In movie!IWTV, Armand’s origins aren’t explicitly stated, just that he’s an Old World vampire. He could very well be Spanish, that’s Banderas’ actual ethnicity. So we don’t know. Just bc Louis and Claudia meet him in Paris doesn’t mean he’s French; he tells them he’s 400 yrs old, he’s probably lived elsewhere.
On my recent post about Antonio!Armand, @slow-read shared this opinion: “I would like to add that Antonio’s accent also gives one a sense of age, otherness and it sounds (or sounded) exotic to the audience? It was perfect for Armand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world. *-*” The
ppl behind movie!IWTV might have chosen Banderas and made the character this way rather than a more canon-compliant actor bc they wanted him to be more convincing as
Armand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world to audiences who had not read the books. Filmmakers then (and now) want a movie to appeal to wide audiences. I was a kid then, but it seems to me that fandom (and specifically, trying to please the fanbase as a primary objective) wasn’t as much of a consideration at that time.
In the books, Armand comes from a place called Kiev, which according to AR is in Russia and according to the google is in the Ukraine, but idk. Then he spent years in Italy which is where he got most of his mortal education, so he may have picked up some of that accent from his teachers and friends… and then he lived in Paris for many years so he might have consciously tried to pick up some of that accent in order to blend in.
Anyone is welcome to answer this with what you think Armand’s accent is like!
I reckon Armand didn’t spend long enough in Italy to pick up a lasting accent, it will have faded by now. It’s been such a long time since he lived in Eastern Europe that I’m not sure he would have that in his accent, either. Maybe he does have a trace of it left, since it was the first place he lived in. He spends so much time around Frenchmen to this day, I reckon he has a lot of French in his accent. Although let’s not forget he’s also spent a lot of time in America by now, too.
Hard to know, when we don’t have a real life model for someone who’s lived for so long in so many places! I’m gonna go with a cocktail, predominately French with a hint of Eastern Europe and American. The filmmakers with Banderas were probably like, “Eh, European is good enough, no one will know the difference as long as it’s foreign sounding.”
In MtD (so 1995) Lestat says that his accent has been entirely sanded down and he sounds fully American. His actual phrasing is “if he had any French or Italian accent left I couldn’t hear it” (may not be verbatim, I’m writing this on public transport lol), which implies to me that his accent prior to that sounded – to Lestat – like a blend of both, or something that could not quite be determined but could be either of the two.
Daniel, however (in the 1970s), thinks it sounds Greek or Arabic, because of the musicality of it, and specifically denies it having a European sound (again, iirc). I’m gonna guess there’s a fair dose of Slavic mixed in there, for him to get that impression, but probably blended with all the other stuff into a strange hybrid. Feel free to also feel vaguely sad that Armand clearly lost his accent sometime between Lestat’s last meeting with him in 1985 and 1995 and thus Daniel wasn’t there for it, but only met him again after it was all gone. (Though I think it might come back if he’s agitated or surprised etc – at least PLROA says he apparently slips into other languages when upset, in this case Russian.)
realistically his Russian accent would be Long Gone and it would now be a mix of italian and french, and living in the US for a long time would probably water both down a bit…thats probably why Daniel couldnt pinpoint it, also i honestly cant say Daniel has a vast knowledge on accents, since Armand is neither Greek nor Arabic, lol
MASSIVE GEEK RAMBLE AHEAD because I’ve done some linguistics and am a geek but also this is an UNEXPECTEDLY CONVOLUTED question!
The thing is, realism with these guys is seriously complicated by 1) their lifespan and 2) their inhuman learning ability. Armand seems to have been scary good at languages even before he was turned, given how uncannily quickly he picked up Italian to the point of fluency with a large vocabulary and capability of improvisation (see: that ridic scene where they have him improvise a sonnet at Bianca’s party and he does it).
Marius also teaches him Latin and perfects his Greek (which he could already speak somewhat, because of its use in the Eastern Orthodox Church and the major influence of Byzantium on Eastern Europe in the middle ages (Constantinople had only been Islamic for 40-odd years when he lived with Marius)). I seem to recall hieroglyphics being mentioned, and then they add reading in Russian/Old Church Slavonic as well when he’s more recovered. All of this supposedly within 2 years.
So it’s hard to say for certain how this stuff would work with him. Maybe thanks to vampiric abilities he would be able to supplant one accent with another, entirely erasing each one in time as he becomes fluent in a new language, in which case he might well lose the Russian and then the Italian and then the French very chronologically and Daniel might have simply misdiagnosed.
But for most people, scientifically speaking, the older you get the harder it is to become fluent and accentless in a new language, and your native language usually colours later acquisitions. I mean, I’d learned English fluently by the age where he’d learned Italian, but my accent when I then did French was definitely Scandinavian, haha. Linguistics differentiates between native languages (and bilingualism) and later acquisitions because the learning processes are totally different. So I don’t think it’s unthinkable for most of his languages to have a Slavic tinge when he first picks them up, and that he then possibly is able to sound native-like through using vampiric powers of imitation. So his English becomes perfect and his French probably did too. But if THAT is the case, then this is (on some level) a conscious effort at all times and therefore liable to slip in certain situations.
I personally think his English could very well be flavoured by both Russian and French (there are lots of stories about people who emigrated to the US and then came back and spoke their native language with an accent, and Ivan does tell him he sounds Lithuanian after 2 years in Italy!, so sheer exposure over time counts for something even if a language is a second language, and he was in France for 300 years). Italian is more uncertain because that was only two years of exposure as a mortal (this is an issue too, how vampiric memories are retained better) and then he never used it again for those 300 years, so the skill would probably have atrophied with disuse.
FINALLY it’s worth noting that his time in the covens would not have been nearly as demanding on him as his years after meeting Daniel, in terms of linguistic performance. He was only around vampires, and they have all kinds of accents and also have telepathy and would not have cared about the “proper” way to speak French because that’s mortal vanity. The theatre years was probably what polished his French because now they were under mortal scrutiny.
Likewise with Daniel he suddenly had an incentive to perfect his English (and had people to talk to, as opposed to drifting through the world alone!!), so I’m not surprised that in the 1970s when he meets Daniel for the very first time it’s heavily accented (apparently by a blend which contains something Eastern if Daniel is to be trusted), and by ‘85 he seems to have had a fainter ‘general european’ sound (which Lestat associates with French or Italian) and then by ‘95 it’s all gone. As for who’s better at identifying accents of Lestat and Daniel I have NO idea, but I’m not 100% sure I trust Lestat more.
I-want-my-IWTV 