if you mention it usually get extremely offended which just shows how arrogant they are. Too arrogant to admit they are arrogant.

A note here, ya the statement Americans are arrogant is a stereotype and a generalization but really such sentiments are reflected in American culture as a whole. Like I said in my first post watch any movie. Unfortunate but true.

Which is odd because Canadians, as a whole, devote themselves pretty firmly to not being Americans, and never think of ourselves as a state, to the point where Wikileaks memos from the US Embassy in Ottawa tends to get rather hysterical about the whole things. "they don't want to be like us" seems to cause them some worry.

[tolkafox]

That's incorrect.

It's "We want to be like them" that's causing the real worrying. We lost a lot of good men to Canada.
Because they moved to Canada.
Because Canada is awesome.

[Mister Always]

That's because nobody hates Canada.

Hell, we, the Dutch, send them a fucktonne of tulips every year, because they were bros to us in WW2 and let our royal family stay over there.

Really, it's hard to think of a negative portrayal of Canadians in ANY fiction.

[Number4]

Really, it's hard to think of a negative portrayal of Canadians in ANY fiction.

What? South Park.

[Kattaroten]

What's that nonsense about Frenchmen being "smoking nihilists" or "eccentric, randomly stupid and slightly mad" ?

We French are supposed to be arrogant and selfish. As Chaotic Neutral, I'm fine with being called both of these, but I REFUSE to be called a nihilist or a stupid person !

Actually all these stereotypes exist althought in the mind of different people... The same as the british stereotype can be the suit-wearing fancy-talking businessman or the cockney, football (soccer) hooligan or even the hardcore punk fan, with the torn clothes and such. There are millions of stereotypes, all of them fun! xD

[Cespinarve]

Really, it's hard to think of a negative portrayal of Canadians in ANY fiction.

What? South Park.

South Park, while it can be nasty, always seems to being doing it with affection, the younger sibling teasing the elder. (As a permanent settlement, and not a commercial post, Quebec city dates as far back to Cartier in 1541).