I was thinking today about the variety of accents and decided this would make an interesting topic to discuss what kind of accent we each have.
I'll start:
Being born in Liverpool (Non UK Residents, this is where The Beatles were born and speak this accent) , in the United Kingdom and living there for several years, I have a slight Liverpudlian (Scouse) 'twang'.
Here is the accent, courtesy of Harry Enfield:
(My accent is not as strong as that...)
However, after living in the City for 7 whole years, I had to move to the Midlands where I live to this day. I live just outside the city of Stoke-on-Trent, which thankfully, I did not acquire the accent from.
Overall, I have a Liverpudlian accent diluted with boring Midlands...
I was hoping to also let people outside the UK that there is more accents here than just the stereotypical Cockney-London accent, and the famed BBC British accent.
Not entirely sure. I'm quickly pegged as having a English accent in Wales (though I'm Welsh, and there's many "English" accents"), but whenever I record and hear myself, I just sound depressed. No "Pip pip" just "meh".
Like Huckleberry Finn? Oh wait...that's Missourian...I think
I'm not sure what name it has but its whatever accent is prevalent in the southern Alabama region...although I have been told I have the cool ability to do Australian and Scottish accents that my friends consider "dead on" on command...
Apparently before I started going to the school I go to I had a very strong bedfordian accent (which I sometimes revert to by accident) but these days I have borderline recieved pronunciation.
FYI recieved pronunciation is the archetypal british posh accent.
Neutral Chicago, though its less neutral when I'm talking to someone with the same, or similar, accent. There's also some Minnesotan in there from living there for 4 years, and a little English from living there, and some Spanish from actually trying to acquire it when learning the language.
It's basically General American, only with a few vowel shifts, most famously the long and high a in words like Cat, which can sound like "Kee-at." Mine isn't as noticable, since my Father comes from further west, but I'm sure a non-local would detect it.
NSFW for swearing like you're in fething southie, ya fething prick.
Spoiler:
The individual in your video sounds exactly like one of my former Drill Sergeants. We used to bet on how many times he'd say "f*ck" while explaining something to us.
NSFW for swearing like you're in fething southie, ya fething prick.
Spoiler:
The individual in your video sounds exactly like one of my former Drill Sergeants. We used to bet on how many times he'd say "f*ck" while explaining something to us.
Don't fething bet. Last fething time I fething bet, I fething lost a fething gak ton of fething money. I could have fething got a fething cah with that fething money.
I don't really have much of an accent I think, I'm fairly neutral overall, maybe a twinge of New Yorker/New Jersey in there every now and then, but its not really obvious apparently. I do pronounce certain (very specific) words oddly, you could say THAT is an accent, and thats a result of growing up with my dad who speaks English with a slight German/Hungarian accent. I know when I play the 'guess where my accent is from' game nobody has ever really got it right (on the first try). I've been accused of being Canadian, Australian (wtf? How did that happen?), Virginian, from the West Coast, and various European nationalities, so... yeah...
Chowderhead wrote:
Don't fething bet. Last fething time I fething bet, I fething lost a fething gak ton of fething money. I could have fething got a fething cah with that fething money.
NSFW for swearing like you're in fething southie, ya fething prick.
Spoiler:
The individual in your video sounds exactly like one of my former Drill Sergeants. We used to bet on how many times he'd say "f*ck" while explaining something to us.
Don't fething bet. Last fething time I fething bet, I fething lost a fething gak ton of fething money. I could have fething got a fething cah with that fething money.
In all honesty though I don't know if us Canadians (with the obvious exception of Newfies and Quebecers) actually sound that much different from the US (with the obvious exception of southerners and New Yorkers).
Born in Atlanta and raised in Tennessee and Alabama, surprisingly, I have been told I have hardly a barely perceptible Southern accent. I can thicken or soften it at will depending on my audience as well. For example, I lived in Colorado for a year, and natives couldn't place my accent. My wife, on the other hand, who was born and raised in Alabama...they all thought she was from Texas (with most of them having never heard a Southern regional accent other than someone from Texas...trust me, it is a similar, yet completely different accent).
almost everyone says i have a British accent.no one else in my family even has an accent. and ive spent my whole life in texas,so i couldnt of just picked it up somewhere else...well,i guess i could of.
lord commissar klimino wrote:almost everyone says i have a British accent.no one else in my family even has an accent. and ive spent my whole life in texas,so i couldnt of just picked it up somewhere else...well,i guess i could of.
I was born in Columbus Ohio and moved down to Louisiana and before i kinda sounded normal a little bit of some nasal talk but now i sound like Boomhower from King of the Hill with a head cold. and i stutter so i pretty much am a interesting conversation piece haha
Fun Fact: CNN, ABC, Fox News, all them, when they hire a news reporter, they have to be able to speak in the Bread Basket's Accent, because it is the easiest to understand of all American Accents.
Off topic, but I really hope my wife has a British accent. Sounds so sexy.
Anyway, I never thought I had an accent until I moved to California.
