# What's this accent? Is it a native English speaker or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 21, 2019, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377 "2019-07-21T01:00:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2019, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/21 "2019-07-22T17:21:22Z")
Definitely sounds English to me overall, a bit like Eric Idle. But yeah there is something else there, almost sounds like a French-born person that moved to the UK as a child. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2019, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/22 "2019-07-23T22:40:28Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > It reminded me a bit of [Father Mulcahey fro M_A_S\*H](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvLH22RSpaY) He does have that nasality and the sing-song prosody. I could hear very little difference between his vowel in “because” and the properly pronounced french vowel in “Grand Prix,” both sounding like /ɑ̃/, aka nasalized “ah,” or the French “an” sound. The prosody is really what stands out, though. That sing-song sounds deliberately put on, as a sort of announcer voice. It has the tonality of the old mid-Atlantic (a made up accent) announcers, but not quite right. Or possibly the prosody of the old UK announcers. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/23 "2019-07-24T06:01:33Z")
Just want to point out that the OP’s link no longer seems to go where it did. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/24 "2019-07-24T06:32:26Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Just want to point out that the OP’s link no longer seems to go where it did. Never mind, turns out that was a cock-up with my connection. ---
**Author:** ![Chicken\_Fingers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Chicken\_Fingers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chicken_Fingers)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/25 "2019-07-24T13:33:34Z")
It sounds non-native to my ear. I grew up living all over the world, hearing all kinds of blends. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/26 "2019-07-24T13:57:46Z")
I would guess NE US coast -Long Island to Boston- upper class, affected. ---
**Author:** ![Lamoral](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lamoral/32/16078_2.png) [@Lamoral](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamoral)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/27 "2019-07-24T14:25:24Z")
Never heard anything like that in that region…there are traces of the British accent in both the upper and lower class Northeastern accents, but not in the same way as that voiceover and definitely not with that kind of cadence, which sounds to me more like a French influence. ---
**Author:** ![swampspruce](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/swampspruce/32/261_2.png) [@swampspruce](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/swampspruce)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/28 "2019-07-24T15:29:27Z")
The way he says Trouble and a few other words sounds a lot like someone from Sheffield or the Yorkshire area combined with a later influence of East Coast American. Maybe the announcer was born in the UK and grew up/ went to school in the US? ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2019, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/29 "2019-07-24T15:34:48Z")
My money’s on rich northeasterner who spent some portion of his childhood in the UK or among UK speakers. ---
**Author:** ![Foxtrot\_Tango](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Foxtrot\_Tango](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foxtrot_Tango)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2019, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/30 "2019-08-03T09:53:45Z")
I am British and this is not a British accent. There is nothing British about it. To me it is definitely American and the person is trying to put on a posher accent than their normal accent for the recording. ---
**Author:** ![Nansbread1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Nansbread1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nansbread1)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2019, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/31 "2019-08-03T10:54:29Z")
> [@Foxtrot\_Tango](#): > > I am British and this is not a British accent. There is nothing British about it. To me it is definitely American and the person is trying to put on a posher accent than their normal accent for the recording. I said this a few weeks ago. There is no one in the British Isles, native born, who speaks with this accent. Eric Idle does not speak with this accent. There is nothing British at all in the clip. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2019, 11:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/32 "2019-08-03T11:03:13Z")
It strikes me as a non-American English speaker trying to emulate an American accent. ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2019, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/33 "2019-08-03T12:12:00Z")
Reminiscent to me of some English speakers on Deutsche Welle - the international German news channel. While they have East Coastish US accents the base sound [?tonality] of their voices is quite distinctly flatter, and the rise in pitch to emphasise words is much more deliberate. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2019, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/34 "2019-08-03T15:39:12Z")
It reminds me of a guy I know who was born in South Africa, but came to the US when he was six or seven, and has lived here continuously since then, and is now about 28. Almost all the time, he sounds purely Mid-west American (he lived mostly in Ohio and Indiana, but in a town in Indiana where half the residents are transplants), but every now and then, something pops out of his mouth that reminds you he wasn’t born in the US. I mentioned it to some other people, and one of them said “He wasn’t born in the US? I thought he was just putting on some affectation,” then someone else said “I thought he had a speech impediment.” FWIW, it is oddly high, in addition to the weird either affectation, or trace of an old dialect. If everyone else on the video has a UK accent, and this is an American who is trying to affect on to fit in, that may be why his voice sounds strained. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 3, 2019, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377/35 "2019-08-03T17:31:24Z")
The more I listen to the original video, the more I’m certain that there’s no affectation or fakery in this person’s accent. It’s his natural accent. It just developed in an unusual way. As I said before, I know at least person who has a strange, unplaceable accent like this, and he got it as the child of American diplomats who lived all over the world during his youth. His peers were other kids in American schools in Australia and other places. I’d bet that this is what’s happening with the accent under scrutiny in this thread. It’s a mostly-American accent that is blended through multiple influences. It’s not fake or affected. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-this-accent-is-it-a-native-english-speaker-or-not/837377.md?page=1)