I was reading some of the comments on my last post and some of you seem to think that "Them ones wasn't what I was looking for!" is a regional dialect. It's very possible. I still maintain that it sounds horrible and, regional dialect or not that lady could try a little harder to speak properly. Anyways, I know how much everyone loves a good accent. Especially Sarah Palin's cute, folksy accent that she so famously slipped into when asked a difficult question. I found an article that traces her accent to the (you guessed it!) Minnesota north woods.
Then for your enjoyment, I found a video of Amy Walker who was on the Today Show and can effortlessly speak in 21 different accents.
Next, this is a video of a man doing his best Minnesotan accent. I find it hilarious, but he does swear a bit, so if you have any little ones around you might want to cover their ears.
Which accent was your favorite or least favorite? Is there an accent that you think makes a person sound more intelligent? What about less intelligent?
Then if you are wondering which American accent you have, take this little quiz.
Then for your enjoyment, I found a video of Amy Walker who was on the Today Show and can effortlessly speak in 21 different accents.
Next, this is a video of a man doing his best Minnesotan accent. I find it hilarious, but he does swear a bit, so if you have any little ones around you might want to cover their ears.
Which accent was your favorite or least favorite? Is there an accent that you think makes a person sound more intelligent? What about less intelligent?
Then if you are wondering which American accent you have, take this little quiz.
Here are my results, j.i.c. you are curious. I can't believe they said I sounded like the movie Fargo. Of course I think those accents sound ridiculous.
| What American accent do you have? Your Result: North Central "North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot. | |
| The Midland | |
| Boston | |
| The West | |
| Philadelphia | |
| The Inland North | |
| The South | |
| The Northeast | |
| What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz | |
9 comments:
I got "midland" accent, although I have a terrible time accepting that they believe southern Ohioans are without an accent.
That Appalachian accent is alive and well, my friends!
To answer your question, I really like some southern accents, especially from Georgia, Southern Alabama and the Bayou. Don't know why...
I honestly don't think any accent makes a person sound less intelligent, but I am partial to the northern English accent making someone sound smarter.
True Miyaunna, I don't understand why they always think that the British accent,for example, sounds more intelligent than the Americcan accent.
There is one accent that I usually don´t like. It is the accent from Alabama. They just speak so slowly that I feel I need to finish their sentences.
But, then hey, I apparently speak so fast that I run out of breath. That's sort of a problem.
I love listening to Paula Deen - she's from Georgia. I got the North Central accent too, though this is not at all surprising. When I was in Germany, a girl from Nebraska had written down a few words for me to say, and then laughed when I did. One of the words was "bag."
I did not like the guy's Minnesota accent. Maybe because he swore a lot, and made a lot of stereotypical statements. And I think you'd really have to search Minnesota to find someone who spoke with that much of an accent. I wrote a post on Palin's accent back before the election. I'm pretty sure that she played up her accent to better connect with the regular folks of America.
Accents don't make a person sound more or less intelligent, but how a person constructs their sentences does.
Amanda- you don't have to search to hard. I know lots of people, mostly older people and people from small towns who speak like that.
Most people in the Cities do not have much of an accent (though admittedly, it's still there). It's entirely possible that much of the accent is "dying out." Or, at the very least, becoming more "Midland." I think that what made the accent so pronounced was because we had a large population of immigrants from Germany and Scandinavian countries. Hence the older people, and smaller towns. Now we get a lot of Latino, Somalian, and Hmong immigrants.
It's weird because one time, in Chile, a guy told me I sounded Norwegian. I thought about it a long time and I think it's because of my accent.
For Germans, the "th" sounds are difficult to pronounce. I'm guessing this may also be true for Scandinavian languages such as Norwegian and Swedish. This is why "the" becomes "da." Is your family of Norwegian descent at all?
No, not at all. We are a little bit of everything, except Norwegian.
Midland accent here too. They ddi mention Dallas so I guess it's pretty accurate. I do feel a little scorned because they didn't have a "y'all" question. =/
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