Do you have your orginal accent?
Asked by
Pele (
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)
October 5th, 2011
I do. Though being from Hawaii I notice when people move here they try to speak hawaiian pidgeon english or they mimic the accent to fit in. My mother still has a british accent and she has been in the states for 50 years. My grandmother never lost her irish accent either. I probley sound like I’m from California. Yet it is so common for people to move and try to change how they talk and it always sounds so weird. I think of it as myself moving to Ireland and using the irish brogue. It would seem akward. Even when newcomers try to speak pidgeon they have the wrong accent. It’s odd.
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32 Answers
Yes – born and bred in New Jersey but I don’t think I talk like “Joisey” folk do.
I’m from Long Island and can turn it on and off in a second.
“Jannie, my mom was talkin’ to your mom and she’s wondering when are gonna get a real job? Is this why your fathah worked his fingas to the bone to send you to school? Pleeze, Sweetie, get a job or maybe marry a docktah already. You’re breakin’ her heart here. ”
We immigrated here from Ottawa, Ontario when I was 8.
I might have had a Canadian accent back then, but now I think my accent is neutral American. I.e., my pronunciations are very similar to those of my cousin in Greenwich, NY and some people I used to know in Springfield, MA.
Hmmm, I didn’t know that cousin had almost two pages in Google.
Yes very much so but I can put it away nicely when I want or need to. I tend to leave it in California when I don’t want to be too NY. *I lived there too.
@worriedguy That’s not how they spell here in NY… It’s “heah”, deah. *Smiles
Somewhat, I talk normally with a slight southern drawl that the deepness of my conversation voice covers for the most part, but when I start laughing or just around people I feel comfortable with it becomes noticably thicker.
I’ve tempered my Texas accent a bit over time, and I make a concerted effort to hide it when speaking publicly. But in a more relaxed setting, you’d know I’m from Texas in a heartbeat.
My Russian accent is still there, but I think it’s not as thick as it was when I moved to the states.
Apparently not. I used to not really have an accent, or, I guess I did, but it was ‘neutral American’. Like newscasters. I was born and raised just outside of Washington, DC, and that was common for that area. However, I’ve moved to much more ‘countrified’ locations over time, and my kids tell me I’ve picked up a bit of a West Virginia twang after living here for 6 or 7 years.
@picante Exactly, me too. (Only NY, not TX)
@GabrielsLamb If you heard me speak you’d think I was from Wisconsin. Unless I throw the switch.
Hey Gabrie. How’s your mom doin’? Bettah? Oh! I saw Judy at the wedding and she looked gawhgeous. She wore the blue – like you recommended. Lost the 20 pounds. Stunning she was.
@worriedguy So you’re really Fran Drescher? G’wan – I never knew!
I’m Canadian, but, according to my American friends I don’t have much of a Canadian accent (phew!).
I sound a lot like tinyfaery and she’s from California.
I’ve never had an accent.
I was raised in Texas by parents from Arkansas. Unaccountably, I was (am) the only member of my family without a thick TexArk accent. I’ve lived in the urban Midwest for many years now, and my original accent blends in pretty seamlessly here I did have to learn to differentiate my pronunciation of “pin” and “pen” though; in Texas you often find it necessary to say “stickpin” if you mean the pointy thing.
There has been some interesting research on what influences the degree to which people accommodate their own speech to reflect local accents and dialects. One factor is “social empathy”: how anxious are you to gain acceptance into the local culture and understand their ways. Another factor is your “language ego”: some people cling to their accent subconsciously because it is so integral to their sense of identity.
I know for a fact that I never felt particularly Texan, so maybe that’s why the accent never really stuck.
@thorninmud What you say regarding accommodation resonates with me. My husband, who married and raised our kids here has a not very strong mid-Atlantic English accent. His brother, who came a few years later, but is a bachelor with a strong English identification, has retained much more of a Liverpudlian accent.
Interesting points, @thorninmud ! I was raised in NJ, but my mother, who was raised in Connecticut was horrified at the thought that her children might speak with “that appalling accent!” her words, not mine so my sisters and I were raised to speak with a very generic “newscasters” accent thanks, @augustlan, for the reference. I do find, however, that I unconsciously tailor my inflections and some pronunciations to the group I am with.
People don’t mimic purposely to fit in, they mimic because we naturally mimic to fit in and make others comfortable. We mimic accents, expressions, gestures, etc.
This is why I was so pissed people criticized Hillary Clinton for speaking with a southern accent in the south, midwestern in the miswest and northeastern in the northeast. She grew up in the midwest, she lived in Arkansas for many many years, and she lived in the northeast for many many years. All three are her accent. She was not playing to her audience, she is part of all of those regions. Same for Madonna, she flipping was living in England, or course she began to take on the accent.
I grew up with a mild NY accent, still have some of it in me, especially when I am around New Yorkers. I adjust to whatever part of the country I am in to some extent, but some words I hold onto the NY pronounciation no matter where I am.
@augustlan I can usually tell when someone is from MD. John Travolta once talked about it with Oprah when he did the movie Hairspray. They were talking about Baltimore accent specifically. Where we grew up it is fairly neutral, but when I moved to MI they think they are neutral too, and they sound different than metro DC; but we can easily understand each other from metro DC to the midwest, It’s just certain words you hear the differences.
Since I still live in my hometown now….yes. After attending four years of college in Massachusetts? We’ll see. :P
@JLeslie I agree. My son used to tease me when we were in England for taking on English idioms and an English inflection but it just came naturally to me while there.
I’m from Long Island like @worriedguy. I don’t have an accent, nor a switch available to me.
I have been to Alabama before to visit family, and when some find out where you’re from, they start asking you to say words like “car” and “coffee” for them. They were all disappointed.
@Prosb I like being able to turn it on and off – complete with mannerisms.
I can also do a rural Irish. I studied the movie “Waking Ned Devine” more times than I should have to get the inflections right. I was told from a lass I knew (a Cavanaugh) when I softly said “Ah Katie, cum ta’ me.” it made her weak in the knees. She said I sounded exactly like her relatives. Lad, sum day we’ll blather a bit an’ you’ll see.
Although I was raised in Nevada until age 10, I have a very obvious California accent (so people from the East Coast and British people tell me). I’m not sure what kind of accent is spoken in Nevada but I don’t notice any difference between the way people there talk and the way people in California talk, so I’m assuming I haven’t changed my accent.
@janbb You wrote: @worriedguy So you’re really Fran Drescher? G’wan – I never knew!
I’m not Fran but we do go way back. How fah back you ask? well, my sistah used to change Frannie’s diapahs that’s how far back we go! Who knew she’d be such a lookah?
Yes, even though I’ve lived in the north of England for more than half my life, I still have a south-east sort of accent. People here think I talk posh. My accent is very non-descript generic English. Only once in my life has anyone ever identified close to where I come from because of my accent, and even he got the city and county wrong.
Born in Australia, now I’m told I sound like a Geordie more often than not, gan on…… :-/
@janbb & @worriedguy That is hilarious genuine and awesome… I miss that so much.
I personally have the Italian thing going on so fuggetaboutit…
@Worriedguy: Bubbula I have a challenge fora ya… She’s a korvah a real klip with a bad tempa you got a man for her, she’s fahklumped but a real shainah oy a few tsutrtis but ya know she’s a good kid…
Not to be a kvetch, but my buhrsitius I need to go to flooridah oy Gloib mir! Such a shande…
@Scooby I love an Aussie accent never change!
@GabrielsLamb A nice shiksah, I can work wonders with. But a korvah? a sharmuta? For them, I can do nothing.
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