Who has got a funny accent?

[Bill Douglas]

Coming from the only English speaking country in the world that doesn't have an accent I'm curious to hear what you guys think of other peoples accents.

[dd74]

I can't understand a single word Indians say. South Africans have by far the best accent. English, (Brits) all sound "cockneyed." All Australians sound like they're from Malibu to me.

[pbs911]

Kiwi's have nice accents, seems a little less polished than the aussie.
My first wife was South African, and I agree, great accent. But it sounded like she kept calling me "Pole." I also like the California accent. Sorry but I could do without the USA east coast accent. And there is nothing worse than an American trying to do an Engish accent.

[GrindingGears]

My south african friend used the expression "I don't want to fart againist your thunder" yesterday and nearly tinkled my pants.

[Zeke]

What 'accent' is used when singing? That's right, when you open your mouth to sing a word, it has no accent. This is also the same way Californians speak, totally w/o any accent. This is also a result of the migration of the language. I did a paper on this once, these are not my opinions or conclusions other than the conclusion I had to come to after copious research. So, I could, if necessary, document my statements.

Incidentally, various Southern American accents can be traced back to certain counties in England. A Southerner can tell what part of the South a speaker is from. I can tell the difference between Mississippi and Alabama as well as Georgia from Tennessee, all neighboring states. When I was in Alabama for a year, I got to where I could tell the counties of the state from each other to an extent. It's like when Canadians use the word "out." Everything is pretty 'normal' until they get to that word. Dead giveaway.

Dialect is another way to tell. And syntax. Can you tell I was an English major? This was a class in linguistics.

[Adam]

All these 'muricans have funny accents...

So do Nieuw Zulundars, Bull.

This post is brought to you by new "Slim Jims: The Chocolate Biscuit, with the thin mint filling" LMAO!!

[dd74]

Hey Adam: now I know Matt was born somewhere up in Northern CA. There has to be some of that Rice o Roni N. Cal accent in his voice unless he moved down when he was a wee lad.

Is there more "oiy" than "dude" in his speech?

[cegerer]

The only people in the USA without an accent are midwesterners. They speak English closest to the correct 'dictionary' prononciation.

[azasadny]

Actually, Michigan folks speak perfect English, devoid of any accent. Ha!

[bell]

hyundai has an accent that comes with a 100,000 mile warranty

i'm from ohio...........what's an accent?

[nostatic]

Originally posted by cegerer
The only people in the USA without an accent are midwesterners. They speak English closest to the correct 'dictionary' prononciation.

um...is Minnesota the midwest? If so, your premise is waaay wrong. How about some hotdish?

Westcoast US has no accent. Valley-gurl and surfer-talk don't count...that isn't an accent, but more a dialect (and a way of life...like, totally).

Funny accent? Frickin' New England. My in-laws have distinct Massachusetts accents, and they live in Georgia now. There's some culture shock.

[Shuie]

Anybody ever been to South Louisiana? Now thats an accent to be proud of

[Zeke]

Originally posted by cegerer
The only people in the USA without an accent are midwesterners. They speak English closest to the correct 'dictionary' prononciation.

Not true in all respects. Mid Westerners tend to roll out the words more than CA. Pacific Coast speak is not clipped like the Eastern US (aside from accents like Bronx and New England). I find Michigan to be fairly neutral in the accents. No Wisconsin Nordic there.

The further we go in history, the more any of this is out of date. The theory behind the West Coast lack of accents included the coming together of many peoples from all over the US. As their kids schooled together, they lost what they brought from home. So, the geographical aspect is important to understanding linguistics. CA was as far as the population could migrate, so CA became the melting pot. It still is.

There was a period of not much immigration in CA after WWII, but a huge population growth from within, aka the baby boom. The predominant population and their newborn offspring were WASP. Schools were built by the 1000's and the language phenomenon continued. By genX, things were changing. After the Viet Nam War, CA experienced a huge surge in Asian peoples.

Hispanics have always migrated here, but when I was up on my grandmother's farm in Bakersfield in the summers of the late 50's, there were no Hispanics working in the fields at that time. Blacks and poor whites did itinerant labor. Many of the whites were from the Midwest like OK and KS. There were definitely accents there in the fields and a whole lot of discrimination. All this changed by the 70's and you never see blacks in the fields. Nor do you see whites.

Back to the point. All this time, schools were segregated by demographics, if nothing else. So the language continued to be flattened out until it was a blend of everything, hence no accent. The final proof of the thesis is the singing. British rock groups of the 60's sang the words differently than they spoke. You can hear underlying accent tones, but it is hard to open you mouth and project at a note and maintain an accent.

There have been some patterns of speech indigenous to CA such as surfer speak and Valley girl talk. But Todd noted that while I was writing (and checking my spelling) this.

[UconnTim97]

Boston has a great accent....Connecticut has none...

[Zeke]

There are also learned accents such as Richard Burton's Shakespearian and Audrey Hepburn's elegant pseudo-euro. One cannot forget Cary Grant or even Carroll O'Conner's Archie. Popeye had a proprietary dialect, as did many cartoon characters.

These are wonderful inventions of speech.

[CJFusco]

love the Bahston accent (especially the snobbish Harvard/Martha's Vineyard version), hate the New Yowk accent

love English/Australian, hate southern US accents

[dd74]

Originally posted by Shuie
Anybody ever been to South Louisiana? Now thats an accent to be proud of

My old man is from Lafayette. After nearly 40 years, I still barely understand what he's saying. As for the rest of 'dem folks, I nearly have to speak French to communicate with them.

[dd74]

Originally posted by nostatic
um...is Minnesota the midwest? If so, your premise is waaay wrong. How about some hotdish?

Westcoast US has no accent. Valley-gurl and surfer-talk don't count...that isn't an accent, but more a dialect (and a way of life...like, totally).

You're very correct. SoCal is truly w/o inflection and accent - we have no "umph" to our manner of speaking. That figures since we're all drunk off sunshine -- well, except in June.

I've heard that those in San Francisco speak differently from us because long ago - North Easterners, like New Yorkers and Bostonians settled S.F., while dustbowl types and Mid-Westerners settled So. Cal. Thus the accent.

[johnco]

i work within a 100-150 mile area east, north and west of my home. every little town has it's own accent slightly different from the next. I can usually tell where someone's from just by listening to them speak. any more south and I'd be standing in the Gulf of Mexico. to me, anything north of Baton Rouge (90 miles) sounds yankee, east of New Orleans (90 miles) sounds redneck, and anything much more west of Lafayette (70 miles) sounds like Texans. I usually have to translate the cajun accent to my northern friends. Mais, we all talk like dis (French accent). it's quite common to hear people start a conversation in English and switch to French and back to English. I don't speak French though. since I've dated women from all over the states, my accent is different than most of my friends. now I have an English gitrlfriend and it's changing again.

[dd74]

Originally posted by johnco
it's quite common to hear people start a conversation in English and switch to French and back to English.

You just hammered the nail on my family visits. Around the kitchen table, it would definitely be a two-language dinner along with the red beans n' rice. Of course my Ma-ma (grandmother) did all her cursing in French - no translation provided to us kids, except, "Don't worry about what I just said, cher."