sad-eyed-lady-of-the-low-lands:
Is it just me, or does Garak have a different accent to the others?
his inflection has a lot to do with that! :) the tempo, word tense/stress, vowel stress etc. and inflection all together can make someone sound very different. I imagine Robinson played it up on purpose, to emphasise in a subtle way how “other” Garak is on the station and from other Cardassians.
Cardassians in general have a certain pacing of speech and inflection that is very distinctive if you listen to an episode like an audiobook, which can help a lot in discovering things like this, but Garak has a very unique way of speaking as opposed to Dukat, for example.
Many Cardassians have downward inflection, which can give a “threatening” feeling or a sense of authority or expertise/certainty, and Dukat paces words in a specific way with a tone of voice that may or may not be carefully considered in order to emphasise that downward inflection.
Meanwhile, Garak has a specific flow to his speech, emphasising with tone, while he maintains the word pacing in general of other Cardassians we hear on screen (for the most part). However, Marritza and a few other Cardassians use tone as emphasis often- Notice how when they yell, their voices rarely get higher pitched, but the vowels tend to become elongated as emphasis, and other minor tells! They also tend to pair intentional tone changes while maintaining the Cardassian trend of downward inflection, which can make their words/phrases sometimes sound fast, choppy, or drawn-out depending on vowel tense and other things.
This could also be, in-canon, a translator issue! But oh god I can’t get into my nerd bullshit linguistics right now LOL it’s not even 6 AM and I’m HELLA BUSY this morning LMAO
but you are sort of right! Garak and most Cardassians we hear do have a specific way of speaking. good ear! :D
of course, I’m an American that has lived for years in England, so from my point of view, my accent perception is so totally fucked LOL but it is something I’ve been forced to study, so this is also of note:
I myself have a weird accent, a variation of the trans-atlantic accent, which is taught in theatre (although I have developed it naturally over time). As a result, a few friends have told me that I draw out certain vowels, I tense certain letters or parts of words etc. that seem “other” for both Americans and English people listening to me speak. So that’s something to consider, too- Perhaps the actors adapted a slight trans-atlantic accent style tense, to help cultivate that “otherness” without going into a full-on accent of some sort that might sound gimmicky or hard to understand! it’s not uncommon or unheard of. Just an idea. :)
oh, wow this was a really great answer thank you! I’m british so American accents are slightly lost on me, I wish I had something intelligent to add to this but I’m mostly just in awe at the amount of thought that went into this answer! :D