I've been told it's pretty obvious when I speak that I'm from New Hampsha.
..When I moved out to California for a while ..everyone I met would constantly ask me to repeat things and seemed to find my accent amazing ( and hysterical)...
I recall once asking where the mayonnaise was ( which us coonasses call " Mahnez") and had an entire room rolling with laughter...
All I could reply with was " Yeah...if y'all came to New Orleans you'd sound funny to us too."
I was mostly raised by my mother and grandmother, who were both born and raised in Maine. (My dad is from Missouri, but he spoke about as often as Clint Eastwood's Man with no name, so that had a negligible influence) When I started elementary school, they immediately decided that I had a dire speech impediment and so I had to stay an hour every day to attend speech therapy. Now, I have a neutral, if very nasal accent, but I can still slip into an authentic 'down east' accent whenever I want. Ayuh!
I have to say of all the American accents, I like a nice, light southern drawl the best. Just enough to tell they're from the south. New York/New Jersey accents just sound angry, Boston accents are usually unintelligible, and Mid-Western accents are god-awful and annoying as all get out. (Hellooo, could I get youu a cup a oringe jooose? )
Happygrunt wrote:I can safely say I don't have one. Honestly, I don't know what I sound like.
Having an accent is something you don't really know you have until someone tells you you have one...either that or you speak to someone from a region with a distinct accent that is different than yours.
Apparently, I have a thick russian accent, and sound like this(sort of, not really). My fiancé used to write things down for me to say for entertainment, I never understood why.
remilia_scarlet wrote:Apparently, I have a thick russian accent, and sound like this(sort of, not really). My fiancé used to write things down for me to say for entertainment, I never understood why.
I will pay you millions of dollars to say things related to the Soviet Union.
Honestly, no one has mentioned me having any accent, not even when I went to Japan and lived among various foreign students. I recently moved from upstate New York to L.A. and still haven't heard anything.
Obviously I have some form of American accent, and undoubtedly it's an accent appropriate to the region I'm from, I just haven't noticed what sets it apart from other accents, other than the really obvious, stereotypical American accents (Southern, New England, New York, etc)
I skimmed Wikipedia and while there's a lot of information presented in such a way that I'd have to... well, do more than skim to understand it, there is one thing it mentions that I definitely do, and that's pronounce the words "Mary", "marry", and "merry" the same way.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Actually, I talk rather similarly (though not exactly) like the girl in polonius' video. I pronounce some words differently (Like "crayon" is pretty much one syllable for me and closer to "cran" than "cray-on" and soda is soda, not pop), but it's still quite, quite close.
remilia_scarlet wrote:Apparently, I have a thick russian accent, and sound like this(sort of, not really). My fiancé used to write things down for me to say for entertainment, I never understood why.
I will pay you millions of dollars to say things related to the Soviet Union.
I have a curious mish-mash. Part Australian, part SoCal, part Irish, part something else.
Though born in Oz, I don't have the stereotypical Steve Irwin or Paul Hogan "strine" drawl (very few people under the age of 60 do).
I spent 6 months of High school in Southern California as an exchange student and picked up some SoCal phrasing and accent.
I spent 1 month hiking across Ireland and somehow managed to shanghai some of the Irish lilt also.
While our cities are not as large as American ones, they still do have their own accents (Sydney is as different from Adelaide as Boston is from Los Angeles). I don't sound like I'm from Sydney (I am).
Slarg232 wrote:
Fun Fact: CNN, ABC, Fox News, all them, when they hire a news reporter, they have to be able to speak in the Bread Basket's Accent, because it is the easiest to understand of all American Accents.
"the Bread Basket's Accent" is called standard american english.
This is how I sound, I sound like a news reporter, no accent to speak of, just standard speech.
So I do not have an accent, I pronounce my words clearly.
I am from Middlesbrough, the jewel of the United Kingdom. As a result, every word I speak sounds sincere and heartfelt, each syllable like honey and velvet.
Women hang on every word I say, and I exude charisma.
Just like this guy!
He swears slightly less than I do though. Although, in Middlesbrough swear words are known as "sentence enhancers" as they add value and depth to each one you utter.
remilia_scarlet wrote:Apparently, I have a thick russian accent, and sound like this(sort of, not really). My fiancé used to write things down for me to say for entertainment, I never understood why.
I will pay you millions of dollars to say things related to the Soviet Union.
Yes, while wearing a russian uniform and holding a whip.
Flashman wrote:Southerner born and bred, so no accent whatsoever
Yes, quite. This is what the language sounds like when it is spoken properly. Sad to say, my accent degrades into a terrible London-esque slur when I venture onto certain topics and speak to certain people. This is due to the duality of my heritage, coming from a terribly upper middle class family on one side, and the London poor and gangsters on the other.
KingCracker wrote:Im from Michigan, we dont really have an accent. But everyone else says we do..... So I dunno
Yeah, you do. Assuming you're from somewhere south of Manistee-Tawas, you've got a very distinct Michigan accent that I really haven't heard elsewhere. North of there it starts to blend into a Wisconsin accent. Then for some reason Yoopers totally bucked the trend and came up with their own perversion of the language
I have a mostly North Midlands accent, bland American.
