What American accent do you have? — Fun Quiz. You may be surprised.
To most Americans, an accent is something that only other people have, those other people usually being in New York, Boston, and the South. And of those other people, half of the ones you meet will swear they “don’t have an accent.”
Well, strictly speaking, the only way to not have an accent is to not speak. If you’re from anywhere in the USA you have an accent (which may or may not be the accent of the place you’re from). Go through this short quiz and you’ll find out just which accent that is.
I’m born and raised in South Carolina, but according to the quiz my accent is from Philadelphia/ the West which makes sense if you know my husband grew up across the river from Philly in Trenton, NJ and my best friend since early high school spent the first 15 years of her live in Simi Valley, CA, like, totally.
The author David Sedaris wrote/said of the northerner fiancee of his southern brother, “Best of all, she was from the north, meaning that, should she and Paul ever bear a child, it stood a fifty-fifty chance of speaking understandable English.”
It said I was the West….since I was born and raised in Arizona, I guess it’s right. My next one was the Midlands. My Mom is from south eastern Ohio, and since she homeschooled me(and raised me) thats where that may have come from.
We have always said we didn’t have an accent……but my mates in the UK…say I have a drawl and my speech is unhurried, and clear, but not as slow as someone from say….Alabama. They pegged me from the rural west immediatly. Said I sounded like some of the old cowboys in the 50’s movies…..lol
I remember reading in Webster’s Dictionary (one of those sections up in the front of the book) that Utahns don’t have an accent due to the blending of accents from the diverse range of immigrants. I suspect this would apply to most Western states.
Wait..I’m not from the “inland north”, I was raised in the West, and thought I had a Northern Nevada Accent…but seems NOT!
Yeesh, I have no idea….???
It tagged me right — twestern. (Basically, I talk like TV.)
I’m curious, what’s the difference between western and midlands? I hear three trends when I travel in the midwest:
* towards the south (OK, KS, etc) , the accent picks up a bit of twang
* when you go north (ND, MN, WS, etc) it picks up a midwest-Canadian lilt.
* towards east (IL) you start to get the up-state New York thing happening.
It seems like the common-denominator of “midlands” is the western accent. So what makes “midlands” unique?
Oh,, maybe I get it.
Midlands doesn’t really start until you get east of the Mississippi. OK, ND, MN, KS, etc are all considered western.
The quiz told me that my access was North Central and that outsiders would mistake me for Canadian – I am Canadian so this quiz works pretty darn well!
…You have a good voice for TV and radio.
So people could change the station ?
When I think of accents it always reminds me of Carroll O’Connor who was from the Bronx, but did such a great job of mastering a southern accent for his role as a southern sheriff in In The Heat of the Night. Sure, he was an experienced trained actor, but still that had to be something that required a great deal of work and talent. On the flip side, there’s the ear/brain pain that comes from listening to failed attempts at mimicking accents that makes you want to shoot caulk into your ears and wrap your head in bubble pack.
More on the same subject.
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/home.html
This quiz was completely 100% accurate!!
It said I have a Western accent (SoCal) and I was born in San Diego. It also said I could be from a big city like Atlanta. I now live in Atlanta! Crazy.
Interesting quiz. It was indeed 100% accurate! I speak “Inland North.” I am from a small percentage of remaining and younger generation speakers of “General American English.” That’s because my friends and I are very well educated and don’t like speaking with a drawl or accent. My parents have a slight Chicago accent. I again prefer to pronounce my words the right way.
I remember my first visit to the bookstore I go to for my books. The kind people that helped me were from Queens and one guy from Brooklyn. They immediately noticed that I spoke General American and my generosity to them. I also find my style of English very calm, peaceful, and easy to speak with.
A lot of Chicagoans like Pat Sajak, disc jockies Neil Tesser and Steve Cushing, Jim Barton (former WFLD announcer), and Walter Jacobson) were not raised on the south or west sides. They lived in upscale, north side neighbrohoods and speak “General American.”
Sadly, Chicago (specifically the northside and downtown) is being alienated by corrupt, out of state teenyboppers. Because of that, it is turning into a clone of Los Angeles. Luckily, a lot of the teachers I have had spoke General American and a few like my poetry teacher spoke with a Chicago accent.
This quiz needs more questions to correct serious flaws, and the categories are poorly designed.
For example the “Northeast” is nonsense, Rhode Island in its entirety, and some portions of Connecticut cannot properly be lumped together with New Jersey and New York.
Secondly, I noticed that this quiz is completely unable to distinguish between New Jersey and the midwest. I am a very stereotypical northern New Jersey speaker, and I answered totally accurately, and came out as Inland North. Yet if you were to ask me to pronounce “coffee”, “water”, “all”, “talk”, etc. you would immediately know that I’m not from Cleveland!