I'm struck by the lack of regional varieties in American English (AmE) to the degree of linguistic poverty, uniformity and dreariness. I find the USA much less diverse than the Americans think despite their ethnic salad bowl.
_Dropping_ the "R" and using long vowels... Haha! In the UK standard, you _add_ "R"s, in Cornwall and Ireland. That's why I am watching your video. I can easily spot if a British person comes from Yorkshire, South Wales, Liverpool or East-London but with America, outside of Forest Gump's Old South, I am at a complete loss.
The southern drawl is varied. People from TN have a distinctive sound as does SC and LA. There is no pure “southern accent” very different from state to state. It’s wonderful.
I'm from SC and have people ask me, "Where are you from?" who are also from SC. I think I sound like everyone else in the south, but my accent is pretty thick. It's still not even close to the top end of the spectrum though. It's always fun when you travel out west or up north and everyone asks you, "Say y'all!" and you just say, "y'all..." then they think it's the greatest thing ever.
The "Val" accent is not real common anymore, even here in the 818 (the telephone area code for the Valley). I listened to the video to find out what he considered to be the California accent. I always thought of the CA accent as being more or less the standard U.S. accent because we have people from all over living here so we get a mixture. My own accent is closer to "surfer dude" but with a mixture of New England (my mom was from Boston) and Texan (I have friends and spent time there before the pandemic). Y'all pahk the cah ovuh theah...
I agree with the comments that there are soooo many "American" accents. It's nice to see the nuances analyzed and explained. I would also love to hear some excerpts from native speakers included in the video.
Not only does the southern accent vary from state to state, it varies in each state. For example, the accent in East Tennessee is different from Middle Tennessee.
I swear, those people in the mountains in east tennessee have a whole nother language to the people in west tn where I’m from! They’ve got a beautiful sound over there.
Native Texan here and I've noticed that Texas has at least 4 different regional accents: East Texas has a nasal twang, West Texas and Panhandle (but not El Paso) a drawl (esp. noticiable in the L's and R's) South Texas with its Spanish influenced English., Central and rural areas with a general southern accent and all regions with unique Texas lexicon.
Tennessee is really three small states lumped together. Historically East Tennessee was very distinct geographically, economically, politically from the rest of the state. It was for instance one of the only areas that resisted confederate rule during the Civil War- East Tennesseeans voted overwhelmingly against secession even after the attack on Sumpter, and after the war broke out it became a hot bed for Union sympathizing guerrillas and saboteurs. It was also one of the only parts of the South where Republicans had a chance at local elections during most of the century after the civil war. Of course the mountainous valleys of East Tennessee tend to produce pretty different social patterns than West Tennessee’s Mississippi plantation lands.
The overuse of 'like' has spread to the speech of young people in many places, including parts of Canada. Also, 'no worries' has spread far from Australia. When I was a kid, no Canadian would have ever said 'no worries,' but now it's very common.
Hell, even in places across the globe you can hear teens mimicking this mannerism. I live in Poland and in the past few years the conjunction "jakby" (a literal translation of "like") has come to be used in exactly this way, despite it being, in many cases, semantically incorrect.
@@psychescope239 The same applies here in Japan. Young people tend to use the filler, "mitaina" when it's absolutely unnecessary to use it. Whether it's an influence from Hollywood movies, I really don't know.
Californian here. I was thinking, “isn’t this guys regular voice the Californian accent?” You made me realize things I’ve never payed attention to in my life, I was cracking up thinking “THAT IS HOW WE TALK, MY GOD!”
This guy is more likely from the north, somewhere east of the Mississippi river. He hides it, but there are tells. And also his example sentence for Cali talk is nowhere near stressed enough, nor does he restrict the back of his throat on those stressed words. He said he was going to overexaggerate but he certainly did not exaggerate much lol. And like, oh my gawd, you have to like, watch like, Clueless or whatever... and also? like watch like, Daria clips, with like, Brittany. Then you'll -really- hear the ultra-exaggerated California sound lol
@@neianaYeah. The most popular words in southern Cali language is like, totally, way (waay cool or far out, and cool. There's also a distinctive way many of them say things, a particular sound or tone in their voice that really says Southern Cali, one particular example I can think of is in the movie "Not another teen movie" near the end when several people are calling out from their cars to that one character things like "she doesn't like you!", and one guy calls to him "she'll never be more than a friend!", the particular sound to his voice when he says that is really southern Californian, you don't really hear that particular sound in the voice from someone who's from anywhere else. I've noticed numerous examples like that that totally state Southern California.
@@neiana not Daria the mtv cartoon and clueless movie ahahaha!!! I am born, raised and still living on California so I am very familiar with our accent and also familar with the hispanic SoCal accent think of how those cholas talk in the movie Mi Vida Loca
Wow. Just from the little you talked about and in the Minnesota accent, I can tell it’s an accent that’s been somewhat influenced by the Nordic languages, probably because of the huge amount of Swedes, Norwegians and Finns that moved there. I’m from Finland, and those sounds are really familiar to the English that people speak here.
I come from Minnesota, near the border with North Dakota. My mother was from a very small town where everyone was Norwegian, and some even third and fourth-generation Americans spoke it at home. While the pure o sound is true and highly stereotypical, I think the pure oo sound is even more characteristic. I now live in southeastern Michigan, and when people say "food", I hear it as being shaded by varying amounts toward "feud". My father is from a Nebraska community with a mix of Swedes and Germans, and this was true there too.
@@What_Makes_Climate_Tick … and you even have a Swedish name, Löfgren, Leave Branch, which is a typical Swedish name with two parts of nature combined. My actual surname is Forsberg, Stream Mountain. 😊 And yes, I do agree that it’s the vowels where the Scandinavian “ancestry” can be heard the most.
Strangely as French, many times I don't ear the difference, even way you say it! But I noticed that in the opposite way: We were explaining the different French accents to American friends but they didn"t catch it, even when we were giving examples! It's something very difficult for the foreigner to ear!
Yeah! For me , as Ukrainian learner, it`s also very difficult to hear some differencies, even when he accentuate them (especially with New York accent and its "l" becoming "w" - i can't catch it anyway!
I think that's typical if you're listening to a language that isn't your mother tongue. I didn't notice a difference between French spoken in Paris vs French spoken in Montréal
Of course. If that is not your native tongue, its not noticeable. As a French person, you don't notice other French people sounding different than the region you are from? I have always heard the way people speak has something to do with cliamte
English itself is from Britain so that doesn't make much sense. If what you are referring to is the "rhotacism", that is the fact that both the British and New Yorkers don't pronounce r's in final positions, then that is actually a change not a preservation. Most varieties of American English, including standard American articulates the r's, but that is a preservation from an earlier form of English. It was British and New England varieties that stopped pronouncing them.
Partially true. Because Hollywood typically gives characters modern British accents for films set in the colonial era, people assume that American English slowly over time diverged from British English, but it was more the other way around, with what we now think of as British English (the Received Pronunciation) taking hold in Britain in the 19th century. However, the accent was still more neutral than a modern Southern drawl.
I sometimes struggle with pronouncing the ‘r’ in words when talking in english, so it’s actually great to hear that you don’t really do that in NY or in the Boston dialect. Makes me way happier that I could sound like a local if I tried hard enough without having to struggle with the ‘r’!
yea that is true. There are many non rhotic dialects/accent along the east coast, especially in the northeast. Not just the New York accent and Boston accent, but the New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire accent too. There are some non rhotic accent in the south too. The traditional Georgia accent, Mississippi, and Louisiana accents are non rhotic.
