| Archive for langcafe2.myfreeforum.org Come in and have your daily cup of languages! |
| Bashar |
American (USA/Canada) Accent survey & mapI don't know if the phenomenon has reached you yet, but there's several "What American accent do you have" quizzes floating around there getting taken thousands of times a day.The two best quizzes are here: http://www.memegen.net/view/show/2313 http://www.youthink.com/quiz.asp?action=take&quiz_id=9827 Now here's the latest twist: I'm trying to make a map based on the results of these quizzes. After you take a quiz, go to this page: http://freeshells.ch/~xavier/accentmap/pageone.htm and when you're there, click the spot on the map where you grew up. Then on the next screen, select the result that the quiz gave you and hit Submit. A few hundred responses later we'll have a North American accent map. |
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| Porthos |
Here's a link to my results:
http://www.memegen.net/view/show_results/2313 I have a "Western" accent. |
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| Porthos |
So far I'm the only one from Los Angeles who has taken the test. | ||||||||
| Elaine |
Western for me. No big surprise there.
http://www.memegen.net/view/show_results/2313 |
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| Llatai |
Mine came out as a midland accent, though they explained that it wasn't a geographic reference but referred to a more neutral American accent. Though I grew up in the South I haven't lived there for a long time. People used to say they could tell when I had visited home because I'd aquired a southern accent. You can still tell I grew up there however when I pronounce hurricane as "hair i kane" or use the term sliding board instead of slide or crawdad for crayfish. | ||||||||
| David |
Southern. Love it or hate it, your accent says you're probably from somewhere south of the Ohio River. Pretty much dead on for me. 
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| Bashar |
Very good, now "y'all" need to put "y'all's" answers "awn" the map. That is, once again, at http://freeshells.ch/~xavier/pageone.htm | ||||||||
| Akoni |
Seems like I have a New York accent. :D
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| David |
That's interesting. Do you think you sound like a New Yorker? |
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| Uriel |
Yup. Of course, I've sounded like this all my life, and I only moved to the west at the age of 18, so I think "neutral" is probably more the reason for my accent. |
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| Liz |
What's the world's first - I have a New York accent, too!  I think it's AAVE at best - at least it's non-rhotic. (Just kidding.)
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| Akoni |
I don't really know what a New Yorker sounds like. Unlike many Europeans that speak English, I use an American accent instead of a British one. |
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| Bashar |
You probably don't sound like a New Yorker. The quiz only has North American accents as results. Most British and Australians get "Northeastern" because of how they answer the questions. With continental Europeans, it can sometimes be different. | ||||||||
| Liz |
That's why I've done it because I thought it would be fun, even though it's not realistic for me. |
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| fab |
I don't know what could it means for an non-anglophone, but if we believe the pool I would have a sort of southern accent.
bu the way Liz, your photo is really beautiful, you're very pretty ! |
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| Walker |
I also took it for fun and my result was Midland. I wouldn't take that very seriously, though, since my accent changes a bit depending on who I'm talking to etc.
It's not her, man! It's somebody that she apparently looks like. |
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| Deborah |
This is just a guess. If you have a stereotypical French accent, you might sometimes pronounce the word "I" something like "ah", which is probably a key factor in the test for identifying southern accents. I, by the way, was identified as a westerner -- no surprise. The only question that threw me was the one about the vowel in "roof" being like the one in "foot" or "food". I know that when I was a kid, I said it like "foot", but now I'm not sure, and, try as I might, I couldn't just say it out loud and know that it was my current natural pronunciation. So I decided to say that I still pronounce it like "foot". I don't know how that affected the test. |
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| David |
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| David |
Intentionally? |
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| Walker |
No. My accent is American-influenced which is no big surprise, and it is and will always be rhotic. However, my intonation varies as well as my pronunciation; in Ireland I as well as the guy I traveled with pretty soon began to talk more like people do there. For instance, I pronounced the 'u's i words like "Dublin" the Irish way i.e. not DAblin, but DUblin, you know. I'm not saying I acquired an Irish accent, though (how could I - I was only there for 9 days); a guy who worked at a hostel we lived in said he loved our (Swedish) accent(s). I've noticed when I've told about the trip to Ireland at work that I sometimes pronounce "Dublin" the Irish way, and sometimes the American way, if you will. Since I have not lived in an English-speaking country I don't have a specific accent that's stuck with me. Speaking of accents... on my last night in Ireland I was without me mate and I went to an Asian burger place and ordered a burger with fries. The guy there had the strongest Asian accent ever, and when he asked me if I wanted salt on my fries I didn't understand him at first, as he kept saying "sarr?", "sarr?". "Oh, salt! Yeah, please!". |
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| Liz |
Yeah, that's true! It's someone else. But thanks, Fab - says the photo. 
