How do you talk?

[Khadijah]

Inch-Risting.

 

[AlphaCharlieID]

I am an Australian, i notice i throw in 'R's' everywhere "starff i staff" so forth, im also llasy, i take letters out "melboune"

 

[chrissie]

xena - i'm from philly and most of the time i say "in-tres-ting"

 

[_a_A_C_c_]

i'm from cleveland and i say "in-ter-est-ing"

 

[drEaMtiMe*@#]

the clearest way of being able to recognise what your country of origins accent sounds like is when you go overseas and speak to foreigners. specifically when in english speaking countries. and on that note i have to say that i don't really like the aussie accent much

 

[drug_wench]

^^^ i say it like lacey does, inch-risting
yea language is fucked up - i was thinking how austrlians must think we say fish and chips so weird in new zealand, since we percieve the aussies as saying 'feesh and cheps'
i appreciate all accents 4 their uniqueness - without accentd we wudnt b who we r rite...?

 

[sickpuppy]

well, being truly southern...all my words kinda run together. ever see "blue collar comedy tour" when jeff foxworthy does the word of the day or the new words thing?

INITIATE - "and then she ate..."
MAYONNAISE - "man, there is..."
WITCHADIDYA - "with you did you..."

although you can understand what i'm saying (i don't have that "twang" accent either), there clearly needs to be a little separation in my words.

it was funny going to school/college in the NC mountains. there's some way different accents up there. "ice" is commonly pronounced "ahss", "oil" is "ohl", not "oyl"....and "flower" is "flare" or "flayer".

Same here.

 

[THR!]

I am an Australian, i notice i throw in 'R's' everywhere "starff i staff" so forth, im also llasy, i take letters out "melboune"

Not to mention the pronunciation of the letter 'h' - must Australians say 'hay-tch' - it does my fucking head in 8(

 

[mariacallas]

the clearest way of being able to recognise what your country of origins accent sounds like is when you go overseas and speak to foreigners. specifically when in english speaking countries. and on that note i have to say that i don't really like the aussie accent much

me too least favorite accent. Altho i will make an exception for my favorite aussies on BL , such as SLM and raverchik

The only word i notice myself pronouncing differently than how we do here in Asia is Clothes (pronounced "clodes") I hear americans pronounce it as "clowz" . Lol.
Hey you bought your clowz yet?

 

[Hypnotik1]

Im from the New Orleans, LA and we have about 3 conflicting accents in the area.

We have the more traditional southern LA accent...Kinda twangy but not nearly as bad as alabama or Georgia. Its a lil more crisp and quicker.

Then there's the infamous Cajun accent where all the words are spoken so fast only the stressed part of the word is really pronounced and the words basically run into each other. Its like there they dont even take a breath when talking...The only way to catch each sentence is b/c theres a 'B' sound before each one....Very hard to explain....Lemme try an example...

Where have u been? = Bware-u-bin

I lived there for 20 yrs and its still hard as hell for me to understand that cajun shit...

And then theres the urban New Orleans accent....Its very diff from what most people expect. Its kinda New Yorkish but w/ lots of southern slang and every word has a slight southern draw....

Example: So what are you all up to? = Sew wat y'all up ta.

OR if u go just right outside the metro area of N.O you'll hear it a lil bit thicker like...

Hey darling what are you up to this morning. = Hey dawlin whacha up ta dis mawnin?

This is the hardest one to explain. I never noticed it until i moved away. And people always have a hard time figuring out where im from. Its only really noticable when im yelling or when im using alot of slang. My normal talking voice doesnt have a real distinctive accent at all.

Jogging = jawgin

stuff like that....

Now that i travel alot i notice my own accent more and more....especially some of my family who i thought never had one at all...

Anyways, Cool thread

 

[aunty establishment]

95% of people I talk to outside of Australia think I'm British, which is a point of pride: I just speak English correctly, the way it was meant to be spoken. I definitely do have an Australian accent though and have been reining it in since I've been in Singapore because it makes it easier for the locals to understand me.

I was wikipedia skipping the other day and apparently the formal term for the accent I have is "Cultivated Australian English" or CAE, which sounds really knobby! Also they gave Alexander Downer as an example which I think is nonsense, his accent is definitely closer to RP. I'd never want to sound like that.

I have a hard time taking Australians with very broad accents seriously (think Steve Irwin), it always feels like they're putting it on.

An ex of mine was a flawless mimic and could copy any accent within a sentence of hearing it. It was amazing! We went to a NYE party at a restaurant where they wanted everyone to wear nametags - we thought that was retarded so he told them his name was Sancho and he was Colombian and I was "Hilde from Sveden" (I was wearing a very Sound of Music dress) and we had everyone totally fooled, I dunno what people think Colombians look like in Perth, Australia but buddy, it was flawless. We had back stories and everything. Best NYE ever.

 

[Khadijah]

^^HAaa, lol.

When i was younger we would walk around the food store talking in cuban or english accents the whole time and thought we were fuckin with people and "did they really buy it?" but i doubt it. well when youre 10 you think youre cool lol.