As a Texan I would say the main difference between southern drawl and twang is the drawl is slow and deep while with twange we speak a bit faster and slightly higher pitched. Another thing, drawl sounds a lot more southern while twang is less heavy but still very southern
As a Brit, I think the Texan accent/ southern drawl is the most attractive American accent by far: it’s really charming. Are there also big regional variations within Texas itself?
im from the north of Louisiana where i'm from i'm from when i'm talking on the phone with family or talking to people i know not at school the country comes out. But when im at school i have a mix of the 2 one my friends heared the way i said ten it kinda sounded like tin
@@gmichele4603 I’m from Texas. There are huge differences in Texas, not only regional but the difference between people in the city and just a few miles outside of the city are dramatic. Much like the differences between London proper and Cockney.
In upper midwestern states all the way north to Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin there's a distinct twang and especially in the country. Am from Milwaukee and when I talk to my best bro from north of me in the country he has a pronounced twang.
10:46 this valley accent is a Southern California thing and “hella” is a Northern California (more specifically Bay Area) thing. You would not commonly hear someone speaking with that accent and saying the word hella. Before it was more popularized, the use of that word indicated which part of the state you were from.
“Hella” has definitely spread to Southern California too. Every time I hear someone say that, I ask “are you from the Bay Area?” And often times they say “no”.
I am from the UK and my uncle and aunty who are now in their 70's, emigrated to Boston when they were in their 20's. They have a really interesting accent which is a mixture of Welsh English and Boston, its really fascinating to listen to them talk when they come over. As a native UK English speaker I find it very hard to distinguish between the various American accents other than the New York and the Southern accents. Very informative video, thank you.
You may be referring to the American Trans Atlantic Accent. Look for American News reels of the 1920’s. Lots of News Broadcasters of the time. Almost all had that very distinct accent. Today the accent is near nonexistent.
Being a native southern speaker that's lived around both the drawl and twangs, I would say the key difference between the two is more about pitch and tempo. An upbeat, nasal, quick "Hey, y'all" would be a good example of a twang, while a drawl would be a slower, deeper, breathy, sometimes almost throaty "howwwalllyalllldoin'?"
When I, a native Minnesotan, spent the summer in Maine as a teen, the locals gave me so much grief about how I said the word ‘bag’! They laughed so hard at us! Haha. That was 25 years ago and I couldn’t hear the difference at all! 😂 thank you for finally explaining it!
I grew up in northern Iowa, and definitely heard people saying "bayg". It's way thicker than he does it in this video. Some people even try to work it into the word Chicaygo.
Oh man, I'm a Wyomingite currently living in North Dakota and that was one of the first things I noticed when I got up here, the accent definitely threw me off for a second!
@Jewels...I will always remember the first time I visited my future in-laws in St. Paul. My fiance's mom told me to get her "a beg". I replied with "what?" She started flipping out and saying "a beg, a beg!". I stood there looking like a deer in headlights until she finally put the word paper in front of beg. 🤣💡🤗😉
San Diegan here- you nailed it. Regional accents are so intriguing. I moved to Boston for a few years when I was 18 and have been fascinated ever since. When I moved back to California, I would hear the nuances between East L.A. where I taught, Valley, surfer. All very different. I was once chatting with someone in Prague who had me pegged as a Californian right off the bat due to my accent.
I’m from Southern California. I do agree with the dialect being common amongst kids, but I feel like that was more common in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Also, you should cover the surfer accent which is another Calif classic 😂 there’s also spanglish, amongst others!
I know everybody here still talks like that. And the surfer accent is pretty much the same as a valley accent... And you can't do Spanglish because then you're getting into the difference between how different races of people speak English in different states and that would take like all month. Lol
@@kiajulian4619 surfer accent is very different from the valley accent he was explaining, surfer accent is a lot lazier and a longer stretch on vowels, like bro or dude and hella is specifically Bay Area dialect Another example of surfer dialect is dropping the t at the end of a word and replace it with a -d sound to make them flow better like “what’s up” = “wha(d) up”
I grew up in the San Fernando valley in the late 90s and 00s, and have never met a single person that spoke with that caricature of an accent. Aside from bilingual kids, I don't think we really had a discernable accent. If we do, it's definitely nothing like what everyone thinks "valley" sounds like.
Me too.... i'm from deepest darkest Buckinghamshire (England) and we have almost lost our country accent..... but i love the Southern US accent. There's a wonderful short video knocking about with a little Southern boy writing out his mum's shopping list..... stroh bearies, tayders, mo tayders, ayaggs,...so bloody cute!
@@ChristopherMHeaps Mister, I thought everyone would understand that I was joking. My accent is thick and slow. Your comment about Alabama, on the other-hand, was just mean and hurtful. Shame on you.
In British English (BrE), "an English major" means a British Army officer with the NATO rank code of OF-4 below the rank of lieutenant colonel and above the rank of captain whose ethnic background lies in England. But in American English (AmE), it means a university/college student who studies (or reads in BrE) English and/or its related literature as his/her speciality (or specialty in AmE).
@@VivekPatel-ze6jy As an Anglophile I find the situation quite deplorable. I feel as though I acted more in tune with the English than the real life Englishman.
I grew up in Long Beach New York . You described my accent pretty close BUT I can hear very distinct “ New York “ accents from Bronx, Yonkers, Brooklyn , and Jersey . All within a 30 mile radius of Manhattan !
I grew up in Minnesota in the 1950s and 1960s. We didn’t say “soda” (except for “club soda”) - we said “pop” when referring to soft drinks. Pop came in bottles back then.
That is right, I had a friend, elderly, he used to pop when referring to what we call soda, at first I did not understand but he was drinking a soda and I understood that context, have a great day
I grew up in California. It's important to note that the valley he is referring to is the San Fernando Valley, not the Central Valley. It's a suburb of Los Angeles. The word hella is more of a Nor-Cal thing and although it has migrated it's way down south it's not a part of the "typical" valley accent. Still loved hearing him do me though.
Totally accurate. Right? When I was a teen in the early 80's everything in SoCal was "bitchin' or Mega-Bitchin". Surfers might say something is "Tubular".
I thought for sure he was going to do an over-exaggerated New York accent, but it was actually very good. I'm from Brooklyn and when my late husband would do a New York accent, I always had to tell him that, for most people, it was really more subtle than what he was doing.
My coworkers and I recently had lunch with a guy from Minnesota. I think he has been working to get rid of his accent but it slipped out when he said the word both. Sounded like boath. It was so cute. I love that accent. ❤
I was out west with some coworkers and they said that I don’t have a Minnesota accent. Later in the evening after some drinks they said “oh there it is!” Another time people said I didn’t have an accent and then I got a phone call from my dad. I hung up and they were like, “what was that? You sounded like a different person on the phone with him.”
Wonderful rendition of American accents.I am an Italian linguist teaching languages in Los Angeles and found your presentation very interesting! Well done!
I think that the hardest accent to replicate is the accent between Maryland and Philadelphia. It’s a mix of northern and southern. As well, it would be interesting to see a video about the connection between a Brooklyn accent, and a New Orleans accent.
Philadelphia here. Meeting people across America for the first time, some thought I was Southern, some Northern.😄. Philadelphia not only has a unique accent they also destroy the language. Hello=( Yo sup). How are you= (How yizz doin.) On and on 🤣
It's definitely a challenging accent. The actor Dominic West, who's from England, played the lead character on The Wire which was a police officer from Baltimore. West had so much trouble getting down the Baltimore accent that he and the producers agreed that he should just go with a "generic northeastern" accent. Very few of the actors on that show were able to speak with a Baltimore accent, and the ones who did were natives of the area in real life.
