apart from any specific regional accents, I’d say that the “Canadian” accents I’ve encountered are quite similar to the “General American” accent (basically what you’d hear from most anchors on newscasts,) with a couple exceptions. 1) the usage of “eh?” instead of “huh?” and the tendency to “lengthen” short vowels, most notably “o”. e.g. “doe-lar” for “dollar,” “hoase” for “house,” etc.
at least that’s how I’ve heard things from living in the Detroit area and venturing into Canada from time to time (mostly Oakville/Mississauga.)
oh, and thanks to the OP for reminding me why I refuse to play any online multiplayer games.
After listening to it again, I’m LOLing. He isn’t just going for a generic American accent, he’s going for a stereotypically white milquetoast accent. When I’m trying to sound extra white bread and nerdy, I also pronounce “c’mon guys” just like that. It’s not surprising people guess Canadistanian. That northern midwestern/Canadian accent is what you go for when you’re trying to sound as nerdy and white as possible.
If it weren’t for the “haich” and a couple other things here and there, he does a pretty good job of it, IMHO. I’d be laughing my ass off playing with the guy.
He sort of puts me in mind of the Swedish chef (whose accent probably doesn’t actually resemble a real Swedish accent at all). If I had to guess, I would have probably said “American trying to affect some other accent”, but a mixed accent is also plausible.
He sounds American to me at the start, then briefly definitely Irish, then American again. It’s not just the vowel sounds and such - his voice also has that slightly nasal quality that I associate with NA accents.
He probably is affecting the accent for the pointless role he’s playing, but I have known Irish people who’ve ended up sounding rather American after years spent working abroad - sometimes not even through working in the US. It’s definitely not a normal Irish accent.
TBH my default assumption online is that someone’s American unless they state otherwise or it’s obvious from context that they’re not, because there are so damn many of you. So people would be going in there with an expectation of hearing American accents and that would affect their perception of what they hear.
Listening to his other videos (where he isn’t pissing people off), he’s clearly got an unambiguously Irish accent. So, yeah, he was putting an American accent on.
I’m in Newfoundland now, and am from the US, so I hear and notice the accent every day. That’s not a Newfoundland accent. Far too nasal, for one thing.
Sounds like one of those somewhat Americanised Irish (usually Dublin) accents I was thinking of. It happens a lot to Irish people working in London (not all, obviously) - they ‘soften’ their accent and end up sounding quite American. But it’s definitely Irish.
Also, a terribly boring topic to make a video of. Why am I watching this, why? :smack:
I hear subtle Irish accent in there. It sounds like someone who was raised with an Irish accent then tried to blend in in North America. It’s certainly no normal Canadian accent. Newfoundlanders, and to some extent other east coast Canadians, have a distinct accent - that sounds nothing like it. (Newfie sounds somewhat like cockney more so than Irish see - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-greE4w1LgY ).
Toward the end, yes, he sounds more distinctively Irish.
