Adele, Sam Smith, the Rolling Stones, Cliff Richard, Iggy Azalea, Nicki Minaj, The Killers, Snow — what do these artists all have in common? Their accent. That is, the fact that they sometimes put on an accent other than their own when they sing.

Identity in song is a fluid thing. I’ve long thought that it was easier to sing in an accent that isn’t your own than it is to speak in a foreign accent. This turns out to be somewhat true according to Bill Beeman, a sociolinguist at University of Minnesota. Beeman also happens to be an opera singer. He speaks and sings in multiple languages: English, German, Italian, French and Russian. However, his accent in each of these languages is acctually better when he sings than when he speaks. More.

Read the full article and listen to the podcast in The World in Words here: http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-11-10/faking-funk

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