There’s definitely a connection between Baltimore and Philly as far as their accents go. In both places an “oa” sound seems to come out as an “ew” sound as in hoagie to hewgie and a Coke to a Cewk. The mixture of the northern and southern accent is the most interesting thing to me. It seems to be the epicenter where the north and south meet, long-term culturally, at least. Although, you find the same thing in a New Orleans accent. I grew up in Brooklyn and the New Orleans accent is the closest thing to a Brooklyn accent that I’ve heard. The Brooklyn accent really must “still” lean heavily on when Brooklyn was a part of Amsterdam. When I was in Amsterdam, the way they spoke English reminded me of NYC in general. “ee” sounds becoming “uh” sounds. Get the phone, get the door becoming get duh phone, get duh door.
I'm from Minnesota, my daughter did not grow up there, but when in another country talking to an American she was asked if she's from Minnesota because of her accent. I wasn't aware we had one other than the stereotypes.
My company HQ's are based in MN and I think it really depends. I actually expected everyone to have a heavy MN accent but they don't. Those from up north have more distinct accents than those from Minneapolis. Also, the Wisconsin employees have a very noticeable accent... similar in many ways but slightly different.
You are the typical friendly American guy. God bless you! The way you pronounce English is breathtaking. You bring hope to all those foreigners who strive to learn your language🙂 I was impressed by your ability to reproduce so many accents, you are better than many actors. Thank you for helping us with English all over the world. Best Regards😃
What's the name of the accent, where some people tack on, 'er' at the end of words that don't exist such as IDEA-ER, Linda becomes LINDER, Cuba becomes CUBER, etc.?
That much is true! A smile that kills (Harrison Ford), posh accent (Annette Bening), charming and amiable manners (Gary Cooper). Cutting remarks and puns (Bugs Bunny), at times despthicable (Duffy duck). But to get -got-got and stop disparaging Mr U's Reputation! No more cruelties against colour and behaviour! Signed: ye friendly neighbour a.k.a. The Merry Man. Shall I pass the fan-test or the ominous verb "to flunk" is downing on my endangered fate? Linguistically Yours 🙂@@BillK-c2e
@@BillK-c2e I think that has something to do with "Rhotic" accents. You piqued my curiosity, and I found this video for you: ua-cam.com/video/-CGISNe4LrI/v-deo.html
Also with a New York accent is a hold over from Old English which is to add an “r” sound to words that end in “w” as in “I sore you yesterday,” for “I saw you yesterday.”
It’s not just the Minnesota accent, it’s prevalent through North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Michigan’s upper peninsula. I believe it’s actually called the Northern Accent.
I'm a black guy from the Chicago area, who's parents are from southern Georgia. I've noticed the way I speak has a mix of every accent it seems. When I was younger, I noticed how differently I sounded from kids from wealthier neighborhoods, so I worked to pronounce words more clearly. Now i'm older, and not so concerned about how I sound, but I definitely slip into speaking similiar to whoever i'm around. I don't conciously know i'm doing it.
You are not the only one. I have sometimes had to apologize to people whose accent I started using after I was talking to them for a few minutes. Most people don't notice or don't mind. We moved a lot when I was a kid. I think it developed as a defensive mechanism. I have one friend who does the same thing, but I am sure that most people just speak with the accent they learned first, and never developed a blending in skill.
@@Svince54 I do that sometimes too when I’m relaxed, I don’t know why or where I picked. that up. I did live in several different places when I was growing up, so maybe he was exposed to several different accents and languages.
Grew up in a coastal, beach community in California but picked up a little of my mother’s Minnesota accent. I love all of the regional US accents but will never forget a childhood cross country trip and my SoCal raised father not being able to understand the clerks at a convenience store outside of Atlanta in the 80s 😂
I am a Minnesotan and 2 months ago I went to California for a National Competition and this other high school kid who was from Ohio (we were all high schoolers) was purposely trying to find people with a Minnesotan accent. I made him very happy haha!
What a great lesson. We have similar language interests! Having taught for nearly 40 years and having taught in New Hampshire, New Jersey, Virginia, Ohio and Michigan.... when ever people hear me speak they pickup on what I have adapted by long term exposure to hearing natives speaking their accents. I've used these in my teaching style on purpose and for fun. Interestingly for example Ohio ( O-hii ) has several accents within the state such as south-eastern has a West Virginia drawl and Appalachian vocab...and then west of I-75 there's some speak with Indiana and Kentucky-isms...northwest sometimes sounds like Michigan farmers (melk vs, milk)....and the Cleveland historic New England connection has some inflections that the "natives" don't know they have but an outsider from the northeast will notice. Fun stuff...thanks
My wife and I are both from Nebraska. She had the standard American accent I had more of a rural western dialect/accent. After moving to eastern South Dakota she’s picked up the Minnesota accent yet mine hasn’t changed or it’s gotten to be more standard but not when we go back to my family ranch I fall right back into the old accent.
Nebraskan here, I was hoping I’d find someone in the comments to talk about it haha. I feel like I have a mix of the standard American accent with a little bit of the western dialect. But yeah I’ve always wondered what people think Nebraskans sound like lol
I'm now self-studying my English grammar and speaking and tries to sound like American one (I'm from Poland, right now I'm 19 [I "speak" English for over 2 years] and my "fluent" accent I thank to internet and listening to a lot of sources: games, friends, YT) so that video is really helping me to get better knowledge of different accents in America and maybe one day recreate them as much as I can to the point that people won't notice that I'm from Poland.
Good Job. As a native Californian, I think our accent is a conglomeration of all other US accents, seeing that EVERYBODY and their uncle moved to California and pitched their accent into the fray.
@H WHEN I was growing-up, "EVERYBODY'S" parents were from somewhere else. We children were born in California, but ALL OF OUR THE PARENTS were from other states; None of them were native Californians.
@@shaunsteele6926 The Valley girl accent is a "Southern" California "Upper Class" accent (not ghetto), that originated in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles.
I grew up in Gaston County, NC. When I heard the Difference between the Southern Drawl, and then the Southern Twang, I was shocked at how much I did both, but I leaned closer to the Drawl. Thanks!
I grew up in wake county and later moved to europe and the middle east, where i made an effort to lose the accent (which was not that strong in the first place) due to people struggling to understand me. I was convinced all my southern drawl was gone till i encountered a group of people from NC on a flight and they asked me whether i was from NC 😁
Dropping the R is also called rhoticity. As a non-native speaker, I searched for a long time for the official word. But I always spoke and speak rhotic English, which is my natural way of speaking English. When I was in the US in 2015, some people even thought I was American. Thank you for this informative and beautiful video. Greetings from Austria
Yes, I know very well about Rhoticity in English. The “Rhotic” 👍 English dialect like you and me speak is the very best one and the most purest and accurate form of English. “But” the R dropping “Non-Rhotic” 👎 dialect is terribly incorrect and they slaughter the English language being very wrong.
I am from Brazil. The strangest thing about the English language is the difficulty of identifying the punctuation in sentences: .,!?. I always have the feeling that Americans and English speak straight, without punctuation. The difference is that in the Portuguese language of Brazil, this detail is very clear.