***my emphasis*** Apparently, you have taken something home with you from Ireland.
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| Walker |
Yes, I'm sitting here with my feadóg, or tin flute, that I bought in Galway. I wanted to bring something home with me but I didn't want to be as touristy as some people, like some Canadians we met who'd bought slippers, hats and sweaters that had the Irish flag on them, or IRELAND written on them. I played the recorder when I was a kid, and as music is one of the best and most important things in life, I thought that an Irish flute would be appropriate.
I think Akoni is quite right about most Europeans trying to sound English when they speak English. At least many do. I don't see why one would aspire to speak like Her Majesty The Queen. Ridiculous! |
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| Liz |
Are you playing it now? I can hear it as I think about it. Anyway, I was referring to real souvenirs but to your using "me" instead of "my". It's a common usage in Ireland, too.
Why would one aspire to sound like George W. Bush? Just kidding...
Sounding like the Queen...aaargh! Oi've neva me' Europeans whou sahnded loik ve Queyne. Ve Queyne ('Er Majestay) sta'ed teh spake loik vat...moi 'usband an' oi o' ve loik. Shay's nou longa tawkin' posh...juss a way bi'
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| Walker |
That's lovely! But no, well, I'm no master at it...
I know you were! There are many wonderful things about their English.
Beats me! I wouldn't, anyway.
That's more like it! (innit!)
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| Uriel |
Now why would you put a picture in your avatar that wasn't yours? 
(Although Walker is forgiven for using Chuck Norris once, since he's using a character name.) And honestly, Walker, even though I've seen your actual picture, you're always going to look like this guy to me: 
Because I guess that's what I would get if I crossed Chuck Norris with a viking....
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| Walker |
Well, I'm honored! I look like some blond long-haired viking hero dude leading an important quest! The Langcafé party must be thrown by the ocean because that's how I'm going to look when I arrive there.
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| Liz |
1. Because when the series (in which she played the main role) was on Hungarian TV, everyone kept telling me that she looked like me. 2. I don't have a photo in which there is only me. (I wouldn't put other people on the internet.) More precisely, I only have paper photos of myself, which weren't made by a digital camera, thus cannot be stored on the computer. 3. Even if I had such a photo, I wouldn't put it on my avatar for the same reason why I don't use my real name and I don't participate in Hungarian forums (i.e. don't write in my mother tongue on the internet). PS: Uriel, you don't use your own photo, either. Or is the snake with the apple you?
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| Bashar |
It's still not quite done yet, but: go to http://freeshells.ch/~xavier/accentmap/select.html and you can look at results for specific cities. | ||||||||
| Uriel |
In a manner of speaking, it is, since it's just a play on my real name.  Which all the old Langcaffienos know already. And I used to use my real picture in my avatar until I got tired of it, so most of the long-timers know what I look like. (Some of us have even met in -- gasp! -- real life, which is always a treat.)
Thanks to the fact that my mother Just Will Not Leave The Camera Alone when I come visit her, I have a handful of digital pics of myself: 
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| Deborah |
Right. And in case you haven't figured it out, Liz, Uriel's real name is Original Sin. |
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| Liz |
My name is almost my real name, too, but it's not what you would normally expect from "Liz" (i.e. I'm not Elizabeth or Erzsébet - the Hungarian version of Elizabeth). No-one can pronounce my original name properly apart from Hungarians and Italians. (I have an Italian name which is quite popular in Hungary but not one of the most common names.) Besides, in Germany everyone tends to misunderstand it and ask "Whaaaaat? Your name is a colour?" several times. Because they can't pronounce double consonants. PS: It's a very nice picture of you. You look like my roommate without your head! And I envy you - it must have been a delight to meet in real life. (I've never met anyone in real life here - surprise, surprise .) Whom have you met? (I know that you met Deborah, but who else?)
Nice name. Shall I call her Original or Sin?
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| Walker |
Yes, it's indeed a nice picture. I recall Uriel calling it a good "boob shot" or something like that -- which it is -- the first time she'd posted it. 
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| Uriel |
No forbidden fruit here; eat all you want. And bring your own snake. (It's Eden, actually. Original Sin is my middle name.)
Well, Yann did say I had a nice rack -- just where did that boy pick up his English? 