I've got a mostly neutral American accent. But, there's definitely a bit of a Chicago accent mixed in.
KingCracker wrote:Im from Michigan, we dont really have an accent. But everyone else says we do..... So I dunno
Yes, Michiganians have an accent. You probably drop your hard T's, and add something extra to your R's (making you sound a bit like a pirate). And, you have a bit of the nasal Chicago thrown in there.
My accent is mostly New England, with an occasional Southern twang thrown in, courtesy of growing up in Arkansas. I've figured out that it's the long vowel sounds like in "boots" and "tile" and bring out my Southern roots.
The local accent (Northamptonian) is the bastard offspring of cockney and yokel and is the least endearing of all British regional accents. Consequently my mother beat a slight 'northern-ness' into me, vaguely yorkshire-ish. I go a bit cockney gangster when angered, sounds like a Guy Ritchie movie
remilia_scarlet wrote:Apparently, I have a thick russian accent, and sound like this(sort of, not really). My fiancé used to write things down for me to say for entertainment, I never understood why.
I will pay you millions of dollars to say things related to the Soviet Union.
Yes, while wearing a russian uniform and holding a whip.
My accent changes.
It sorta defaults to more-or-less american, but when I spend any amount of time among British people, it changes to whatever region they're from, and I can mimic quite a few other accents as well (scottish, australian and thick Southern US drawl, as well).
Nobody ever guesses I´m Dutch from the way I talk.
I was born about 15 miles too far out of the city to have a Chicago accent... which puts me squarely into the "generic American, no idea where you're from" category. Funny bit is that people who grew up 15 miles further out did have a decidedly rural accent... but no such luck in my suburban environment (though I am blessed NOT to say "warsh" instead of "wash" as a result). I remember hearing some PhD linguist talk about all these subtle variations of accent in our region... he totally botched it.
remilia_scarlet wrote:Apparently, I have a thick russian accent, and sound like this(sort of, not really). My fiancé used to write things down for me to say for entertainment, I never understood why.
No joke, there is a girl in my Psychology class that has the exact same accent...but she is from the Czech Republic...
Gitsplitta wrote:I was born about 15 miles too far out of the city to have a Chicago accent... which puts me squarely into the "generic American, no idea where you're from" category. Funny bit is that people who grew up 15 miles further out did have a decidedly rural accent... but no such luck in my suburban environment (though I am blessed NOT to say "warsh" instead of "wash" as a result). I remember hearing some PhD linguist talk about all these subtle variations of accent in our region... he totally botched it.
Hmmm... 15 miles too far from Chicago to have an accent. But, not rural and still described it as "suburban".
remilia_scarlet wrote:Apparently, I have a thick russian accent, and sound like this(sort of, not really). My fiancé used to write things down for me to say for entertainment, I never understood why.
No joke, there is a girl in my Psychology class that has the exact same accent...but she is from the Czech Republic...
WARORK93 wrote:
No joke, there is a girl in my Psychology class that has the exact same accent...but she is from the Czech Republic...
A lot of eastern europeans have similar accents, one of the guys in my playgroup is from estonia, and he has an accent similar to a russian, of course, to me, everyone else's accent was exotic and different to me.
remilia_scarlet wrote:Apparently, I have a thick russian accent, and sound like this(sort of, not really). My fiancé used to write things down for me to say for entertainment, I never understood why.
I will pay you millions of dollars to say things related to the Soviet Union.
Yes, while wearing a russian uniform and holding a whip.
remilia_scarlet wrote:Apparently, I have a thick russian accent, and sound like this(sort of, not really). My fiancé used to write things down for me to say for entertainment, I never understood why.
Were many of them related to a moose and squirrel?
Depends who I am around as to how I speak. Sometimes a Bath accent, others Windsorian or Sluff(Slough) or a mix of any and all. Depends how 'common' I want to sound.
remilia_scarlet wrote:Apparently, I have a thick russian accent, and sound like this(sort of, not really). My fiancé used to write things down for me to say for entertainment, I never understood why.
Were many of them related to a moose and squirrel?
I can't remember them all, a lot of it was just saying random things.
mattyrm wrote:I am from Middlesbrough, the jewel of the United Kingdom. As a result, every word I speak sounds sincere and heartfelt, each syllable like honey and velvet.
Women hang on every word I say, and I exude charisma.
Just like this guy!
He swears slightly less than I do though. Although, in Middlesbrough swear words are known as "sentence enhancers" as they add value and depth to each one you utter.
NSFW obviously...
I'm from the same wonderful town. My voice is basically a softer version of the accent demonstrated in the above clip - in fact, there are a few OT-Bags floating around these parts who will probably have heard my voice, given my relentless plugging of the band I'm, Dresden.
Matty sounds exactly like the clip. Exactly. In fact, Matty couldn't sound more Boro if his mum was a parmo, and his dad was the Transporter Bridge!
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