I recently moved to Alaska, from Northern California. One ove the most distinctive accents I have ever heard is the native Inuit accent…I’ve grown to like it…it’s similar to the native accents I heard in the south west, but distinctive in its own way
This is probably true with most of them, but one thing I have noticed about a southern accent is that there is very fine line between doing it right and overdoing it. Usually with most actors, especially from the UK, they tend to over do it just a bit. The southern accent(s) has an almost singsong rhythm to them. Words are shortened or drawn out to keep a steady rhythm in many cases.
The “sing/song” is the Irish/Scots influence. A good example of a UK actor overdoing a Southern accent to me was Lauren Cohen as Maggie in the Walking Dead. There were several instances that her “Southern” accent seemed strained and just not quite right. But it doesn’t have to be someone from the UK. David Carradine did a horrible “Southern” accent in the North and South mini series back in the mid-80’s. Hew was from California trying to do a South Carolina gentleman. I remember laughing even as a young kid.
You did a pretty good job on us New Englanders. The only thing I will point out is packie s pronounced the same way as you would say pack, as in "pack your suitcase". Us and the New Yorkers are the only non-rhotic accents you will typically find in the US. The northeast is a bit of an outlier when it comes to the rule of American accents being rhotic.
American accent usually up tone. It was fun for me when first time I came to visit the USA because I usually pronounce as British accent. Then my American friend recognized my British voice. That is so interesting 😊.I personally both like American and British accents 😊 thank you so much for sharing this great video
The way you're able to do the various accents is really cool! I work for a call center and speak to people all over the US on a daily basis, and I find all the different accents to be really interesting! I'm from Wisconsin, and several times a week I get asked if I'm from Canada! I've lived in Wisconsin for my entire life, but had no idea that I had an accent at all, until people pointed it out to me!😂
Non-native here. As soon as you made the Southern accent I immediately remembered the TV show called "Justified" with Timothy Olyphant. I can't quite remember which state the events of the show took place in, but that accent sounded a lot like what I heard in the show. Fascinating!
I absolutely love America for this, these different accents are fascinating. I especially like the southern drawl though I speak with a California accent.
As a teacher of English in Portugal I simply adore accents and their differences. As for "like", Portuguese teenagers use our version of it constantly, which is really annoying. The word is "tipo" and it's our equivalent for "like". Loved the video!
@@InteractiveEngi sound British when i say New York dropping the "r" Please compare British accent and NY accent 😭😭😭 I just Need help preventing Sounding like Lucy who taught me British accent hows the "æ" sound, Yeah and i needed help!!!!
I'm from Minnesota and grew up with my Swedish great grandparents and Swedish and Norwegian grandparents,, even my kids tease me how I say certain words, like bag. I guess that I say it like bayg, just like this gentleman said
As a native New Yorker, I also noticed that we tend to use "like" a lot. Especially the younger generation. Also, the New york accent is mostly influenced by the Jewish and Italian communities, so their accents tend to be stronger than let's say a Latino New Yorker.
Well years ago that was not the case. But now the younger folks just cant stop saying the word like since over time peoples vocabulary got more and more limited so people resort to filler words such as like because they do not know the proper word to convey the meaning.
*I love listening to you! Beyond doubt, you are a super good teacher! And yeah, as an Indian, I love the **_Standard American_** accent. One of the best examples of a heavy NY accent is Peter Clemenza in Godfather-I. I invariably needed subtitles to know what this guy was talkin'. Like **_The gunou be the~e_** (the gun will be there).*
I’m from Boston but I’ve been living in the Bay Area for 27 years. The Cali accent is the opposite of Boston’s, where they hit the R’s EXTRA hard. Especially in Southern California where sometimes words like car are pronounced “cor”.
Californian here, and that is so true. Also, the "ar" and "or" sounds are very prounounced. "Orange" is ORange, while in NY/NJ its "AREange." "Marry" in California is "MAREey," and in NY/NJ its "MARRey."
I've been learning mostly the British accent (RP) and now pivoting to General American accent it's really surprising to see that New York accent shares a fundamental character with RP (the 'r' dropping feature) rather than it's counterpart.
I was born in California and lived there for 9 years, but am now living in a different state and I just realized that I do have that Valley Californian accent. It’s barely noticeable since I’m so used to it, haha
I chuckled when you mentioned the Florida panhandle and Louisiana. I grew up in both states! When my son got into kindergarten, his teacher called me in for a conference to discuss his language skills. She was suggesting I put him in Speech Therapy because he wasn't speaking clearly at 5 years old (we had moved to the Pocono, PA area by then). I was infuriated! My son was incredibly verbal, highly communicative, and had a vast understanding of multi-syllabic words. So I stood my son in front of her and asked him some simple questions: 'What water falls from the sky" his answer ---> "Rain." (pronounced 'rane') "What sound does a telephone make?" -----> "Ring." (pronounced 'rayng [soft g]) "What color is grass? -----> "Green." (pronounced grayne) "What is bread made from?" -----> "Grain." ----Deep South takes most 'ee' sounds and pronounced them 'ay" as in 'hay'----- And when I showed him certain pictures? ----Ow-ell (Owl), tow-ell (towel), ow-er (hour), gray-ess (grass); you get the point. Simply and firmly stated, if she was to teach language arts, certainly she understood that children speak in different dialects. It was not her job to correct my son on the certain way he learned to speak growing up. We spoke proper English, no 'aint's' and "gunnas" (going to), we say "May I" and "Please" and "Thank You" and address all adults as Mr. or Miss/Mrs. She conceded. But we do say "Fixin' to"....
I completely understand your frustration with this. I'm 58 now, when I was about 8 we moved from Boston to eastern Ohio, My mother and I both had thick Brookline accents (think President John Kennedy's accent). I eventually had to go to speech classes to lose my accent because no one could understand what I was saying. I'm so sorry now that my accent is gone and replaced with the very plain Ohio accent.
This is something I absolutely love about being an American. We got some weird accents and I think we can all have a little bit of a chuckle at how different we sound.
When I moved from New Yor to North Carolina I noticed that the southern drawl/southern twang distinctions tended to be more related to social class than geography. Affluent, urban, and educated people tended to talk more like Scarlet O'Hara and rural working-class people more like Gomer Pyle.
@@echt114 That may well be the case today. I moved to a small town in NC in the early 1980s and lived there for three years. I suspect that NC has become much less "southern" since then. There are probably a lot fewer fast-food restaurants that have liver mush biscuits on their breakfast menu.
Hi there, when I was an Au Pair in San Francisco people tried to figure out where I come from. Just from the accent they would say around Boston. In reality I am a German-Mexican who grew up in Germany parents talking English together. In German school we learned British English but my Mom's collegues were American Military. So with time my English became a British/English, lol. Cool content! Thank you for your great work.
It’ll be kind of hard to explain the Miami accent. Haha. The first thing people notice is that we always say “Bro.” Many of us with a Latino background will always pronounce the “L” in “Salmon.” We also say words like: ain’t, y’all, lemme, gotta, etc. It’s a mashup of standard English with little hints of twang or different stressed sounds due to many of us being from Spanish speaking households. Example sentences: (Man 1.) What’s up, Bro?? You go to work today?? (Man 2.) Nah, Man. I gotta go to court today. Example 2: (Man 1.) Aye, Bro. I was watchin’ Dragonball Z earlier. (Man 2.) Bro, I haven’t watched Dragonball Z since we was jits. Hahaha. (Jits=Florida slang for “kids”.)
