Inspired by the thread on Canadian vs. USA accents. What accents do you find most similar to your own accent? I was watching a cooking competition show once that had two chefs from Trinidad and another chef from Jamaica. The Jamaican chef had an obvious accent. The two chefs from Trinidad, however, had only a slight accent compared to the general American accent. I think the Southern US accent and Boston accent sound more different than general American than the Trinidadian accent does. I found that fascinating. As I mentioned in the other thread, I don’t really notice the difference in Canadian accents either. For comparison, I grew up and live in deep South Texas, and perceive the accent from this area to be the same as general American.
Nowadays I understand I sound “mid-Atlantic”, which would mean I sound like an American who’s spent a lot of time in the UK or a Brit who’s spent a lot of time in the US, and “not from around here” to everybody.
Based on Hollywood casting, apparently to LA ears I would sound more Italian than Hispanic, which makes sense as my accent in Spanish is also quite different from what most Americans think of as “Hispanics” (Mexican or Caribbean Spanish).
I’ve perceived that certain Irish accents are not so far off from General American. Either that or Liam Neeson and Cillian Murphy are cultivating an Irish version of the mid-Atlantic accent.
For us Mercans the Midlantic accent usually means the Philadelphia to Washington DC corridor. People pick me out here in Ningland as being from Philadelphia or Baltimore based on the word ‘on’ pronounced somewhat like ‘awn’. I did grow up outside DC and later in the Philly area so it’s a real tell. I don’t notice people detect that so much in other parts of the country. I have a tetch of suhthuhn drawl in me, that come from the Balmer Merlin type accent, with a little Vuhjinyuh in it, and some from my parents tetch of Tinnisee.
I got a call from an Irish woman living in England that sounded like a southern accent to me and I asked her about it. She was extremely flattered, thought a southern US accent to be wonderful and wished that was the case. The south was settled by a lot of Scots-Irish, though I really can’t pick it out myself I’ve heard the claim that the southern accent derived from those Scots-Irish accents. Of course there is not just one southern accent, it’s evolved in different areas in different ways over time.
Dealing with the UK-ish world often I hear a lot of accents, and funny cases like my bud from Manchester who talks like he has a mouth full of marbles. One time he needed a German to translate his English to a French fellow. And yet on a phone call with him and a northern Scot he said he couldn’t understand what the guy was saying even though I could understand him.
I’ve noticed that some Irish accents are quite similar to the accents (especially of older people) where my wife is from – Newfoundland, Canada.
This isn’t the first time I have read this and the last time I looked into it and, well yeah. That’s a curious accent they have there. Seems a lot closer to over here than over there.
The U.S. Bostonian accent is a bit similar to an Australian accent in some respects, for example pronouncing the “er” ending of a word as “ah”. Pissah!