American accent - Page 2 - Historum

**A7X** · October 14th, 2011, 12:44 PM

Trust me, AMIGAGOD, Mountain man is overdoing it. There are really only two main accents, north and south. Everything after that is a sub category of little significance. More often than not, you can't tell the difference between different northern accents or different southern accents anyways. California is on the other side of the continent and they sound exactly the same us New Yorkers.

"Ebonics", "Gangsta", or "Rap" talk is an entirely different thing. It's more of an attitude than an accent.

Boston is also a whole other deal.

d'artanian · October 14th, 2011, 03:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AMIGAGOD

I am afraid the average brit,such as me could only distinguish pehaps a new york accent or a deep south accent. All the rest sound the same. I do not mean this as any kind of insult, merely that it is probably the same for the average american to tell which part of the uk a brit would come from. My original question was raised purely to see if native americans trying to speak english had a greater or lesser impact than migrating europeans or if everything just got mixed in together.

I don't think Native Americans had much impact on accents, at least I can't think of anything in particular. For the most part, Native Americans lived separately and we were at war with them over much of the time so there wasn't much opportunity for their speech to influence the immigrants. I think what we have is, generally, a mix from Europe with a large amount of British and Irish to our accents.

olly · October 14th, 2011, 03:36 PM

Im sure i can hear an Irish twang with the new yorkers.
how did that southern accent come about?

**Wenge** · October 14th, 2011, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wastedgrunt36

Trust me, AMIGAGOD, Mountain man is overdoing it. There are really only two main accents, north and south. Everything after that is a sub category of little significance. More often than not, you can't tell the difference between different northern accents or different southern accents anyways. California is on the other side of the continent and they sound exactly the same us New Yorkers.

"Ebonics", "Gangsta", or "Rap" talk is an entirely different thing. It's more of an attitude than an accent.

Boston is also a whole other deal.

I am from Virginia. TJAdams is from Texas. We are both native to our respective states. I promise you that you can tell the difference between our accents.

Also, the difference between how a New Yorker, City resident, speaks and a cranberry farmer from Maine speaks is greatly obvious. Accents in the U.S. are as varied as the number of different peoples that make up the population.

d'artanian · October 14th, 2011, 04:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by olly

Im sure i can hear an Irish twang with the new yorkers.
how did that southern accent come about?

The southern accent is a mixture of English, Irish, Scots-Irish, Scottish-highlander, Welsh and German.

For more details, scroll down the page to Dialects:

Southern_American_English

**A7X** · October 14th, 2011, 06:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wenge

I am from Virginia. TJAdams is from Texas. We are both native to our respective states. I promise you that you can tell the difference between our accents.

Also, the difference between how a New Yorker, City resident, speaks and a cranberry farmer from Maine speaks is greatly obvious. Accents in the U.S. are as varied as the number of different peoples that make up the population.

The differences aren't huge.

Patton · October 14th, 2011, 07:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wastedgrunt36

California is on the other side of the continent and they sound exactly the same us New Yorkers.

Oh come on. There is a huge difference.

You must be from Buffalo. I'm from Ohio and a New Yorker sticks out like sore thumb here. Granted, its more pronounced in the older generations, but the Yankee accents persist.

**A7X** · October 14th, 2011, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patton

Oh come on. There is a huge difference.

You must be from Buffalo. I'm from Ohio and a New Yorker sticks out like sore thumb here. Granted, its more pronounced in the older generations, but the Yankee accents persist.

Close, Syracuse.