Born and raised in Miami, my dad is from Queens NY my mom is Colombian. I learned English from my dad so I have the NY accent but a little more dialed down, and I understand Florida slang 😂 that being said if I’m out in Doral or Hialeah I get told I sound like a New Yorker, if I’m in Brickell people ask me which borough I’m from 😂 TLDR; I’m a mut lmao
Jits equals AAE for a word that was shortened that I won’t mention here Bc y’all have a serious problem with admitting influence from the Afro American Community.
Another thing, California accent tends to drop the “t” and it turns into an additional “n” in some places, ex. Sacraminnow, Sanna Clarita, Sanna Barbara, etc.
Thank you for pointing out the difference between Southern twang and Southern drawl. The twangy parts (TN, Arkansas, KY) speak quickly and often swirl words together. The drawl states (GA, TX, the Carolinas) are slower and easier on the ears. Also, you hear more twang in rural areas and drawl in the big cities.
I agree with your locales for southern drawl/twang. When he said twang I was thinking Tennessee and Kentucky, or maybe Appalachia are. When he said Florida, I was surprised. I guess there is more twang here, but only in rural areas. But Georgia, Carolinas and Texas do drawl. Except a Texan drawl is far different, longer than a Georgian, from my perspective.
In Arkansas (my home) we lowland, highland, and flood plain accent. A Highland accent (mine) t&d’s disappear in the middle of words or sentences, but is alway pronounced at the beginning of words. Whaya talken abou. Also S’s can have slight sh in highland Arkansas.
In WV & Ohio there are also many regional variations in speech patterns. The one from the Cleveland area varies especially in the way vowels are pronounced from that of southeastern Ohio. The speech in the southern part of WV is slightly similar to that of northern KY & TN. We in Ohio & WV also typically use the word (for the sweetened, carbonated drinks in bottles or cans) “pop” for “soda.”
But there are definitely features distinct to each. For example, you won't hear the "aw" sound pronounced as a heavy "ooaw" in Boston or coffee like you would in NYC or Rhode Island.
I grew up in the Boston area. One of the ways to distinguish a Boston verses New York accent is that the Boston one is more of an "ah" sound and the New York one is more of an "aw" sound at the end of some words. Boston words are said more opened ah-mouth shape, New York is more of an aw mouth-shape when speaking. Hope this helps people distinguish the two.😎
Do you mean that in Boston, they would say 'Bahston and New Yahk'; but in New York, they would say 'Bawston and New Yawk'? Could this r-dropping tendency of New Yorkers be a cringe reaction to their time-honoured name? New York City is actually an island, though, isn't it, off the mainland of the United States of America?
@@rastrats I come from about 50 miles south of Boston so I won't speak for South Boston, but we pronounce Boston and New York with the 'aw' sound. Most words with 'or' such as lord are pronounced lawd. Even the conjunction 'or' is pronounced as 'aw'. Words with 'ar' are pronounced 'ah' as in cah and pahk. So one would say: You can go by cah aw bus.
@Roger Stratford, Manhattan is an island, surrounded by two rivers. It's not in the ocean. Manhattan is one of 5 Burroughs which comprise NYC. Staten Island is an island to the south/ west of Manhattan, adjacent to New Jersey. Queens and Brooklyn are both on the west-most part of Long Island, which extends about a 2 hour drive eastward beyond that. The Bronx is to the north of Manhattan and connected to the mainland. So, NYC is really not an island separated from the mainland, and it is not quite ocean-facing, as the water by the coast is considered a bay. Only Brooklyn and Staten Island have parts which yield into the ocean. The city as a whole is marked by a number of natural separators, and accent diversity is heard throughout the city, and even in neighborhoods. The basics provided here are pretty general, though, and fairly accurate. The strong "aw" sound shows up in words like law, saw, coffee, talk, thought, poor, more. 😊
I grew up outside of Boston and the only time I've ever heard anyone say "Bahtston" was someone trying to imitate the accent. I think someone in the Chicago area might naturally say it that way. New York could be said a few way for people in eastern New England: New Yawk (where the aw is pronounced like in awe), New Yo(r)k (not really any accurate way to write this, but where the ork is pronounced like in the word orc, but without the "r"), and New York (like in standard american english). Not everyone is non-rhotic! LOL! I think it's important and accurate to say that most of these vowels are dipthongs in these instances. I can't even begin to explain how we say Boston, but it's definitely not Bahston nor Bawston. You'll definitely hear Bawston in southern Rhode Island and Connecticut, but there's a reason for that. :)
Most regions also have some very specific local accents and dialects. Sometimes as specific as counties or small towns. Especially in rural communities, it can very a lot across each state.
6:36. My mother grew up in Tennessee, and although she lived in New York most of her life, she never completely lost her Southern accent (you can take the girl out of the South, but you can't take the South out of the girl). She added diphthongs to single-syllable words, saying "foe-er" for four and "doe-er" for door. But she balanced it out by removing syllables from other words. She definitely said "Dubya" when spelling our last name, and my father was not "Howard," he was "Hawrd."
I grew up in Indiana, with a mother who wanted us kids to speak like Chicagoans and not have a “Hoosier Twang” at all, and a father who was from Boston! To my mother the Chicago accent was the true standard American accent.
i don't understand the Hoosier twang thing, unless you are talking about people from southern Indiana, North Indiana seems to have a pretty neutral accent and for the most part central Indiana also has a neutral accent outside of a few cities where its mostly people originally from TN/KY. Me growing up in Indiana people would figure I was from New York due in how I spoke. I guess I drop too many r's
You never picked up on the Southwest accent or Arizona accent. It's wild and unique. I'm a NYC/Philly transplant. I moved to Arizona in 1980. First up to Northern AZ right of the Apache Rez then to Tucson. In Arizona we mix reservation lingo/sounds with Spanglish and California Valley spill over. Body language and certain facial expressions also play an important role especially among the indigenous peoples.
As a texan who lives in california (also in the bay area), I can confidently say there are multiple accents in both places and I can tell where you likely grew up in either state with great accuracy. There are several much less common words that make it clear.. or at least as clear as it is when you hear most canadians say the word "against" or most texans say "nuclear"
There are lots of differences in our speech patterns even in the same states from region to region. The Outer Banks of NC for example is very different from mainland NC. It's more of a British influence among native OBers. It's also in danger of fading out. I love the different speech patterns in our country. The only time I have a problem is when someone from New Jersey or New York and sometimes other parts of the North say Southerners have a "bad" accent. Really pisses me to hear someone who says "youse guuys" say that.
New York City accents sound very British to British ears. I'm from an area in Connecticut that has a New York City accent. When I was a tourist in England, I was told that I sounded extremely British but they could occasionally hear some American. I would be asked if I was an expat who moved to the USA from England. They even pinpointed my accent to Derby, England. The area of Connecticut I'm from was settled by Derby, England in 1639. New York City must have had an influx of settlers from Derby, England. Apparently, the New York City type accent is an old colonial accent that never quite made it to American. If you want to know what the Founding Fathers sounded like, just listen to a New York City resident or, better yet, one from the lower Naugatuck Valley in Connecticut 😂😂😂
Californian accents are basically🐻 1)Californian TV broadcast English 📺🎙️📻 2)Valley girl 👱♀️🌄 3)Surfer, Skater, Val dude🏄🛹 4)Urbanite inner city dweller Latino👨🏽🛣️🌆 5)Urbanite inner city dweller black👨🏿🌉 🌃 6)Rural whites in Central California👨🌾🖼️🌽
@@MaquiagemparaEles the majority of latinos in California are Mestizos from Mexico and Central America. On average Mestizos are brown because they have Native American and Spanish ancestry
What you call the “New York” accent is only indicative of New York City, not the entire State of New York. In Western NY, from Rochester to Buffalo, the accent is entirely different from NYC, and more in common with Michigan than what people assume is a New York accent. You even have certain areas of Western New York where people sound like more like Canadians.
