Be aware that New Orleans has a distinct accent of its own. As a major port of long standing, the city has a lot of linguistic influences that never really reached the rest of the state. Many of the locals don’t sound like anyone else from Louisiana. You may have to hunt around a bit to find a true Cajun accent.
You’ll probably know it when you hear it, though.
When are you going to be in Texas, and will you be passing through Dallas? A small Dopefest might be in order. (We DFWers tend to seize just about any excuse for a get-together.)
I’ve no accent myself, at least none I can discern or have mentioned, of course I grew up in the Fairbanks/North Pole area which boasts no accent that I’m aware of.
My sister though absorbs accents so to speak, you expose her to about 10 minutes of an accent and she tries to speak like that all day, some times it gets really annoying, sometimes she can pull it off so you don’t pull your hair out.
I still shudder that one time there was a movie about Irish terrorists in the US (No it wasn’t Patriot Games IIRC), she tried to emulate the ‘for TV’ Irish accent, was bad enough to get you to beat your head against the wall.
I’ve shed myself of (in order) English, Welsh and Scottish accents. When I first moved to Canada, I was teased unmercifully for my mixed accent (“limey” seemed to be the slur of choice). I worked hard to lose my British accent. Whenever I return to the UK, I’m usually mistaken as American (except for one drunk patron in a bar in Bath who had no trouble picking me out as Canadian).
Sadly, I’m going straight to Austin to hang out with the In-Laws from Hell. Every moment of Thanksgiving week has been booked solid… Well, I did get to insist on a few things: a 5K on Turkey Day, lunch at El Arroyo and a tour of my old stomping grounds, the UT campus. Maybe some Austin Dopers would be interested in lunch?
I pick up accents easily, too, although since I’ve become aware of it, I try really hard not to do it. For a brief period of time I worked in an office with the above-mentioned Dubliner AND a Georgia peach, and my mother was married to a Brooklynite. At some point I actually said, “Darrrrlin’, would y’all like some cawfee?”
Being another one of the dopers that have traveled the world…
Born in Dallas, Lived in Oz, Tokyo, currently in the U.K., soon to be Eindhoven. Personally I grew up with my father speaking Norweigian, my Nurse/Nanny/babysitter speaking Spanish, mother and the rest speaking Texaneese. so I had a muddled accent from day dot. I found out how bad it was when I moved out of the states and to Oz, I had to slow down my speech, enunciate properly, and my accent dramatically changed. picking up the lingo as well as the speech patterns in each of the places I have lived . It became real funny when I was learning Japaneese from a Bavarian speaking Queens English, and still trying to kill my texas accent… “Waaah Taah she” now how do you write that?!. Most Europeans will tag me for an American if I’m speaking English, Munich/Bavaria if German, and Mexican if I’m speaking Spanish. More trouble than it’s worth, but most I have found only ask out of major curiosity or if you ask first. Just My 2 Bob
I’ve always thought of the central Canadian accent as the ‘neutral North American’ one, and therefore uninteresting. Possibly this is because it gets used on the TV news a lot.
I wonder whether Toronto will develop a unique accent because of all the different people and languages mixing there… I was in Vermont for the weekend (Vermont is extremely beautiful), but I found I missed having lots of different languages within earshot. I realized when I got on the subway and bus to my neighbourhood in Toronto and heard all the people speaking Polish and Russian and Chinese and English and Albanian and French and Italian and Esperanto and Spanish and Ukrainian and (repeat almost ad infinitum) that I’d come home.
On the other hand, after passing through Montreal in the company of two French-speakers, I now want to move there and start learning French…
We were in the Dorval train station waiting for the train to Toronto, and I heard someone say ‘Tronna’ for Toronto, and I winced. Does Quebec English have a different accent (as opposed to vocabulary)?
I’m from NZ, and, alas, I’ve never been anywhere except Australia (which doesn’t really count). But at Uni nearly every lecturer has an accent. So we get to play the accent game - whereby you go to friends lectures you don’t take and listen very carefuly to their voice, and try and guess their accent. Lotsa fun. Especially when they sound like they grew up in Scotland, were educated in Australia and then lived in South Africa for a decade or so. Good fun. Plus you get to go to lots of lectures you wouldn’t normally go to. (In my case, Physics, Human Organ Systems, Ethics and Pre-Law. Neato)
Albertan here… I have a bit of an accent myself. My mother is from Nova Scotia so I’ve picked that up a bit and several of my friends have been British so I pick up on their accents as well. About the only accents I can tell the difference of is if you are Newfie or Irish, American, British/Australian etc etc… I can’t pick up specific countries usually.
When I’m drunk I get more of an accent too, and when I’m around people who speak a certain way I pick up on that (ie Irish,Newfie, British are the best ones I pick up on)
One day my friends and I were playing an accent game… basically affecting accents to see who could do them the best. I was doing good until I somehow managed to slip into a, get this, Irish/Punjabie(sp?) accent… it weirded me out so I immediately dropped it and I ave not been able to affect it again.
I usually try to affect accents for my characters when LARPing… Zil is Scottish (I can only hold it for a little though. I’ll work on it as the game goes) and soon my roomie will start an Ireland game in which he expects any characters who are Irish (which most will be) shall speak in an Irish accent.
Seriously, you notice a difference in West Aussie syntax? Interesting. Travelling over east, I didn’t notice any linguistic differences, aside from a few idioms.
My love muffin has an English accent. The world’s cutest English accent. It’s very RP except that he has a few features of (What is it? Is it Bristol, or something else?)
I always melted for English accents anyway, but I could listen to his voice for hours. Mmmmm. Especially when he says “oh my god” or “bye” or, well, pretty well anything.
melts into little puddle
Of course, he says I have a cute accent. But it’s a lie. He’s the one with the cute accent. Mine’s just an accent. I don’t know what he’s talking aboat.
In the other meaning, my favourite accent is the cedilla.
I had a very odd experience when I moved across the US. I grew up in North Carolina, so I have a southern accent. I speak very quickly, so that tends to minimize the drawl. When I moved to San Diego, the locals usually assumed anyone w/ even the slightest Southern accent must, by definition, be from Texas. After answering that question countless times, I heard a new one.
A friend and I ate at a CoCo’s restaurant (nothing wrong with them, but I didn’t expect linguistic cashiers) north of town. While we were paying at the register, the cashier overhead us chatting and politely asked, “Are you from the Carolinas?” When I answered in the affirmative, she said “North Carolina?” I’ve never had anyone, anywhere even attempt that kind of guess.
A side note, a couple of people have told me over the years that North Carolinians are somewhat noted for the apparent unique use of the greeting “Hey” as opposed to Hi or Hello. I’ve not done any vast study, but I do tend to use “Hey” often and notice its use by friends from home and I also rarely hear it elsewhere. YMMV naturally…
Tansu should be a continuity announcer on Channel 4.