Elon Musk is one of the most prominent figures of the 21st century. An engineer, entrepreneur, and millionaire with truly unimaginable ideas. PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX — all of these are his creations, and the businessman is not planning to stop at just a few globally successful projects. He inspires millions with his example and proves that one person can indeed change the world for the better.
Elon Musk frequently speaks at conferences and seminars, gives interviews, and maintains social media. Many of his fans have noticed that his English slightly differs from classical American.
In this article, we will take a detailed look at Elon Musk's English, his accent, and the peculiarities of his pronunciation. We will also analyze how the businessman’s speech has changed over the past 20 years. So, let's dive in.
Elon Musk's Accent: South African or American?
Elon Musk spent his childhood in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa. English is an official language in South Africa, so it is taught in schools and widely used in everyday life.
The influence of Afrikaans on the development of English in South Africa is relatively minor, but it is still felt in terms of pronunciation and articulation of words.
At the start of his business career, Elon Musk had a classic Pretoria accent. This is especially noticeable in early videos of him.
Around 1999, Musk gained popularity and wealth. The payment system PayPal, of which he is a co-founder, gained worldwide recognition within just a year of its development.
In the videos, it’s clear how Elon Musk speaks. His southern accent is distinct, though it has been slightly smoothed over due to his time living in Canada (in 1999, the entrepreneur was still living in Canada).
Interestingly, Musk's accent cannot be entirely classified as southern. It has a significant amount of American influence.
For instance, a very noticeable feature of the South African accent is the pronunciation of the diphthong 'ai' in words such as life, light, fight. In the American version, they are pronounced as [aɪ]: [laɪf], [laɪt], [faɪt].
You can listen to the pronunciation of words with a classic American accent .
In Southern English, the sound [aɪ] often transforms into [ɔɪ], as in the words annoying or toy.
In Elon Musk's speech, the words light and life sound familiar to the American ear. This can be heard in the video above.
Musk uses a typical American [r], where the tip of the tongue is motionless and doesn't vibrate. In the South African accent, a harsher, more pronounced [r] is often used, which sounds closer to the Russian [r]. This is due to the characteristics of this sound in Afrikaans — it is harder than in English.
The American pronunciation of the sound [r] by Musk can be explained quite simply. The hard [r] is mainly spoken by South Africans for whom Afrikaans is their native language and English is the second. For Musk, it's the opposite: English is his mother tongue, while Afrikaans is the second.
Moreover, living in Canada and later in the United States has significantly altered Musk's language.
Now we will analyze the characteristics of the South African accent that remain in Musk's speech to this day.
Lack of pauses in words and dropping sounds
One of the remarkable features of South African English is its fast speech tempo and almost complete absence of pauses between words.
While in British English pauses are clear, in American English they may be absent when pronouncing articles or interjections, in South African English, an entire sentence can be said in one breath, without any pauses at all.
Elon Musk speaks very quickly. He hardly pauses between words. Because of this, he simply omits many sounds. Let's look at an example.
In the word have, the businessman often drops the [h] sound, so instead of [hæv], it becomes [‘æv]. However, in significant nouns that start with the letter h, the sound is always present.
Musk also often drops vowels in articles and pronouns, like the, that, their, and similar. In fast speech, he omits the vowel and pronounces the word together with the next one.
I worked in the paint shop… — I worked in the paint shop.
00:00:39Musk pronounces the phrase 'I worked in the paint shop' in one motion. It sounds like this: [aɪ wɜrkɪn’ z’peɪnʃɑp].
It's clear that in the phrase 'worked in,' Musk dropped the '-ed' ending, making 'worked in' sound exactly like 'working.' At the same time, the article 'the' is almost completely reduced — only the sound [z] remains, resembling a prefix of the following word. It is [z], not [ð] or [θ]. Also, in the merging of words 'paint shop,' the sound [t] was dropped.
Such reductions are also characteristic of American English, but to a lesser extent.
It's noteworthy that this can only be heard in Musk's interviews, where he speaks emotionally. In staged performances, such sound mergers are practically absent.
Frequent use of the sound [z]
In South African accent, the sound [z] (as in the words zip or zebra) is often used instead of [s].
Elon Musk does this as well. Moreover, not only in everyday speech but even in the name of his company — Tesla.
In American English, Tesla is pronounced as [ˈtɛslə]. The British often pronounce the sound [s] in this word as double — this is also acceptable.
Musk pronounces the company's name as [ˈtɛzlə], with a [z]. This fact still surprises both the British and Americans, so Leslie Stahl, a prominent journalist from CBS, directly asked Musk how he pronounces the word Tesla. He confirmed that it is indeed pronounced with a [z].
The replacement of [s] with [z] is one of the features of the Southern accent. Elon Musk has not yet rid himself of it.
Comparing Elon Musk's English in 1999 and 2020
If we compare the available recordings of Elon Musk's speech from 1999 and 2020, it becomes clear that his English has become more Americanized. In 1999, his speech had subjectively 60% South African accent and 40% American, while now it's 75% American and only 25% South African.
The changes in Elon’s English cannot be called too significant, but they are still present.
In 1999, Elon pronounced most vowels nasally. This 'nasal' pronunciation is very common in South Africa. By 2020, there was no trace of it left. The intonations in modern interviews are purely American. There is a suspicion that after achieving worldwide success, Musk deliberately practiced public speaking to present effectively at conferences and seminars.
In everyday life and informal interviews, his speech shows hints of a Southern accent, but there are none during his public speaking.
Moreover, Elon no longer pronounces words like "most," "cost," and "got" with an "ɔ:" sound. In 1999, he pronounced these words as [ɔ:]. This can be clearly heard in recordings from 1999 at the very beginning of this article. Mo-ost, ko-ost, go-ot — that's how these words sounded back then. Now they sound quite American, with [ɒ]: [mɒst], [kɒst], [gɒt].
As for vocabulary, there are virtually no changes. Elon Musk has not used slang expressions from South African English, both in 1999 and in 2020. He actively employs neologisms and scientific jargon, but that is part of his profession.
Overall, one can notice how much Elon Musk's accent has changed over 20 years. This is quite understandable, considering that he has predominantly lived and worked in the USA for these 20 years. Even if the entrepreneur has not consciously worked on Americanizing his speech (though we do think he has), today his English is much more American than South African.
By observing many prominent individuals, we see that to create the desired accent, it is important to immerse oneself in a full ecosystem of the English language. This is precisely what we have implemented at EnglishDom. This yields excellent results — after just three months of classes, students progress from "London is the capital of Great Britain" to achieving proper pronunciation with a classic British or American accent. All the products of our ecosystem are listed below.
This section is new for us, so we are interested in your opinion. Please share your thoughts on the detailed analysis of celebrity accents. We look forward to your comments!
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Source: habr.com