I’m from down state. I unconsciously switch to what I call “ going all NY on people” when it’s necessary. It gets the job done, if you know what I’m talkin a bout.
I don't find Western New Yorkers sound Canadian at all. Definitely similar to the Midwestern accent like more similar to Chicago, Cleveland or Detroit. Minneapolis definitely sounds Canadian though.
California native here! Can confirm we put EMPHASIS on certain WORDS in our SENTENCES? And also, we end our sentences in ways that sound like questions (though this truly is Valley Girl, and I personally don't do this, but I definitely hear it)? We also say "like" a lot as filler. I don't even notice it when I do it, for the most part, unless someone points it out to me.
Being from California I can also tell you we tend to drop the “T” in words like Santa turns to sanna, Sacramento turns to sacramenno, mountain turns to mounin etc lol
Isn't it just a common English thing? Even though I'm not a native speaker, I've heard many americans and british pronounce words without "t", especially at the end of the word. [start] turns into [stah'] or [star'] (different from star) in words like "mountain" that "t" gets reduced to a glottal stop and so on.
The Pittsburgh accent is also rather interesting. The speech is kind of a vowel shift, but it comes with a whole new vocabulary like “yinz” or “jagger” among a whole host of funny-founding words.
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Is the "dark l" pronounced only at the end of words as it is in British English?
Pronouncing /e/ like a short /i/ is also typical of New Zealand English
I'm struck by the lack of regional varieties in American English (AmE) to the degree of linguistic poverty, uniformity and dreariness. I find the USA much less diverse than the Americans think despite their ethnic salad bowl.
Where in the Bay Area are ya from? Did you take the AC transit buses ?
_Dropping_ the "R" and using long vowels... Haha! In the UK standard, you _add_ "R"s, in Cornwall and Ireland. That's why I am watching your video. I can easily spot if a British person comes from Yorkshire, South Wales, Liverpool or East-London but with America, outside of Forest Gump's Old South, I am at a complete loss.
I am originally from Minnesota, and we would never say "put the soda in the bag". We would say "put the pop in the bag".
I spent a year in Minnesota after high school. It's a completely different dialect from here in Alabama. I loved it though.
No soda here. It's pop once you cross the St. Croix from Wisconsin.
And it's pronounced "pap", not "pop".
You betcha!
We say pop in Canada too eh!
The southern drawl is varied. People from TN have a distinctive sound as does SC and LA. There is no pure “southern accent” very different from state to state. It’s wonderful.
I'm from SC and have people ask me, "Where are you from?" who are also from SC. I think I sound like everyone else in the south, but my accent is pretty thick. It's still not even close to the top end of the spectrum though.
It's always fun when you travel out west or up north and everyone asks you, "Say y'all!" and you just say, "y'all..." then they think it's the greatest thing ever.
For sure. I live in Arkansas and the accent here is completely different from GA/SC. Love a proper southern accent.
I wish anyone not from the South could understand this.
“Hell on Wheels” killed me because Anson Mount is clearly from Tennessee but his character was from Mississippi
In SC different towns/areas have different drawls, I lived there for 9 years but it took me about 3 years to tell which area people were from
Here in California, we have several different accents. Not only the SF Valley accent, but the "surfer" accent and the Chicano accent.
Yo dude, like, what’s happening man?! 🤣🤣🤣
yep there are several, probably not enough time to cover them all in this video, and it depends on where you are.
The "Val" accent is not real common anymore, even here in the 818 (the telephone area code for the Valley). I listened to the video to find out what he considered to be the California accent. I always thought of the CA accent as being more or less the standard U.S. accent because we have people from all over living here so we get a mixture. My own accent is closer to "surfer dude" but with a mixture of New England (my mom was from Boston) and Texan (I have friends and spent time there before the pandemic). Y'all pahk the cah ovuh theah...
valley/surfer/stoner accents are all pretty much the same. I'm not any of those things but I still sort of speak that way from growing up in SoCal
@@ZackfromNoHo probably because the "valley accent" was exploited in the 1980s making them all self conscious of it lol
I agree with the comments that there are soooo many "American" accents. It's nice to see the nuances analyzed and explained. I would also love to hear some excerpts from native speakers included in the video.
Not only does the southern accent vary from state to state, it varies in each state. For example, the accent in East Tennessee is different from Middle Tennessee.
I swear, those people in the mountains in east tennessee have a whole nother language to the people in west tn where I’m from! They’ve got a beautiful sound over there.
Virginia has many different ones too. In SW VA they are very different from Tidewater.
Native Texan here and I've noticed that Texas has at least 4 different regional accents: East Texas has a nasal twang, West Texas and Panhandle (but not El Paso) a drawl (esp. noticiable in the L's and R's) South Texas with its Spanish influenced English., Central and rural areas with a general southern accent and all regions with unique Texas lexicon.
Tennessee is really three small states lumped together. Historically East Tennessee was very distinct geographically, economically, politically from the rest of the state.
It was for instance one of the only areas that resisted confederate rule during the Civil War- East Tennesseeans voted overwhelmingly against secession even after the attack on Sumpter, and after the war broke out it became a hot bed for Union sympathizing guerrillas and saboteurs. It was also one of the only parts of the South where Republicans had a chance at local elections during most of the century after the civil war.
Of course the mountainous valleys of East Tennessee tend to produce pretty different social patterns than West Tennessee’s Mississippi plantation lands.
I live in East Tennessee and people say I sound like I’m from Alabama or Texas
The overuse of 'like' has spread to the speech of young people in many places, including parts of Canada. Also, 'no worries' has spread far from Australia. When I was a kid, no Canadian would have ever said 'no worries,' but now it's very common.
Or 'no problem' … and why does every sentence now start with "So..."
That’s true, Australian teenagers use a lot “like” as well, almost in every sentences
Hell, even in places across the globe you can hear teens mimicking this mannerism. I live in Poland and in the past few years the conjunction "jakby" (a literal translation of "like") has come to be used in exactly this way, despite it being, in many cases, semantically incorrect.
@@psychescope239
The same applies here in Japan. Young people tend to use the filler, "mitaina" when it's absolutely unnecessary to use it. Whether it's an influence from Hollywood movies, I really don't know.
That’s because young people today are so stupid that they will lose the train of thought while talking if they don’t use “like” all the times.
Californian here.
I was thinking, “isn’t this guys regular voice the Californian accent?” You made me realize things I’ve never payed attention to in my life, I was cracking up thinking “THAT IS HOW WE TALK, MY GOD!”
This guy is more likely from the north, somewhere east of the Mississippi river. He hides it, but there are tells. And also his example sentence for Cali talk is nowhere near stressed enough, nor does he restrict the back of his throat on those stressed words. He said he was going to overexaggerate but he certainly did not exaggerate much lol. And like, oh my gawd, you have to like, watch like, Clueless or whatever... and also? like watch like, Daria clips, with like, Brittany.
Then you'll -really- hear the ultra-exaggerated California sound lol
Yea he has the normal california accent. Adult accent.
