Many people in the south are considered to have an accent. East coast too.
That does not seem to be prevalent in the middle of the country (USA). Perhaps a ‘lingo’ that has more to do with what they, or most people do in the area.
Do Southerners or East coast folks think that the West/Central has an accent? It’s all about how you hear it I suppose, and what you are used to.
Ask any Englishman, and he’ll tell you that all Americans have pronounced accents.
Actually, what you’re defining is that there is a fairly standard way of pronouncing most words that is the default for mass media and close to the common speech form in a significant area of the country. This accent is “Standard American,” and “people who speak with an accent” are simply those whose accent diverges noticeably from “Standard American.” But “Standard American” is something of a myth in and of itself. There’s a distinct Farmbelt rasp in natives of the Great Plains; Cincinnatians largely add a clear Appalachian twang; there are slight (but distinct) drawls in areas it is considered to be spoken in New England and the southern Middle Atlantic and Upper South; native Californians render the short E as a short I (“tin cints” is what a dime is worth).
The ‘standard’ American accent is the one that is prevalent in the Midwest (Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, etc.). It’s also what most of the news media speaks (either from being raised in the area, or due to training). It’s referred to as the “Midwestern Standard” dialect. (or "Standard Midwestern, or “General American”). Wikipedia has an article under General American.
As a Southerner (caveat: born and raised in Florida, which is not really all that Southern if considering accents) I can say that I do not notice anything in the west or central states that seems like an acceent to me. I’ll go even beyone that…in places like Manhattan or New Jersey, I can sometimes pick up that New York or Jersey accent, but it is rare.
THEY, on the other hand, usually have no trouble in immediately knowing that I am from the South. Strange as it may seem, it is not from my accent, but from my words. One example is when I was buying some clothes for my wife in Princeton, NJ. The sales lady said, “You’re fromt he South, aren’t you?” I replied that yes I was, but what gave me away? She said that I kept saying, “Yes mam,” when somebody from Jersey woulda said, “EYYYYY, laDEEEEEE!”
True, but it cracked me up.
Strange, I’ve heard it said that Cincy speech is considered the most “accentless” or “neutral” in the country by broadcast professionals. Listening to Nick Clooney, Linda Vester, or Bill Hemmer (all Cincy natives who are prominent newscasters), I’m tempted to agree.
You did not notice a Neh Joisey or Nuh Yawk accent?
Lived most of my life in Floriduh. When I was a trainee in AC/refrigeration repair, my first trainer/mentor was from New York. His accent was completely unintelligible to me-----partly due to its speed (mile a minute stuff) and partly because the language was just plain out foreign in accent to me.
We would be out at the condensing unit of a CAC and he would tell me to do something or other--------what I did not know,--------- was like I was listening to a foreigner who spoke nary a word of English.
Actually it turned out to be good training because I had to guess what he was asking me to do.
(The alternative being —“shit man --what the hell language are you speaking?”--------which would have definitely cost me points in my probation period .
And I guessed right most of the time. Thank Gawd.
I’m from Philly and even I can detect a strong Philly accent. (I left in the early 60s, but the mayor at the time, someone named Tate who lived in the section called Strawberry mansion and took the Broad St. subway to city hall) had it in spades. But when I lived for four years in central Illinois, the natives had strong accents. Certainly they sounded nothing like standard radio and TV announcers. Of New Yawk and Bastan, I will say nothing. Then I moved to Canada and have lived here for 37 years. Now get this: I can detect no Canadian accent (with the exception of a few words like oot and aboot, shedule, and the name of the last letter of the alphabet). But Canadians hear my accent immediately! I cannot explain this asymmetry.
I question the idea that “Standard American” English is found in only a few areas of the country. I work with a guy who is from our Houston. One day, I asked him why he didn’t have a noticeable Texas accent if he was born and raised there. He replied that people in the more affluent areas of Texas didn’t have accents and the area was quite diverse. I thought about it and he has a point.
I have noticed the same thing all over the country. My outer Boston suburb tends to have people with a Standard American accent as well. You could take a typical person from my town anywhere in the U.S. and most people wouldn’t be able to place the speech pattern. My wife is from a wealthier Boston suburb and she is the same way.
My point is that I belive it is common for most of the the country to have more affluent areas where the accent has converged with the American standard. I also have a less well-founded theory that people that move around the U.S. will have accents that converge on that accent. That is what happened to me. I was raised with a very thick Deep South accent. I started losing my accent in college and it just faded away when I started moving around the country. It wasn’t a conscience choice at all. Now people have trouble placing my accent at all.
A lot of places are more identifiable by their speech rhythms as opposed to their accents. Southern California, for one. Not much of an accent, but an instantly recognizable rhythm.
My impression of Cincinnati speech is that there is a regular, “neutral” accent with which a large chunk of the population speaks, but there is also decently large group that speaks with a clear Appalachian twang, and then a smaller number who would fall somewhere in between. While the “standard” accent is common, I probably wouldn’t hold Cincinnati up as the strongest example of it, simply because you are about as likely to hear an Appalachian-sounding accent there as the “standard” accent.
There actually is a more distinctive Cincinnati accent that is occasionally heard. At least to me, it sounds similar to something in the general vicinity of Maryland or Philly/South Jersey. I think I recall hearing that it’s associated in particular with Cincinnati’s west side, but I’m not sure about that.
May I point out a minor–well, it’s not minor–bit of information? Everyone has an accent. Every person who uses language has an accent.
The pin/pen pronunciation seems to vary around the state, but it’s most noticeable among those from the lower Central Valley (such as people from Bakersfield or Fresno), but I have heard Chino Moreno from the Deftones (From Sacramento) do it.
Coastal Californians (of course, even this doesn’t mean it’s a solid belt) do have similar but different accents, the “surfer” accent is the most parodied, but it’s a definite accent and isn’t used just by surfers or “valley girls” either. In northern California the accent is similar, but different.
Penelope Eckert from Stanford University actually did an interview on NPR for “All Things Considered” where she discussed her analysis of the emerging Northern Californian accent:
A written analysis: