Brits: Sebastian Gorka's accent?

[Ukulele_Ike]

Although he may have studied
With a proper dialectician and grammarian,
I. Can. Tell. That. He. Was. Born. –

Hungariian!!!

[BigT]

So that smarmy tone is something that is normal in some accents, or are you discounting that part? It has the melodic tone of Thurston Howell III, even if the accent itself is quite different.

[John_Mace]

@Quartz

I disagree. I do agree that he sounds more like Grossman. However, I’ll note that Hungary borders Austria, so those detecting a German element may well be right.

Except Hungarian isn’t even an Indo-European language, so there is no reason a Hungarian accent would sound like a German one. Unless, his family was ethnic German and spoke German at home. But even then, he was born and raised in Britain, so there is no reason he would exhibit an accent from his parents’ homeland (possible in some case, but unusual).

[Quartz]

It was, at one point, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so an Austrian speaker may have found themselves on the Hungarian side of the border after division.

[SanVito]

@up_the_junction

It’s not posh, his vocab is obv educated.

Without looking at his background I’d say fellow Brit, first generation of east European ancestory (the name kind of gives that much away), raised north-ish London, speaking first language English with inflections influenced by immediate family and close immigrant community.

I also get a distinct American lilt at the end of his sentences. Quite the transatlantic.

[MrDibble]

@lisiate

To me his accent has a touch of South African English about it. He reminds me of Nick Mallet

@Mangetout

Agreed. I can’t think of any native UK accent it really resembles - it’s like an average of the southern half of England, with a few South African influences, the occasional American vowel, and a few Germanic-sounding consonants.

If I had just heard him, knowing nothing about him, I would swear he was South African. Possibly with one German parent or something like that, but otherwise, yep, he sounds South African to this South African.

[bingopuppy]

I lived in London as a kid and was very good at recognizing accents and mimicked them pretty well. When I first heard Gorka I realized something was just not right about his accent. It took me a while because when I first Googled him the only info was he was born in London and went to school abroad. This accent did not fit any that I could remember, I’m 65 now so it took me a while. In the 1970 Hammersmith was a working class area of London, he is of Hungarian descent and attended a British boys school in another part of London. Hammersmith had a very distinctive accent from the part of London where I was going to school. All of this is conjecture but I believe He started at a very early age augmenting his accent.

[QuickSilver]

I recognized his accent instantly. It’s the unmistakable dialect of a self-important asshole.