@@neianaYeah. The most popular words in southern Cali language is like, totally, way (waay cool or far out, and cool. There's also a distinctive way many of them say things, a particular sound or tone in their voice that really says Southern Cali, one particular example I can think of is in the movie "Not another teen movie" near the end when several people are calling out from their cars to that one character things like "she doesn't like you!", and one guy calls to him "she'll never be more than a friend!", the particular sound to his voice when he says that is really southern Californian, you don't really hear that particular sound in the voice from someone who's from anywhere else. I've noticed numerous examples like that that totally state Southern California.
Paid attention, not payed.
@@neiana not Daria the mtv cartoon and clueless movie ahahaha!!!
I am born, raised and still living on California so I am very familiar with our accent and also familar with the hispanic SoCal accent think of how those cholas talk in the movie Mi Vida Loca
As an American, there are definitely more variations of dialects, but you hit the big ones! I'm impressed :)
Yes, he has a very thorough embrace of ridiculously stereotypical speech patterns assigned to a variety of English Speaking US Americans
The Valley accent is Hilarious.
Wow. Just from the little you talked about and in the Minnesota accent, I can tell it’s an accent that’s been somewhat influenced by the Nordic languages, probably because of the huge amount of Swedes, Norwegians and Finns that moved there. I’m from Finland, and those sounds are really familiar to the English that people speak here.
The cadence as well...
@@broodge45 yes, agree
The Minnesota accent has a lot of crossover with Canada.
I come from Minnesota, near the border with North Dakota. My mother was from a very small town where everyone was Norwegian, and some even third and fourth-generation Americans spoke it at home. While the pure o sound is true and highly stereotypical, I think the pure oo sound is even more characteristic. I now live in southeastern Michigan, and when people say "food", I hear it as being shaded by varying amounts toward "feud". My father is from a Nebraska community with a mix of Swedes and Germans, and this was true there too.
@@What_Makes_Climate_Tick … and you even have a Swedish name, Löfgren, Leave Branch, which is a typical Swedish name with two parts of nature combined. My actual surname is Forsberg, Stream Mountain. 😊 And yes, I do agree that it’s the vowels where the Scandinavian “ancestry” can be heard the most.
Strangely as French, many times I don't ear the difference, even way you say it! But I noticed that in the opposite way: We were explaining the different French accents to American friends but they didn"t catch it, even when we were giving examples! It's something very difficult for the foreigner to ear!
Yeah! For me , as Ukrainian learner, it`s also very difficult to hear some differencies, even when he accentuate them (especially with New York accent and its "l" becoming "w" - i can't catch it anyway!
I think that's typical if you're listening to a language that isn't your mother tongue. I didn't notice a difference between French spoken in Paris vs French spoken in Montréal
Of course. If that is not your native tongue, its not noticeable. As a French person, you don't notice other French people sounding different than the region you are from? I have always heard the way people speak has something to do with cliamte
That would be > "Hear" the difference!
Yeah it's the same with swedish move a few km and its basically another language but people say it all sounds the same
You can DEFINITELY hear how the New York accent originated from the British accent. It's got so many similarities.
YEA ,, VERY FIRST I NOTICE 😂😂
English itself is from Britain so that doesn't make much sense.
If what you are referring to is the "rhotacism", that is the fact that both the British and New Yorkers don't pronounce r's in final positions, then that is actually a change not a preservation.
Most varieties of American English, including standard American articulates the r's, but that is a preservation from an earlier form of English. It was British and New England varieties that stopped pronouncing them.
@@skidder67 The modern variety of English that most closely resembles Early Modern pronunciation is Dublin English, not Southern American.
Hate the no letter R New York accent. That is why I love the mute button on my tv if I hear it I can just hit the Shut up button.
Partially true. Because Hollywood typically gives characters modern British accents for films set in the colonial era, people assume that American English slowly over time diverged from British English, but it was more the other way around, with what we now think of as British English (the Received Pronunciation) taking hold in Britain in the 19th century. However, the accent was still more neutral than a modern Southern drawl.
This was great! Being a Air Force brat I've grown up all over the place and I've heard all kinds of dialects of the english language. Spot on.
I sometimes struggle with pronouncing the ‘r’ in words when talking in english, so it’s actually great to hear that you don’t really do that in NY or in the Boston dialect. Makes me way happier that I could sound like a local if I tried hard enough without having to struggle with the ‘r’!
yea that is true. There are many non rhotic dialects/accent along the east coast, especially in the northeast. Not just the New York accent and Boston accent, but the New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire accent too. There are some non rhotic accent in the south too. The traditional Georgia accent, Mississippi, and Louisiana accents are non rhotic.
Boston…where “car keys” sounds like something you wear.
(Khakis)
British English doesnt pronounce the "r" after a vowel too.
Go anywhere in the UK and it's the same thing. As@@Shoppinghappens said, "car keys" sounds like, "khakis."
@@Shoppinghappens cockies??? 😅😂
As a Texan I would say the main difference between southern drawl and twang is the drawl is slow and deep while with twange we speak a bit faster and slightly higher pitched. Another thing, drawl sounds a lot more southern while twang is less heavy but still very southern
As a Brit, I think the Texan accent/ southern drawl is the most attractive American accent by far: it’s really charming. Are there also big regional variations within Texas itself?
im from the north of Louisiana where i'm from i'm from when i'm talking on the phone with family or talking to people i know not at school the country comes out. But when im at school i have a mix of the 2 one my friends heared the way i said ten it kinda sounded like tin
@@gmichele4603 I’m from Texas. There are huge differences in Texas, not only regional but the difference between people in the city and just a few miles outside of the city are dramatic. Much like the differences between London proper and Cockney.
In upper midwestern states all the way north to Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin there's a distinct twang and especially in the country. Am from Milwaukee and when I talk to my best bro from north of me in the country he has a pronounced twang.
You just said the exact same thing he said in the video
10:46 this valley accent is a Southern California thing and “hella” is a Northern California (more specifically Bay Area) thing. You would not commonly hear someone speaking with that accent and saying the word hella. Before it was more popularized, the use of that word indicated which part of the state you were from.
Hella spread to everywhere now.
Hella is in New Zealand now, and I didn't bring it back from my cousins in Northern CA.
"Hella" actually originated in my home town of Hayward, an Oakland suburb. I hella used it as a kid but it seemed dumb when I got older.
“Hella” has definitely spread to Southern California too. Every time I hear someone say that, I ask “are you from the Bay Area?” And often times they say “no”.
Facts. I used to live in South Lake Tahoe. Yeah, that's further north. But, I picked up on certain things. I’m from NY, by the way.
Used to work at ValleyFair in MN, it's been over 10 years now, brought me back instantly. I miss people of MN, thanks so much for this video!
I am from the UK and my uncle and aunty who are now in their 70's, emigrated to Boston when they were in their 20's. They have a really interesting accent which is a mixture of Welsh English and Boston, its really fascinating to listen to them talk when they come over. As a native UK English speaker I find it very hard to distinguish between the various American accents other than the New York and the Southern accents. Very informative video, thank you.
You may be referring to the American Trans Atlantic Accent. Look for American News reels of the 1920’s. Lots of News Broadcasters of the time. Almost all had that very distinct accent. Today the accent is near nonexistent.
Same, they all sound the same to me
Where are you from? I'm hearing ta (to) and cer-in (certain) as you speak :)
Being a native southern speaker that's lived around both the drawl and twangs, I would say the key difference between the two is more about pitch and tempo. An upbeat, nasal, quick "Hey, y'all" would be a good example of a twang, while a drawl would be a slower, deeper, breathy, sometimes almost throaty "howwwalllyalllldoin'?"
