My American Accent
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio. | |
| North Central | |
| The West | |
| Boston | |
| Philadelphia | |
| The South | |
| The Inland North | |
| The Northeast | |
| What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz | |
Very Interesting!. Above is the result of what I got the second time I did this test. Apparently, I had a change of heart on a couple of the questions. The first time I did this test it indicated I had a North Central accent like people in Minnestota. "I could be mistaken for a Canadian."
Below is what I wrote the first time around.
"My cousin suggested I do this little test. It turned out that in the United States I could be thought to be a Canadian. Well! I am.
When I lived in New England I was often identified as a Canadian by my accent. I might have thought my stay in the US would change my accent somewhat. Even more so my living in a French Canadian community might alter my accent somewhat. French words do slip into my speech, I risk being accused of speaking Quebec English. But this test was not testing for that.
My mother insisted we speak the Queen'e English so some effort was made to have me speak "correctly" (proper pronounciation). We were instructed insuch things as never dropping the "g" on the end of words ending in "ing". Of course, even more characteristic is being encouraged to pronounce "been'" to sound like "seen" rather than "bin".
I never could hear the distinctive Canadian sounding "ou" in words such as "house" and "about". (The Canadian raising diphthong) This gave me away as a Canadian in the US every time
Accents and local word usages interest me. I have recently been reading about Southern Appalachian speech. ( Listen to the audio files on this site to hear some colourful Smokey Mountain speech. )
Sadly, I think TV and travel and more education tends to weaken some of the more interesting and colourful ways of speaking. The TV standard for news readers is much like the Canadian accent, which is why so many Canadian broadcasters find careers in the US."
I guess my years in the US did alter my accent somewhat. I have never spent much time in any of the States where the Midland Accent is widely heard. Perhaps, I watched too much TV when I lived in the US! I would have thought I'd have had elements of the Northeast accent. I do know when we lived in Boston and named our son Parker, we knew we could not stay,. . . for in a Boston accent he would have been "Parka". Unacceptable!
Accents, regional and foreign, are interesting and culturally enriching.
posted by Tossing Pebbles in the Stream @ 10:09 a.m.
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10 Comments:
I don't agree with the quiz personally as it also places me in the Midland.
I grew up in Georgia with some amount of southern accent that I briefly tried to erase. In the US, southern accents are assumed automatically to be a sign of a lesser intelligence. However, as I grew older, I chose to not concern myself, feeling that I'd rather just have the accent I would naturally have acquired, or I'd just be me and talk like me.
I know I still sound somewhat southern, and having moved to Tennessee, I've begun to pick up a few of the local oddities. One of those local oddities is the pronunciation of words such as Knoxville in that the "ville" tends to sound more like "vuhl" though I catch myself going back and forth.
I've always been intrigued by the idea that our common language can be so different based on such small differences in geography. It's also interesting the number of non English words that we've completely made our own.
I got Midland as well. I grew up in Maryland but I don't feel I have an regional accent. I speak with a clean ordinary accent, like reporters on TV.
LOL It says I talk like a Canadian. Go figure! I enjoyed taking the quiz though. It made me curious because my grandsons say I have an accent. They think it's pretty funny the way I say some words. I guess a wee bit of my Irish heritage comes through every once in a while.
Blessings,
Mary
I say things like "sack" for bag and other words that give away my geographical location. I don't know but my Ohio doesn't have a real accent but we use words nobody else does.
I did that once too but they had difficulties to find me an american accent ! Don't remember where it was but it was very funny. Not Texas of course. I have rather the british accent.
Well kiss my grits I tested out to be a southerner! LOL
I'm so glad you found Dr. Montgomery's site! He's really wonderful. He may be using some words from my blog in the new edition of the dictionary. That's pretty funny that you may be a Canadian.
Yes, Inland North fit me to a "t".
Especially the part about coming form Wisconsin. When we visited the UP (Upper Michigan) the people up there tended to sound Canadian. Go figure!
It seem this brief test is surprisingly accurate. I has chosen the distinctive speech elements that differentiate one "dialect" from another. If it were trying to identify a Toronto resident it could ask if one pronounced Toronto a "Tor on toe" or "Trawna".
I used to live in Maine, graduated from high school in Ankara, Turkey, been in VA for 40 years... when I visit relatives in PA (my birth place) they make fun of my southern accent - here in VA, they say I still have a yankee accent, most of the time. I tested out to Midland.
I have a deah friend from Baahstin who pronounces her last name as Pahkah. Don't blame you for moving!
Have had trouble getting your comment section to come up... This is the first time it has let me on in a couple weeks!?!?!
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