If I recall correctly, Liz, its mainly us Americans who have had the good fortune (and opportunity) to meet in person -- Deborah dropped by and had dinner with me during a cross-country trip that took her through Las Cruces; she later met up with Kirk (another oldtimer who sadly no longer posts here) when he moved to San Francisco; and Julian and Elaine have crossed paths, since they are both in Los Angeles. I don't think the rest of our far-flung group have ever had the opportunity, although once in a while we have posters who are friends or relatives of each other. |
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| Loic |
So he was the one who said that? That must have been a long time ago then! PS: I agree with our old forum administrator, by the way. |
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| Uriel |
Thanks!
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| Liz |
Good names for an atheist! Then if you have a garden, it's called the Garden of Eden.
I know Kirk...but he isn't around anymore. What is he doing now?
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| Uriel |
Ironic, isn't it? My parents aren't particularly religious either -- my dad got it off a building, actually. But I remember being cornered by some missionaries on campus one day and fending them off by telling them I was an atheist (politely, of course), but when one of them asked me my name, I was like Oh, shit.... I think lately my garden is called "Dying of Thirst" since I've been too busy to water it! 
Last we heard, he had gotten a job (in San Francisco, I think) with some company, and then he disappeared off the map. Men are so fickle.... 
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| Bashar |
I don't mean to be rude or anything but is anyone going to actually talk about the topic? | ||||||||
| Deborah |
OK. Since the participants from San Francisco are 100% western, I wondered: was I the only participant from SF? |
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| Bashar |
There were actually 3 (2 western and 1 neutral-formerly-known-as-midland)but the program that looks at the cities only reads the 2 western. I enlarged the rectangle around the city but it's still not big enough to read the third. | ||||||||
| Joanne |
UGH!! Substitute "New York" for "New Jersey," but everybody I meet outside this area tells me that! 
Very, very true...
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| Uriel |
So you're an Asian who says "cawfee". Just wrong! Next you'll be all verklemmt!
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| Joanne |
Harumph... Only people from Brooklyn and Staten Island say "cawfee."
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| Bashar |
And so everyone else...does that mean they say "coffee" with the same O as "copy"?
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| Porthos |
Here on the West Coast, everyone says "cawfee", and pronounces the 'o' just like the 'o' in "copy". I know in the traditional north-eastern accent you don't, but in General American you do. |
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| Deborah |
If that pronunciation of coffee is what I think you're trying to get across (what people think of as a "New York accent"), I'd spell it "cwoffee". |
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| Lazar |
Well I'm pretty sure that most cot-caught unmerged Americans use different vowels in "copy" and "coffee" (because of the lot-cloth split), so "coffee" would be "cawfee" for a lot of people - maybe about half of the US. I think Joanne was referring to the pronunciation found in an extreme New York accent, in which they use [U@] or [UO] instead of the more usual [O] or [Q]. | ||||||||
| Deborah |
It was the use of verklemmt that made me think Uriel was referring to the extreme NY accent. |
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| Uriel |
Loved that character! Couldn't remember what her name was, though (besides Mike Myers)!
Yeah, Bashar, to me coffee is cahffee. |
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| Bashar |
Presenting the latest enhancement: now there are (going to be) zoomed maps of certain parts of the two countries! So now, you can get a better view of certain regions and can better see the different dots. Right now, the only one I've done is New England. Later (like later tonight, or maybe tomorrow) I'll do other regions. I just wrote the program for one region so I'll have to recompile the thing each time with different coordintates and...anyway, you can look at the New England states at http://freeshells.ch/~xavier/accentmap/neweng.bmp | ||||||||
| Pete from Peru |
HEHEHE, I took that quiz and it told me that I had a New York accent.
I did it just for fun because if you hear me speak you would think I have any accent in the world but a New York accent
Pete from Peru |
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| Liz |
You have some kind of a British/English English accent, don't you? I "have" a New York accent, too.
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| Samwise |
Well, I took the test. I'm from Washington state, but it said:
"North Central What people call the "Minnesota accent." Sounds almost Canadian. You may have even been asked if you were from Canada before. " I know I certainly do not have the Minnesota accent. Why doesn't the test get it right? |
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| Bashar |
Well...I guess I should look here more often. I had (temporarily of course) been getting less interested in coming to both here and UniLang, I think I was just running out of things to discuss. And I didn't think anyone at all wanted to discuss the accent map anymore!
But, since I just got this email today--and I might add that this is the first forum I've ever been on where people actually noticed me being gone--I decided to pop in here for a while. And it looks like someone bumped the one thread I thought no one would ever read again! Well since we're here, you might want to look at that accent map site again. I've kept updating it (but not every Friday like it says there) so the maps are all more or less current, plus the list of cities you can look at statistics for is now really really long. And on the "what the accents sound like" page there are links to YouTube videos. And I should probably reply to the last person who posted here: If you got "North Central" when you probably should've gotten "Western" it was probably in how you answered the question about the word "about." Last year I met someone who sounded Minnesota-ish but was really from Seattle, and she probably would get "Western" on the quiz, so it all balances out somehow. |
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| David |
I thought the British accent is much more common in Europe, due to it's proximity. Maybe the American accent thing is just a recent phenomenon? |
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| David |
Can anyone tell me what other accents are similar to the NYC accent besides the Jersey & New Orleans accents? Aren't the rhode island, ct, and Boston accents similar? I've also heard a few people from maine with a new york- like accent. |
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| Deborah |
I think the non-NY accent that sounds the closest is the one that is geographically the closest, namely the NJ accent that's from right across the Hudson River. Some New England accents share certain characteristics with NY accents (non-rhotic R, for example), but I think they sound quite different. |
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| Bashar |
I did put a page on the map site that hopefully should clear up these kinds of questions: http://freeshells.ch/~xavier/accentmap/exp.html | ||||||||
| David |
Yes, I think that's it. I can't even tell them apart! I think Yat would be second(after NJ) followed by maybe the Rhode Island accent??? |
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| Bashar |
I believe you are right--the way I set up the quiz, a RI person would get "Northeastern," just like the New Yorkers. You should look at the page I just linked to because it explains why. |
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| Travis |
The second quiz just gave me "Northern", which to me seems quite vague to say the very least. I would have to say that my dialect seems to really be transitional between the dialect groups that are denoted as "Northern" and "North Central" rather than being merely "Northern", with significant features from both being present, with both a strong NCVS characteristic of the "Northern" dialect group and significant Germanic substratum features characteristic of the "North Central" dialect group. | ||||||||
| Tiffany |
I got Western as did apparently a lot of people from the Miami area. A lot also got "neutral". One got "Southern" to which I call foul. No one born and raised in Miami has a Southern accent - you are either a transplant or WEIRD. (And hopefully you haven't lost your sense of humor ;)
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| Bashar |
This is just a guess, but I think that the quizzes work for about 3/4 of the people who take them. So far the map looks more or less like I expected it to when I started it, even though there are some dots that are clearly wrong (Southern in Miami, Canadian in Vegas, to name a couple). | ||||||||
| Tiffany |
Your survey is pretty nice, compliments :) I was wondering if I was going to skew it by marking down Western on Miami since I actually have lived in the West for about four years now, but I checked and see I'm not the only person from Miami to get Western. | ||||||||
| Bashar |
I'm curious, what do you all think of the videos I linked to on my website? Look at the "how the accents sound different" page and there are links to videos that I think demonstrate the different types of accents. | ||||||||
| JGreco |
I took both quizzes. The results were that I was from Ontario, Canada and the second test I took said I was from the Western States. What is funny is that I live in the Panhandle of Florida which is traditionally a southern accent. Though I live in a military community so within the bubble of a military community accents tend to be much more neutral especially in my area which is both military and a tourist trap. Though I do have a lot of relatives that live in Canada so maybe that influenced my accent. The second test was funny with the result for the West because I have never in my life have lived in the west. | ||||||||
| Sue |
Is there anyone else on this website whose not American by any chance? I was sort of expecting a more international crowd. | ||||||||
| Tiffany |
Well I am American, but many here are not. Let me name a few:
Benjamin, Andre, fab, loic (I think), Walker There are probably others I can't remember off the top of my head... |
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| fab |
I actually think Americans here are kind of a minority/
I'm french, Greg is too. Loic is from singapor. Benjamin from UK (Scotland). |
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| Uriel |
Our site admins have tended to be French or South African (this is what, the fourth incarnation of Langcafe already?), and we have plenty of international posters who come and go, but I think our Americans, while not the majority, tend to be pretty loyal and to post more often than some of the others. So you may see our names more often, but it doesn't mean we're the dominant nationality. Just means Andre, greg, Benjamin, Liz, Pete, fab, etc. are slackin'! (hint, hint) Poor loic and Walker are valiantly shouldering the burden, though.... 
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| TaylorS |
I grew up and live in the Fargo area, no surprise here:
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