| Friday, January 19, 2007 |  |
| American Accents |
 This quiz purports to pinpoint what kind of American accent one has. Which it does, not by listening to you, but by questions about words that sound similar or not. Now, I'm not American, but most Europeans would think that obviously I am, because I speak with an American accent. But while I lived in California, most people could hear that I wasn't from around there. Somebody with just a bit of an ear for accents would guess that maybe I'm from Northern Europe. Others would just guess that maybe I'm from the east coast, or from Northen California. The thing is that there are a few sounds that would give me away. Bizarrely, in words like "English" or "language", I'll say the 'g' too much like a 'k', however hard I try to do otherwise. Must be because they were amongst the first words I learned.
So, now, that test. I'd have expected it to indicate I had somewhat of an imperfect west coast accent. But, not at all. It says there's a 100% match with "The Inland North", which means the area around the Great Lakes, like Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin or Minnesota. The last one being maybe the only thing that makes sense from it, as a lot of scandinavians ended up there. But, like, Chicago, Illinois? I recognize the Chicago accent, and don't think I sound anything like it. Now that I think of it, I can't recognize any of the questions as distinguishing a west coast accent. What would that be? When you say orrible, rather than whorrible? When you say inneresting, rather than intresting? [ Culture | 2007-01-19 12:06 | 9 comments | PermaLink ] More > |