North American accents quiz, stolen from bluestocking79

[mary_j_59]

Well, this is the second time I've taken this quiz, and I come out a Northeasterner - which is exactly right. I'm from Connecticut.

What American accent do you have?
Created by Xavier on Memegen.net

Northeastern.
You're probably from somewhere near New York City, possibly north Jersey, or Connecticut or Rhode Island. If you are from New York City you may be one of the types who people never believe when you say you're from New York.

If you are not from here, you are probably one of the following:
(a) A Philadelphian who can't stand the way other Philadelphians say "on";
(b) A Yat from New Orleans; or
(c) Someone from England, Australia, or New Zealand, in which case why are you doing this quiz in the first place?

Take this quiz now - it's easy!

We're going to start with "cot" and "caught." When you say those words do they sound the same or different?

Same Same, no wait I mean different, maybe, a little bit different... Different

Comments

[hope-24.livejournal.com]

Does a Conneticut accent mean you'll sound a bit Katherine Hepburn?

I'm Canadian, apparently. Do Canadians generally sound Scottish?

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Katherine Hepburn! Wow! Well, I love her, but think she sounds like no one on earth, actually. (To be more accurate, the accent is not that dissimilar, but I'd say her vowels are broader than mine.)

And Canadians are famous for saying "aboot" rather than "abowt", and have a bit of that "uh" sound in their vowels, so I guess they come closer to a Scottish accent than other North Americans.

[swythyv.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That was fun. I was:

Neutral. Not Northern, Southern, or Western, just American. Your national American identity is more important to you than your local identity, because you don't really have a local identity to begin with.

Which like yours, was also consistent with observation for me: I do actually sound like the "six o'clock news." And thanks to rubbing along with people from many places, I usually come up a hodgepodge of all the tell-tale word usages, too. In fact, thanks to some Brit coworkers and Harry Potter, I've picked up enough Britishisms to become unintelligible to virtually everyone. ;D

Sorry I haven't been around much. I've been unusually sleepy, and what time I am waking I have been wound up in sussing out "Salazar's Secrets."

:D

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

It's nice to hear from you - and I am looking forward to whatever you discover. )

[anne-arthur.livejournal.com]

I tried this just to see what it came up with, and apparently I am a Northerner, whatever that means! The people doing the quiz say that it used to be the standard American accent: would you agree with that? I found it quite confusing: on most of the questions I could answer that I pronounced the vowels entirely differently, but on the 'do you pronounce vowel A more like vowel B or vowel C?' ones I found that I pronounced them all exactly alike, which wasn't an option!

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Yes, the northern accent is pretty much received pronunciation in the U.S. But I can imagine you found this quiz confusing! The vowel sounds in most parts of the British Isles are quite different from vowels in most of the U.S. and Canada. In particular, I can't think of an American dialect that would have "oop" for "up" and the like. I wonder if there is a similar quiz for dialects of the British Isles and how I would come out on that one!

Speaking of weird American accents, it wasn't until I got to the Midwest that I realized there were Americans who could neither pronounce nor *hear* the difference between "Mary", "marry" and "merry". Out in Wisconsin, "marry" and "merry" were homophones. So that, in an introductory speech by the head of a dorm where I stayed briefly, I heard this gentleman say, "Back when I was an egg . . ." (He meant "ag", agricultural student.)

[sionna-raven.livejournal.com]

Another unauthorized European jumping in. 'oop' for 'up' sounds very familiar to me, but I remember that I never understood how some Americans can rhyme 'heart' with 'court'. Mary, you called Northern RP, is there still a a kind of socially discriminating note to some accents or dialects? We had an exchange teacher from Georgia at college who was extremely embarrassed, when some students complained they understood his Wisconsin colleague quite well, but were at loss with his accent (slight Southern drawl).
BTW I got NY, whatever that means.

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

There are Americans who rhyme "heart" (ar sound) with "court" (or sound)? I actually didn't know that! But yes, a Southern accent is sometimes considered uneducated - rather like the Northern accent in England, I think, or maybe the Bayrisch Aussprache in Germany? It depends on how heavy the accent is, really.

I don't know what it would mean that you got New York! I tend to think of New York city accents as (1) nasal (2) full of diphthongs (3) droppping the 'r's on the ends of some words, and then adding them in on others where they don't belong. I have an Aunt who speaks rather this way - a true Bronx accent. It's actually interesting that, even in America, where there is so much influence from TV and other mass media, and people travel so much, there are still identifiable regional accents.

[sionna-raven.livejournal.com]

The 'heart/court' example was mentioned in a course on English dialects all over the world I did ages ago; it was from Oklahoma. I remembered it , because it seemed so weird.
Funnily speaking Bavarian or the North coast 'Plattduitsch' in Germany are considered a matter of regional pride and therefore accepted, as along as it's made clear that you can speak High German and intentionally choose not to. However it's not a good idea to keep the smallest trace of a Saxonian accent. This is not only considered uneducated, but right out ridiculous and even well-mannered Germans tend to bite their lips not to smile, when hearing it.
The way you describe New York accent looks pretty much what I expected. Add German and Irish to a basic broth of English, stir, add a few dashes of Polish and Italian and let it simmer until it sounds English. The use of the 'r' is probably of German origin; we either drop or overdo it.