Accents?

A

Ameriscot

SF VIP
I've always been curious as to the origins of different accents.

We are watching a documentary on WWII and a woman who lives in Alabama has an accent that my husband has never heard before and he finds it's very curious. It sounded like a Louisiana accent to me but with a hint of a Boston accent. No 'r's.

What is your accent?
 

Right, John. Sounds like my sister who insists that she doesn't have an accent but the rest of the world does. If someone in, say, France, heard you speak where would they place your (non)accent?
 

I sat next to a lady on a plane leaving from Glasgow. We had a brief chat and she said I sounded like Great Lakes or Canada. Good call but how did a Scot know that?

I am still gobsmacked when someone here asks me how long I've lived here and when I reply 14 years they wonder why my accent hasn't changed. Umm... Obviously if I've been here 14 years I moved here when I was well into my 40's (48) and an accent is pretty well set by then!
 
Here's a test for American accents!

http://www.gotoquiz.com/what_american_accent_do_you_have

Here's what the test said about me!

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

Honest!... Yep.. born and raised in Chi-Town.
 
Falcon said:
Los Angelinos don't have any particular recognizable accent, unlike Bostonians, Texans, etc.
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Yes, but you're only talking about American accents. I have a plain old midwest accent but I've been told by many here in the UK that I have a very strong American accent. They would likely say the same about you.
 
OK, I took the test. It says (for me) Southern Great Lakes region. I was born and raised in Detroit, so I guess that's my accent. But hardly pronounced. LOL
 
I didn't realize I had an accent until I was in another country and people recognized my "American Accent" I even had a woman who nailed me as being from California. Since I heard my mother speak all my life, I never could tell that she had an accent. I always forgot about it unless someone else mentioned it.

We all have accents I guess.
 
QuickSilver said:
Here's a test for American accents!

http://www.gotoquiz.com/what_american_accent_do_you_have

Here's what the test said about me!

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

Honest!... Yep.. born and raised in Chi-Town.
Click to expand...

I've taken the test before and my responses have changed a bit. It says I'm Midlands - but I'm Michigan - at least for 32 years of the 48 years I lived there.

Scottish and English in-laws and friends tell me my accent has changed slightly since I've been here but they couldn't pinpoint how. My dh says my 'o's are rounder and that I sound less nasal and whiny like Michiganders (cheeky!). I do place the accent on a different part of a word now - like Argyll - the accent is on the -gyll. I had to start saying twenty instead of twunnie.
 
I'll tell you what accent is really easy to pick up.. The American South! I challenge anyone to spend some time down there and NOT come back with a drawl.
 
I think that Falcon probably doesn't have an accent, other than "standard American." I have a mid-east coast accent, having lived in NJ and MD for most of my life (with an 18-year interruption in the Pacific northwest, but I never lost the eastern accent.) Whenever I hear a Californian speak, they just sound neutral, like radio announcers, etc. That's probably because our "official" accent has been the California one since the earliest days of movie making.
 
Hmmm,California born and raised-so definitely not The Midland. But,it says no accent at all so that I believe....

The Midland
95%

"You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
 
Kitties said:
I didn't realize I had an accent until I was in another country and people recognized my "American Accent" I even had a woman who nailed me as being from California. Since I heard my mother speak all my life, I never could tell that she had an accent. I always forgot about it unless someone else mentioned it.

We all have accents I guess.
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Everyone has an accent. What country was your mother from?
 
hollydolly said:
People tell me I have a very soft Scottish accent ..it was quite a strong one until I left Scotland for England almost 40 years ago...
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My husband lived and worked in London for 18 years and he said he had to tone down his accent and stop using lowlands words so he'd be understood. So I think his accent is quite mild.
 
QuickSilver said:
I'll tell you what accent is really easy to pick up.. The American South! I challenge anyone to spend some time down there and NOT come back with a drawl.
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OMG yes! I lived in East TN for 10 years (age 38 - 48) and I would often imitate the accent just for fun. Well, I picked up a drawl that I didn't get rid of until I'd been in Scotland a couple of years.

I'm not good at imitating accents (can't do Scottish or Irish) but I find an Aussie accent pretty easy.
 
Ameriscot said:
My husband lived and worked in London for 18 years and he said he had to tone down his accent and stop using lowlands words so he'd be understood. So I think his accent is quite mild.
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That's exactly what I had to do for the same reasons AS..because no-one could understand me at all. They'd look over my shoulder to someone else and say '' what IS she saying''...how rude, but anyway if I wanted to make myself understood I had to change a little, and now I've been here so long people generally think I'm English until they hear me get excited about something or angry then they say they can hear my Scottishness coming through..LOL

BTW I took the test too, and although I've never set foot in the USA, it says I probably come from North Jersey or Connecticut ...so maybe their accents are more like English than American IYSWIM
 
I agree Ameriscot, I think we settle into our accent at some point as adults.

I grew up in NE Ohio, lived in Chicago, also as an adult in Phoenix, Baton Rouge and now Houston. ...
taking QS's test I get this:
What American accent do you have? .. Your Result: The Inland North
93%
.... and I've lived in Houston for the last 36 years.

 
hollydolly said:
That's exactly what I had to do for the same reasons AS..because no-one could understand me at all. They'd look over my shoulder to someone else and say '' what IS she saying''...how rude, but anyway if I wanted to make myself understood I had to change a little, and now I've been here so long people generally think I'm English until they hear me get excited about something or angry then they say they can hear my Scottishness coming through..LOL

BTW I took the test too, and although I've never set foot in the USA, it says I probably come from North Jersey or Connecticut ...so maybe their accents are more like English than American IYSWIM
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That could be. There's an area on the east coast that's a bit isolated where the people's accents haven't changed and they still have a rather unique kind of older English accent. I'll look it up.

My dh has a funny story from working in London. He was headie (headmaster) for a special school and one of the kids was sent to his office for calling his teacher a name. Dh asked the kid why he called the teacher a 'hoor'. The English kid didn't understand and kept denying it. Finally the kid said he didn't call the teacher a hoor he called her a whore!
 
Bonnie said:
I agree Ameriscot, I think we settle into our accent at some point as adults.

I grew up in NE Ohio, lived in Chicago, also as an adult in Phoenix, Baton Rouge and now Houston. ...
taking QS's test I get this:
What American accent do you have? .. Your Result: The Inland North
93%
.... and I've lived in Houston for the last 36 years.

Click to expand...

I've known people who've lived in Scotland for 40 or 50 years and still have the accent of their country - Belgium, Netherlands.

My sister and I stayed at a B & B in Belgium about 8 years ago and the owner was surprised to learn we were sisters. He said we have completely different accents. Except for 7 years when we lived in other states as kids, she's always lived in Michigan.
 

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