 

[THR!]

Then you hit your twenties and the sudden realisation you're just one out of six billion.

 

[Doppelganger]

I'm from Australia and pronounce words as the dictionary would suggest. That is, unless I'm intentionally or carelessly just 'fucking around' with my speech....

The only word [to my knowledge] that I pronounce incorrectly is GIRL . I say GAL instead, however it's not a conscious decision to direct my speech in that manner. I do truly and surely mean to say girl...

Bad habbit.

 

[MissBehavin'_416]

I've been told I speak with a french accent.

I don't speak a word of french.

 

[aunty establishment]

Then you hit your twenties and the sudden realisation you're just one out of six billion.

That's numbah one, mofo!

Ain't nothing wrong with thinking you're cool in your mid-twenties

 

[keystroke]

i would be hesitant to say you even know english.

I was about the write the same thing :D

 

[-=ReD-hAzE=-]

North American Dialects

This is strait out of December's National Geographic
____________________

Far from fading away, they're getting more pronounced

Read these words aloud: caught and cot; pin and pen. Do the pairs sound the same? Your answers depend on where you're from. That's because even though most Americans and Canadians speak English, they don't all speak the same English.

The different dialects developed from the various groups that immigrated to the continent generations ago. Until recently, notes University of Pennsylvania linguist Bill Labov, many experts assumed that "under the influence of universal literacy and mass media, regional dialects were being leveled."

Not so: Local identity and other social forces exert a stronger influence than even TV on how dialects evolve. "The Inland North, the Midland, Canada, and the South are now more different from each other than ever," says Labov, who directed a long-running study on Amerian dialects. The findings will be published this month in The Atlas of North American English, which he wrote with Charles Boberg and Sharon Ash.

In each regoin the study found major sound changes in progress. In the North, for instance, vowels are shifting so that the o in "stock" sounds more like the a in "back." Just across the border in Canada, the exact opposite shift is occuring. The changes and intensificiation of dialects aren't unique to North America. Labov observes that in England and Europe "long-established regional dialects are also getting stronger."

So where are you on the map? If your pens sound like pins, then you're probably from the South. But if "cot" and "caught" sound alike, you may be from eastern New England, western Pennsylvania, the West, Canada--or Scotland.

--Naomi Schwarz

 

[Mariposa]

Im from the New Orleans, LA and we have about 3 conflicting accents in the area.

We have the more traditional southern LA accent...Kinda twangy but not nearly as bad as alabama or Georgia. Its a lil more crisp and quicker.

Then there's the infamous Cajun accent where all the words are spoken so fast only the stressed part of the word is really pronounced and the words basically run into each other. Its like there they dont even take a breath when talking...The only way to catch each sentence is b/c theres a 'B' sound before each one....Very hard to explain....Lemme try an example...

Where have u been? = Bware-u-bin

I lived there for 20 yrs and its still hard as hell for me to understand that cajun shit...

And then theres the urban New Orleans accent....Its very diff from what most people expect. Its kinda New Yorkish but w/ lots of southern slang and every word has a slight southern draw....

Example: So what are you all up to? = Sew wat y'all up ta.

OR if u go just right outside the metro area of N.O you'll hear it a lil bit thicker like...

Hey darling what are you up to this morning. = Hey dawlin whacha up ta dis mawnin?

This is the hardest one to explain. I never noticed it until i moved away. And people always have a hard time figuring out where im from. Its only really noticable when im yelling or when im using alot of slang. My normal talking voice doesnt have a real distinctive accent at all.

Jogging = jawgin

stuff like that....

Now that i travel alot i notice my own accent more and more....especially some of my family who i thought never had one at all...

Anyways, Cool thread

LOL. I was born in Jefferson Parish and lived there for 10 years (I'm not Cajun). I watch videos of myself as a kid and realize what an accent I used to have... lawdy Miss Claudy, mercy Mr. Percy

it does come out when I'm drunk and/or arguing and I do speak quicker than a lot of people.

Now I live in California and I've been known to say "hella" and "y'all" in the same sentence, but I've worked hard to lose any accent I might have had. Both my parents were born in upstate New York and corrected my speech often, but it DOES come out when I drink, like Fizzy, and it KILLS me when people say NEW-OR-LEENZ.

Emeril Lagasee = perfect example of a wannabe SE LA accent, but that's another story.

And I say it "wah-tur." My normal speaking voice doesn't have much of an accent, it used to be a lot more pronounced. Interestingly, my father picked it up more than me, he pronounces our last name very differently than I do. I know I draw out words a little more than most people, but out here people think you're stupid if you speak even a little bit southern I do call them "crawfish" and say "boil" more like "bawl."

SE LA accent = South Georgia meets Brooklyn.

I've lived in 4 different states with very different ways of speaking, I'm a clusterfuck :D And when I get around other people from Louisiana I do pick it right back up. I also never grew out of some Louisiana slang. When the Katrina victims were all over the news I noticed a distinct difference in my speech.

 

[xXTOKERXx]

bit of a cockny accent in there somewhere.