Prof creates Web site archive of dialects heard around the world By Mike Stern Accents. They give depth to theatre and headaches to actors. To alleviate those migraines, Paul Meier, associate professor of theatre and film, has created a Web site containing recorded accents that can be used by actors to learn dialects from around the world. Called IDEA or International Dialects of English Archive, it holds both English dialects and English spoken in the accents of other languages.
Visitors can listen to dialects and accents from all over the world.
Countries are then broken down even further. For example, South African dialects are split between Pretoria and Cape Town. Now, with sound processing programs, making such an archive is a natural idea. Meier has spent much of his career traveling to movie filming locations as a dialect coach, often using recordings to train actors. Experiences like a job last summer established a need for this quick referencing system, he said.