Do midland americans have an accent?

[soaring crane]

Gaaaa yes, 300 million!

[Brian]

Did you mean 300million?

 

I have read that the power of English as the modern lingua franca is that you can mangle the grammar without destroying the meaning - so as a language of trade people who only pick up a smattering of English can still deal reliably with each other without too many blunders.

 

 

Gaaaa yes, 300 million!

Heck! I'd argue that less than 300 thousand of those native speakers can do so (speaking and/or writing) in a non-cringe-worthy fashion -- including many with advanced degrees.

 

I've also come to realize, though, that the same holds true for most other languages.  Seems few people really care.

[soaring crane]

I've also come to realize, though, that the same holds true for most other languages.  Seems few people really care.

 

I can vouch for German being in that category. Hochdeutsch (High German) is actually a Hanoverian dialect. It's election to the official language was based on geography, as far as I know, Hanover being roughly in the middle of the country. But people speak their dialects, most of which have little in common with the version you learned in college, lol. They often don't even understand each other and get nervous travelling to other parts of the country.

[Apech]

I can vouch for German being in that category. Hochdeutsch (High German) is actually a Hanoverian dialect. It's election to the official language was based on geography, as far as I know, Hanover being roughly in the middle of the country. But people speak their dialects, most of which have little in common with the version you learned in college, lol. They often don't even understand each other and get nervous travelling to other parts of the country.

 

Definitely up to WWI and probably still by WWII people from different parts of England literally could not understand each other because of strong dialect.  Even now there's a strong difference North to South (and to a certain extent the West) - I remember going once to a town North of Newcastle and the accent was so strong I felt I needed an interpreter.  Also until fairly recently most people in France did not speak what we know as French, there were hundreds of languages.

[dust]

From my understanding Americans have more of the original English accent that the English people in England. The reason being that the majority of the poor population came to america while the royal class stayed in England. The royalty were known to have their own special way of speaking. 

 

That's just not true. The majority of the poor would've been the majority of the country...

 

If you've ever been to the UK, you'll know that it is home to an incredible variation of regional accents. The "English" accent you hear on American TV is generally faux-Cockney -- not realistic.

[MooNiNite]

That's just not true. The majority of the poor would've been the majority of the country...

 

If you've ever been to the UK, you'll know that it is home to an incredible variation of regional accents. The "English" accent you hear on American TV is generally faux-Cockney -- not realistic.

 

Not realistic? Maybe exaggerated? 

[Apech]

Not realistic? Maybe exaggerated? 

 

Dick Van Dyke ... that's all you need to know.

[MooNiNite]

Dick Van Dyke ... that's all you need to know.

Iv met a lot of people from England with very heavy accents. 

[MooNiNite]

That's just not true. The majority of the poor would've been the majority of the country...

 

I was thinking more the majority of English people that came here were from the poor class, and had what I believe to be the authentic English accent. But that could be wrong idk. 

Edited August 16, 2015 by MooNiNite

[Apech]

Iv met a lot of people from England with very heavy accents. 

 

 

game of Thrones - everyone in North - the Wall, Winterfell - various northern accents ... Kings Landing Lannisters and wotnot - southern.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Everyone has an accent. What you're thinking of as 'correct' is 'standard American English'. Every country has a codified 'standard' version of its language, used for official things and stuff. Now, the standard version tends to be based on wealthier regions of the country, because more official-ish business goes nationwide from there. So people living there think 'I don't have an accent' - they do, it's just naturally close to the standard dialect.

 

Languages and dialects form from people interacting over time. What people tend to think of as 'correct' grammar is just how the standard dialect has been codified. But regional dialects actually do have their own unwritten rules, developed over time. You're only speaking wrongly if you're breaking the rules of the dialect you're trying to use. What's wrong in standard may be right in non-standard and vice versa. For example, copula deletion (removing the verb 'to be' when the referent is obvious) is a rule of African-American dialects - 'he over there', not 'he is over there' - like in Ancient Greek.

 

I can't tell you much about standard American English. But standard British English was developed around the time of the printing press, because standardisation was needed for books, newspapers, etc. And where where most presses and publishers? The wealthier areas of London and nearby. So that's the dialect SBE is based on, so people from near those same areas think 'we don't have an accent'. They do - it just happens to be the one SBE is closest to.

 

And who's most educated? The people with access to books and education. So SBE became associated with wealthier educated people, because they spoke similarly to it anyway.

[dust]

Iv met a lot of people from England with very heavy accents. 

 

For sure, but I would imagine that there's been a variation between them. It might be harder for a non-Brit to differentiate.

 

As Apech says, GoT offers a (small?) variety of authentic accents.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

Some British accents:

 

[thelerner]

[MooNiNite]

Everyone has an accent. What you're thinking of as 'correct' is 'standard American English'. Every country has a codified 'standard' version of its language, used for official things and stuff. Now, the standard version tends to be based on wealthier regions of the country, because more official-ish business goes nationwide from there. So people living there think 'I don't have an accent' - they do, it's just naturally close to the standard dialect.

 

 

So they have an accent in relative sense? Similar to the earth is a giant sqaure

[MooNiNite]

I see your point, but is it on a large scale?

 

I'm sure there are variations of words that were skewed through this process. But it is probably small and relative. 

 

Like going to Antarctica and saying it is relatively warm before a persons lungs crack and jaws freeze up. 

Edited August 16, 2015 by MooNiNite

[Seeker of Wisdom]

So they have an accent in relative sense? Similar to the earth is a giant sqaure

 

They have an accent in just the same way everyone else does. But their accent happens to be what's been codified as the standard. Remember the standard dialect isn't an average of the others, it's arbitrarily produced by the people who write dictionaries, etc. The standard dialect isn't inherently the 'pure' form of the language. It's chosen based on economic factors.

 

If Liverpool had been the capital of the UK, the people who decided what to codify as standard would have used scouse, and scousers would be saying 'we don't have an accent'. 

[zerostao]

"where welsh people even sound a bit drunk"  ?? the video ended with that, ok

and i thouht back when an ol bum named otis pronounced an extra long welsh name

wandering as i am know to do

 

Edited August 18, 2015 by zerostao

[Apech]

Lickely Oi downt av in ixzent.

[Basher]

Me Neever, me old China....gawd blimey, strike-a-light, etc etc.

 

Pip Pip, Cheerio, TTFN.

[GreytoWhite]

I don't have an accent in that I tend to speak like whoever I'm around. It almost got me fired once.

[Basher]

I don't have an accent in that I tend to speak like whoever I'm around. It almost got me fired once.

I used to do that too... a kinda blending in with the group, thing.

 

La-de-daa University types....Essex/Thames Estuary mates...Rastafarians in Brixton, Indians/Pakistanis from elsewhere in South London....ha ha.

 

I eventually learnt just to be myself & let everyone else take it or leave it.

[GreytoWhite]

Eh... I think it was just a reaction to growing up in such a diverse and dangerous place. There were Mexican, Black, White, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, Hmong, Cambodian, etc. gangs that all wanted to start shit or stake a territory out. It just made things easier to talk like whoever I was around so I didn't get noticed. Today it has a good comic relief effect when I perform.

[redcairo]

Yes middle America has an accent.

 

I'm originally from mid-southern coastal California. I didn't originally have an accent but got a bit of one with the 'valley girl/surfer' dialects that came in when I was a young teen and lasted quite some time, maybe still. I am still occasionally prone to forget myself and refer to someone as 'dude' (regardless of gender) and some of the accent that is more like a lingo way of speaking no matter what words you use.

 

Living in Hartford Connecticut, people had a bit of an accent, but small compared to those further North, for sure.

 

In Oregon I didn't get any diff accent than in Northern California.

 

In Washington state there wasn't not much accent but sometimes a tiny blend with the edge of the Vancouver-Canada accent which is extremely mild and mostly limited to making 'about' into 'a-boat' and so on, which is also common in the Northern bordering states (e.g. MN). The northern accents, most I've heard are not strong but it's a very crisp and clear way of speaking as if they enunciate better.

 

Arizona I didn't get much accent in, not counting mexican stuff which of course is present in California too.

 

In Texas people definitely had accents, but not the drawl most people assume, those actually come from farther east, from Georgia over to South Carolina which is probably the strongest accent I've heard in the country. Speed of speech varies a lot once you hit the south and go east and northeast. I liked the Texas accent better than I liked the Texas climate which was 100 degrees over 100 days in a row when I lived there -- I walked through an air force parking lot as a contractor to get to work and I was trying to figure out what was causing the giant foot-size blister on the bottom of my feet when I realized the soles of my shoes were basically melting through. Lovely.

 

Some of the accents in areas like Houston (where merely walking out of the airport would have me and my cute little vanderbilt suits as drenched in humidity as if I'd jumped into a pool) seemed stronger to me than in areas like Fort Worth. Dallas has the most terrifying highways in the country, which is really saying something. In most areas they're scary because nobody can drive in bad weather, some places worse than others. There, people can drive fine, but the average speed's like 75 and the lines are really NARROW and it always felt like most the cars were trucks, so best to be wide awake, lol.

 

As opposed to L.A., where I actually commuted 4.5 hours a day on the 405 and some 101/110 for quite some time, leading me to understand that most people can drive but would rather kill you in case it got them 1.5 seconds ahead, and also why it's illegal to carry a loaded weapon in your car and lucky for me or I'd be in prison. Which is why I 'snapped' at one point and screamed and laughed maniacally back and forth until since then I am weirdly caaaallllmmmm in traffic evermore.

 

Over to middle America, in Ohio the accent is fairly mild and if you pick up anything it tends to come across with the 'eastern' vibe more than anything else. In Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma (3 of the 4-corner states there) there are "midwestern tang" accents, it's not hugely strong but it's pretty clear and tends to show up in making "ee" sounds at end of words into "uh" sounds -- this reverses as you go East it seems. Oklahoma as you go from the NE Ozarks corner back toward the center, picks up a more noticeable accent where R's get added all over (the "warshing" machine) and then if one is at the end of sentences, it's strengthened just a bit. Arkansas (the other four-corner state there in the flat-edge-of-the-Ozarks -- Arkansas "is" the Ozarks in great part) has a much stronger accent, they are actually the start of the hillbillies although that goes all the way over and up east to blue ridge country, but this mountain territory is also a lot more secluded than much of the country so I think that's probably why the accents are more distinctive.

 

That's it for the places I've spent enough time in to have an idea about. But there is so much movement in our country that I have to say I don't think anything is quite as predictable as it seems.

 

I have a horribly weak accent. Not only am I overwhelming influenced by two minutes of conversation with anybody, but I'm influenced by a lifetime of movies, as well. Sometimes as if an inflection is part of humor. I can't say "I know a guy" without sounding like upper east coast. If I'm feeling angry and ruthless I tend to sound more like a bad guy mobster than myself. As if my brain chose characters as archetypes and whatever they talk like, that comes through. I've often had to really pay attention and moderate myself lest I get my ass kicked for someone thinking I'm mocking them. But I think it's probably because I grew up going to 12 different schools, mom died when I was little and my dad's been married 5 times, and learning to fit into any environment was pretty important for me -- I was a learning and reading freak and I think it's part of "modeling" as a survival skill.

 

Youtube has videos where people -- sometimes very gifted linguists and accept specialists -- will example the accents from tons of different places, to show you the differences. 

Edited December 18, 2015 by redcairo