Accents
 

Hey everybody - or is it "ya'll?" - actually, that's kinda what this thread is about. After a conversation with my friends, who come from several different places in the US, I was thinking about what accents people have, different ways they speak, and all those nice little inflections that make out conversations different from anyone else.

I grew up in rural Virginia, and my family is largely from that area or the mountains of North Carolina, so I inherited a bit of southern twang that I still have to this day. The thing is, I never would have even known I had this particular accent until I went to college - up until that point, everyone just spoke the same as me! Apparently I say things differently too: "Didn't it" becomes "diddinit", "pillow" becomes "pilla", etc. Not to mention throwing contractions every which-way without even knowing it.

If you live in an English-speaking country, or speak English regularly, do you have an accent that differs from your region? Does it make you self-conscious? Do you speak or say things differently from anyone else?

I honestly can't distinguish American accents from one another unless they're extremely heavy or overladen with slang. I'd imagine I have a pretty classic California accent to me, but fuck if I'd ever be able to notice. As soon as I leave the state everyone automatically knows I'm from California.

I've somehow avoided picking up on the "Utah accent" which, I believe, is actually fairly exclusive to Utah. Probably extends to Colorado and Idaho, maybe some parts of Arizona. I don't really know what kind of an accent I have, but it definitely doesn't make me self-conscious. Makes me quite happy that I don't have a Utah accent.

I hope to be able to pick up an Irish accent while in Ireland. That would be awesome.

I have your classic Bostonian accent. Not the Kennedy accent (which is typically attributed to the more affluent of the Massachusetts region), but the Boston Hahbah accent.

I can repress it in most cases, but when I get angry or flustered, there it is, glaring you in the place, leaving you thinking "what the hell did she just say?"

My father has a thick French accent which some people can't identify or understand sometimes. I don't even hear it, but apparently some folks can't understand a word he says.

Being Canadian, I have the classic 'eh.!?'. It is used for everything. Sometimes to get someones attention as in "Eh!, Johnny", or when asking for confirmation as in "So boss, we gonna kill Johnny, eh?". Sometimes it's used to ask if others agree with your statement as in "That's a crazy car, eh!?". Lastly it can be thrown into any statement randomly and actually have no defined meaning except that the sentence wouldn't sound right to us without it.

As for accents. Sometimes in conversation, I tend to accentuate my d's and t's. Kind of a 'dar dir dar' sound.

I'm from Indiana. Here we basically have a 3-syllable rule. If something takes more than 3 syllables to pronounce, slur it down to 3. That's why nobody here can correctly enunciate "Indianapolis." It ends up being "inny-ap-lis" and yes the "inny" part is slurred so bad that it's one syllable. Some people just use "Indy" but w/e.

I never really noticed it recently until it was brought to my attention, now I notice it everywhere. I rarely ever speak a word that is 4 syllables, it just gets slurred together.

The thread should be renamed to "US accents", or someone like me might start a discussion about bavarian or saxon accentss in Germany. ;)

I have a tremendously thick southern accent. It is so bad that other southerners cannot understand half of what I say. Southerners, being the xenophobic people that they are, regularly suggest to me that "in America, we speak English" just before they suggest I go back to where I came from. People who aren't from the south, but who speak English natively, regularly ask me what language I am speaking. Okay, that is all an exaggeration. I have been told that I have a light, but noticeable southern accent. That is what I get for growing up in a small southern town. If I had grown up even in Birmingham, which is still the same state, I would be blessed with a neutral accent. I can only dream.

However, I do not use a lot of the typical southern words and phrases, such as "yall" or "aint". I think that using "fixin to" in place of "about to" is also a southern thing, but I cannot be sure; I don't use it either.

I have a slight Scottish accent but it's totally unnoticeable until I point it out. Little things like I extend the "oo" in words like book, look etc. and I have harders 'Rs" then most people.

I can also do most accents pretty well, it's essentially the only thing I'm good at in my work :/

People from up north tell me that I have a noticeable southern accent. People from the south sometimes have a hard time believing I'm from here because they cannot hear any accent at all. So it's probably somewhere in-between.

I lived in the USA for five years. I lived in Germany for two. My father is Austrian. My mother is Scottish and Welsh.

I sound brain-damaged.

I'm considered to have quite a posh English accent even by people who have lived in this area of England for as long as I have. I also have an untraceable Scottish/Irish twang when I get drunk.

My accent is a mess. It's so incredibly inconsistent. The New York accent is creeping in more and more, and there's an occasional smattering of some New England. But overall I think it's pretty obvious that I'm from the middle of Long Island.

To Westerns I have Korean accent. To Koreans I have Western's accent. ~_~

I come from Newfoundland so we definetely have an accent. It is so recognizable to some people they don't even have to ask where your from because they know your automatically from Newfoundland just by how you talk.

The accent is actually so peculiar we even have our own Newfoundland English dictionary. Its a lot of fun using Newfie words with people who aren't from Newfoundland, because a lot of times they don't know what your saying.

I have a definite Southern accent. I was born in Texas and have lived here my whole life except one year I spent in Michigan where, the moment three words came out of my mouth, people would immediately ask me where I was from. Here's a few things that were apparently dead giveaways:

-I'm not "about to" go to the store. I'm "fixin' to" go to the store.
-I don't think the words "you guys" has ever come out of my mouth. "Y'all" is all I've ever said. Note the positioning of the apostrophe. You + all = Y'all, not Ya'll.
-"Ain't" comes out of my mouth more often than I'd like it to.
-Words like "tire" come out sounding more like "ta-err" to Northerners. My r's sound really emphasized to the non-Southern ears (according to my friend from Michigan).
-I do not enunciate. My words run into each other very badly. This is something I really would like to fix in the near future. No one wants a doctor that sounds like some backwoods redneck.

It would be really neat if people attached a clip of themselves talking (if they feel comfortable with it, of course). I have no idea what a "Utah" or "Newfoundland" accent sounds like.

I lucked out and didn't get stuck with my mom's Lawrence accent. "What's the Lawrence accent" you say? It's like a retarded Bostonian accent. Lawrence is located about 25 miles north of Boston. The Lawrence accent still has the traditional Bostonian "Cahh, pahhking, bahhgin" nonsense, but it's taken one step further.

Hard R's become V's. For example: Lawvence. Ridiculous is still ridiculous. But you can bet your ass you'll be eating vaw eggs aren't votten. In rare cases, L's become V's as well, turning Lawrence into Vawvence.

My dad says it's the same way down in south Boston, except "much more hideous."

Being from Connecticut, I'm supposed to have the 'accent' that is as close to perfect English as possible. We pronounce everything as its supposed to be... with a few exceptions. I'd have to say the only thing I've noticed is that we merge a couple words together... for instance, instead of "what do you want", it would turn into "Whaddya want?" That might be a bit of the New York coming through, though.

I thought you guys were supposed to do things like pronounce "milk" as "melk" and change around some vowel sounds, no?

I sound like some bizarre mix of British, Singaporean and American, so, my accent sounds out of place wherever I go!

I was once told that I sound French when I'm speaking english.

Well, I'm asian, and most of the time Americans can understand what I'm saying.

I have been told that I have slight accent when I talk but people can't really pin point it.. I usually just explain to them that I wasn't born in US and they blame it on me having a "foreign" accent.

Yet a lot of people say that I don't have an accent..

I've got m'self a good Texas drawl of sorts. I speak slower and sound half-asleep at times :( But it's part of my philosophy of speaking clearly so I can get my points across. I'm also big on "howdy" (sup Aggies~), "ya'll" and what-not.
I'm pretty sure it is a southern-only thing. I said it once (as have relatives/friends) and it always confuses folks from elsewhere.

I sound just like your regular neighbourhood FOB.

My accent changes depending on who I'm talking to. I have a very clear public school British accent when I'm talking on the phone at work (A result of being on our school's public speaking team and my mum's convent school upbringing rather than going to a public school, my school was pretty scummy) but when I'm chatting to chavs in the pub I acquire a horrible chav twang and all the stupid phraseology that comes with it, know what I mean bruv?

Generally though, I have a pretty standard south east England middle class accent. I do find some Americans on Xbox Live can't understand a word I say but that's probably as much to do with being drunk as my accent.