What country has the sexiest accent?

[Acsenray]

I don’t have enough experience with Geordie, so I intentionally didn’t mention it even thought it came to mind, but I’ll take your word for it.

Thanks for noting my oversight of Birmingham, but I’ll disagree a little: Brummie is bad, but I think the others are worse.

Also, the queen’s accent is very not sexy.

[SanVito]

@Acsenray

Also, the queen’s accent is very not sexy.

Not many people with her accent around any more - she may be in a tribe of one at this point.

[Ike_Witt]

@puzzlegal

Upper-class anglo, would be my guess. But I don’t know how the accents are distributed.

That seems about right to me as well. I had no idea about there being more than one accent.

@SanVito

Not many people with her accent around any more - she may be in a tribe of one at this point.

That reminds me, the accent that William F. Buckley had seem to have died with him.

[SanVito]

Talking of which… I heard an interview with Sebastian Gorka on BBC Radio 4 this morning - who IS that guy, and where the hell did he get that weird pompous anglo-ish accent!

[MrDibble]

@Dr_Paprika

I thought South Africa had a large population of migrants from India? If this is so, do they speak English, Dutch or other languages?

@Alessan

The South African accent I’m most familiar with is that of the Jewish immigrants to Israel I knew growing up;

Most Jews speak with a variant of the English South African accent - it’s something I’d call a South African Jewish accent, but it’s subtle.

@BippityBoppityBoo

I would mean Trevor Noah.

I’m going to have to explain what a “Model C accent” is. Model C schools were semi-private schools set up after Apartheid - formerly White schools that receive state funding but also charge higher fees. They were the upper-middle class schools where mixing first occurred on a big scale - lower-income schools were still quite segregated and the top schools, largely unaffordable even to the growing new Black middle class… The “Model C accent” is mostly like the default White English South African accent, but at the posher end.

Trevor Noah has a Model C accent as his “default”, but he code-switches very easily.

@jtur88

In South Africa, you hear three distinctly different accents all the time, not regional, but all mixed on the same bus or checkout lane

No, there are very much regional accents of all 3, and there are many other accents as well.

Someone from Natal speaks with a decidedly different English accent versus a Capetonian even if they’re both of British descent. A White Afrikaner from the West Coast has a different accent (both in Afrikaans and English) from a White Afrikaner from Johannesburg(and both are very different from a Cape Flats Coloured Afrikaner’s English accent which is different from a Norther Cape Coloured Afrikaner’s English accent). The Cape Town townships Black accent is different from the Soweto one. Neither is much like a rural Black farmer from Zululand or a miner in the Bushveld.

@Dr_Paprika

I thought South Africa had a large population of migrants from India? If this is so, do they speak English, Dutch or other languages?

Most SA Indians speak English as their mother tongue, with a distinctive South African Indian accent that’s different from the stereotypical “Indian accent”. A minority still speak an Indian language as first language, and a larger group will understand Hindi and/or Tamil, both through cultural efforts as well as entertainment media - but they will not be conversant. More SA Indians speak Afrikaans or Zulu than speak Indian languages, I’m certain. Of course, this doesn’t count for recent immigrants.

[MrDibble]

@SanVito

A soft Geordie accent can be very seductive.

I like Sarah Millican’s accent a lot. But I had the misfortune to catch 2 minutes of a talking head segment from Geordie Shore and that woman’s voice hurt my ears.

[SanVito]

I did say ‘soft’!

[Slow_Moving_Vehicle]

@SanVito

@Acsenray

England: The Received Pronunciation accent as spoken by Kristin Scott Thomas in the movies is sexy. Some Yorkshire accents. Every other English accent I’ve heard is very not sexy, especially Manchester, Liverpool, Cockney, Modern Multicultural London, Essex, and Sloane Ranger.

Come now, what about Geordie (Newcastle)! A soft Geordie accent can be very seductive.

I agree with you on all the others (and you left out Birmingham, which is the worst of the lot).

Geordie? I dunno about that. I find Sarah Millican’s accent charming (and she’s fricking hilarious), but sexy? Hmmm…

[carrps]

@Brayne_Ded

In my experience, Irish accents can either be very charming or incredibly grating. And that is without considering Northern Ireland, where the accent sounds harsh and unlovely. To me, at least.

This is exactly what I was thinking while reading this thread. I find Northern Irish accents very grating.

[Acsenray]

I find them quite fun to listen to, but I wouldn’t call them sexy

[carrps]

@wolfpup

Let’s say the one that Sienna Miller speaks, for an example. (And I don’t mean necessarily in the movies, where she can affect an amazingly authentic American accent. She was actually born in New York, but brought up in London and her natural accent is beautifully English.)

Her father is American.

[carrps]

@SanVito

Come now, what about Geordie (Newcastle)! A soft Geordie accent can be very seductive.

Yes! Robbie Lewis!!!

[jtur88]

That’s true, and they’ve been there for a century. But a more closed society, and I can’t rememner ever hearing one speak. Hindu religion is only 1%.

[carrps]

@SanVito

Talking of which… I heard an interview with Sebastian Gorka on BBC Radio 4 this morning - who IS that guy, and where the hell did he get that weird pompous anglo-ish accent!

He’s supposedly Hungarian, but he sounds nothing like my grandparents.

[MrDibble]

@jtur88

That’s true, and they’ve been there for a century.

There’ve been Indian here since before the American Revolution.

But a more closed society, and I can’t rememner ever hearing one speak

Clearly you were never anywhere near Kwazulu-Natal…

Hindu religion is only 1%.

There are also Muslim Indians, and Christian Indians.

[SanVito]

@carrps

This is exactly what I was thinking while reading this thread. I find Northern Irish accents very grating.

I think it depends on who’s talking. I had an unbelievably attractive Northern Irish client many years ago, and she could whisper soft nothings in my ear forever.

[Dr_Paprika]

Compare these two French accents, and decide for yourself.

Alizée - Mademoiselle Juliette (Clip officiel)

Mitsou - Les Chinois (Official Music Video)

[Iggy]

Spanish from the Paisa region of Colombia. Just listening to the weather forecast on the news can make me swoon.

At least that is what Mrs Iggy wants me to say!

[Dr_Paprika]

The Colombian Spanish accent is very melodious and everyone seems to agree it is the purest Spanish accent. Both Mexican and Colombian slang are great fun, in different ways. Argentinian is a cross between Italian and Spanish but I can’t understand the slang very well which uses a lot of rhymes and puns.

[Baker]

Because I like deep voice tones, in men I rather like a Russian accent.