North Mississippi born & raised, but my Mom was from Joplin, IL. I have lived the last 19 years in Central Mississippi.
We moved across the country a couple of times when I was very young, but it’s probably safe to say that my speech comes from southern Ontario, since that’s where I lived most of my life.
I was born in west central Louisiana, sort of in the dividing region between north and south Louisiana, and lived there until just before I turned ten. I spent the next ten years living about thirty miles north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, then moved back to Louisiana, to the same part I was from. I’ve been living there for eight years, with a very short stay in Virginia last year.
That must be why I think I sound similar to you, Telperien - the LA connection. I wonder if you also pronounce the “aww” in Dawn? So far I only hear a hint of it in Bambi’s clip (besides mine).
Yes, I do, and listening to it, I pronounce the aww pretty strongly.
My sample doesn’t seem to have been posted yet, but I grew up in or near Hamilton, ON. I’d be interested to know whether anyone thinks I have an accent, when you get to hear it.
I’ll post it tonight. 
I’m glad you noticed. I do distinguish between Dawn and Don, but when I speak quickly it’s not as noticeable. I’ve had more than one person in my life swear that I said them identically and I know I do not.
Sunspace, I just made a voice post on my Livejournal, reading the Mary/Terry wedding selection and Fatwater Fewl’s paragraph. It’s right here. You’re more than welcome to snag what you can from it. I’m not sure what format it posts as, and the quality isn’t the best. If you can’t pull anything out of it, then everyone is free to listen to it and think, “Gee, she talks funny.” Or just be annoyed by my nervous laughter or hint of a lisp. Whatever.
After the selections for this thread, there are two sentences to showcase my southwest Wisconsin accent for hekk’s thread about Wisconsin dialects. The first one is to show nasalized vowels and the second one to show the flapping that both Slithy Tove and I do. (I think it’s an alveolar flap, if I’m remembering correctly from my linguistics class. Please feel free to correct me.)
Nasalized vowels in Wisconsin speech:
Vaguely she said, “The jagged branch had snagged the bag, so there ws a hole for the eggs to fall through.”
Alveolar flaps/taps:
The adorable kitten rolled with its mittens, but, alas, was bitten by the adder.
Thanks, Miss Purl. I had no problem with your link.
fishbicycle, I’ve added yours.
“Mary rarely rose at dawn, but did so on the day she was to marry Don in order to pore over details such as whether the weather would be fine or poor for taking pictures, who was to pour the wedding wines and pitchers of beer, and to be sure that her poor, overly merry cousin Aaron, visiting from Erin, would catch the last boat (a converted ketch) from the mainland and so would not arrive until about the time the honeymoon bags were put in the boot.”
I aped **Miss Purl **and did a livejournal voicepost. Here’s mine for anyone interested.
Oh, and I’m from Tennessee. That’s mentioned in the post but not in the beginning.
Dynamitedave has sent me some samples:
“Poor”, “pore”, and “pour”
“Marry”, “merry”, and “Mary”
“Mary was merry as she married Terry, but then Scary Larry got carried away and chased Barry’s hairy dairy cattle through the ceremony.”
“Don”, “Dawn”, “Aaron”, and “Erin”
And lastly,
I have to say I’m really enjoying hearing all the different voices on the SDMB, especially the Dopers from outside of North America.
And for any of you perplexed with my mumble, I’m from the very north of New Zealand.
Interesting. A former best friend and my current one are both Kiwis but you don’t sound anything like either of them. Have you ever lived in Australia? Both of them spent significant time there and may have hybrid accents.
Meant to add this for **tonedef **but missed the edit window:
I’m not going to make another voicepost just for two words but looking back over the thread, I would pronounce “collier” as “kahl-ee-yer” with a very faint and quick second syllable and “caller” as “kahl-er”.
Ah no, never lived in Oz. Lived in the UK for 3 years in my early/mid 20’s, but that’s near 20 years ago now. Comparing the .wav to the .mp3 versions, I consider my voice sounds a bit “flat”.
You don’t say how my and your friends accents are different. Like anywhere, there are those here that have very strong accents, more neutral ones, and in the south of the South Island very strong, with the rrrr’s rrrrolled. I wonder if my voice is different when reading those passages and when I’m chatting normally? The long ones I had to really concentrate to make sure I didn’t make a world wide fool of myself. I think I speak a lot faster when just talking, I’m often forcing myself to slow down when explaining things to customers or on the CB.
I grew up in a very small, stable, rural community, about 30 kids went the school, until I moved to boarding school at 12. So I didn’t have any exposure to different people/accents until then.
I suck at describing things but you seem to have a more mushy way of speaking, for lack of a better term. Scott, the former friend, had almost what I would consider a burr and Kat, the current one, sounds very vaguely English and a little stuffy-nosed.
I think both are initially from the Auckland area but I met the former in the US and the latter’s lived in Brisbane for at least three or four years now.
Well, over a hundred people have viewed this thread since my sample was posted. I am still curious to know whether any of you think that I have a regional accent, or whether you can tell I am Canadian. Anybody?
You sound like a movie narrator and I detected no accent at all.
Even had I not known you worked in radio, I’d’ve guessed it from your sample.