I say both, but there is kind of a light twang that isn't so hard on the ear. In parts of Appalachia.
And choice of words, right?
Nailed it!
I'm from NY and we don't speak that way.
For the difference between twang and drawl, say “Hell yeah brother!” and then “Hwhell I do declare…”
When I, a native Minnesotan, spent the summer in Maine as a teen, the locals gave me so much grief about how I said the word ‘bag’! They laughed so hard at us! Haha. That was 25 years ago and I couldn’t hear the difference at all! 😂 thank you for finally explaining it!
I grew up in northern Iowa, and definitely heard people saying "bayg". It's way thicker than he does it in this video. Some people even try to work it into the word Chicaygo.
Oh man, I'm a Wyomingite currently living in North Dakota and that was one of the first things I noticed when I got up here, the accent definitely threw me off for a second!
I think it's more a Mid-West-in-General accent. From a Michigander who also says pop and bayg.
@Jewels...I will always remember the first time I visited my future in-laws in St. Paul. My fiance's mom told me to get her "a beg". I replied with "what?" She started flipping out and saying "a beg, a beg!". I stood there looking like a deer in headlights until she finally put the word paper in front of beg. 🤣💡🤗😉
bieg
San Diegan here- you nailed it. Regional accents are so intriguing. I moved to Boston for a few years when I was 18 and have been fascinated ever since. When I moved back to California, I would hear the nuances between East L.A. where I taught, Valley, surfer. All very different. I was once chatting with someone in Prague who had me pegged as a Californian right off the bat due to my accent.
I’m from Southern California. I do agree with the dialect being common amongst kids, but I feel like that was more common in the 90’s and early 2000’s. Also, you should cover the surfer accent which is another Calif classic 😂 there’s also spanglish, amongst others!
I know everybody here still talks like that. And the surfer accent is pretty much the same as a valley accent... And you can't do Spanglish because then you're getting into the difference between how different races of people speak English in different states and that would take like all month. Lol
Very true. My ex was a surfer, I could barely understand him sometimes.
To me ppl from the OC have that typical surfer accent
“Oohhh woah”
@@kiajulian4619 surfer accent is very different from the valley accent he was explaining, surfer accent is a lot lazier and a longer stretch on vowels, like bro or dude and hella is specifically Bay Area dialect
Another example of surfer dialect is dropping the t at the end of a word and replace it with a -d sound to make them flow better like “what’s up” = “wha(d) up”
I grew up in the San Fernando valley in the late 90s and 00s, and have never met a single person that spoke with that caricature of an accent. Aside from bilingual kids, I don't think we really had a discernable accent. If we do, it's definitely nothing like what everyone thinks "valley" sounds like.
I'm English. I love the US southern drawl accent. Beautiful.
👍
Sounds rednecky 😅
A common Southern phrase would be "Tell Momma an 'em I said Hey", which means "Tell your Momma and your family I said Hi".
Me too.... i'm from deepest darkest Buckinghamshire (England) and we have almost lost our country accent..... but i love the Southern US accent. There's a wonderful short video knocking about with a little Southern boy writing out his mum's shopping list..... stroh bearies, tayders, mo tayders, ayaggs,...so bloody cute!
People from Alabama don’t have an accent, but you did a great job explaining why the rest of the country talks so funny. 😊
denial, ya'll is not only a place in Egypt 😆
Alabama is an absolutely terrible place. So glad I never have to go back.
😂😂😂
@@ChristopherMHeaps Mister, I thought everyone would understand that I was joking. My accent is thick and slow. Your comment about Alabama, on the other-hand, was just mean and hurtful. Shame on you.
@@rbhughbanks Im not from Alabama im from Maryland. But people i know from Alabama all say they are glad they left. What are yall doing down there?
California here I am so surprised 😮 we have an accent. Wow!! you learn something new each day.
How dare you ignore this😅
Not really an accent but a way of emphasizing words and vowels that other regions don't
As an English major, this is definitely one of my favorite topics. ❤️
Glad you enjoy it! 😊
In British English (BrE), "an English major" means a British Army officer with the NATO rank code of OF-4 below the rank of lieutenant colonel and above the rank of captain whose ethnic background lies in England. But in American English (AmE), it means a university/college student who studies (or reads in BrE) English and/or its related literature as his/her speciality (or specialty in AmE).
@@xapaga1 I'm from England, but due to the amount of American media I see, my first thought was the 'studied English at uni' meaning
@@VivekPatel-ze6jy
As an Anglophile I find the situation quite deplorable. I feel as though I acted more in tune with the English than the real life Englishman.
I grew up in Long Beach New York . You described my accent pretty close BUT I can hear very distinct “ New York “ accents from Bronx, Yonkers, Brooklyn , and Jersey . All within a 30 mile radius of Manhattan !
The Bronx accent is from the Dutch,and has lasted all these years. Instead of the, they say duh, all the t's are d's.
theres no different accent for each of the boroughs of new york, thats down to racial accents like brooklyn italian and such.
@@paulbedichek5177 In Chicago they also use d in place of the t, and there was no large settlement of Dutch, or Dutch influence in Chicago.
@@LUIS-ox1bvIt was the German settlers who brought that to Chicago. Germans speak Deutsch, which is often confused with Dutch.
Yeah, def does not apply to Strong Island .
I grew up in Minnesota in the 1950s and 1960s. We didn’t say “soda” (except for “club soda”) - we said “pop” when referring to soft drinks. Pop came in bottles back then.
Exactly
That is right, I had a friend, elderly, he used to pop when referring to what we call soda, at first I did not understand but he was drinking a soda and I understood that context, have a great day
Where I live we still call it 'pop'.
And if you live in the South, it's all "Coke" whether it's Coca-Cola or not.
@@bchristian85My friend from VA called it co-cola!
I grew up in California. It's important to note that the valley he is referring to is the San Fernando Valley, not the Central Valley. It's a suburb of Los Angeles. The word hella is more of a Nor-Cal thing and although it has migrated it's way down south it's not a part of the "typical" valley accent. Still loved hearing him do me though.
Oh, good to know, thanks.
A 100% true. I’m born and raised in Southern California and no one says hella down this way. That’s definitely a Northern California thing.
Totally accurate. Right? When I was a teen in the early 80's everything in SoCal was "bitchin' or Mega-Bitchin". Surfers might say something is "Tubular".
@@Eskey__you probably live in middle class or higher
In San Diego we use hella a lot
I thought for sure he was going to do an over-exaggerated New York accent, but it was actually very good. I'm from Brooklyn and when my late husband would do a New York accent, I always had to tell him that, for most people, it was really more subtle than what he was doing.
Upstate NY doesn't sound like that
Massachusetts is the exaggerated accent. I like to listen to people talk in that state.
@@justin_your_cousin9273 seems like he is doing a more southern ny accent in the video
@@justin_your_cousin9273 bc nobody cares enough about upstate ny- its very forgetable for someone who isn't from NY/NJ.
@@its.kaylin.8807 NYC smells
No native Minnesotan would EVER say, "put the soda in the bag." They would instead say, "Put the pop in the bag." Big difference.
My coworkers and I recently had lunch with a guy from Minnesota. I think he has been working to get rid of his accent but it slipped out when he said the word both. Sounded like boath. It was so cute. I love that accent. ❤
I was out west with some coworkers and they said that I don’t have a Minnesota accent. Later in the evening after some drinks they said “oh there it is!” Another time people said I didn’t have an accent and then I got a phone call from my dad. I hung up and they were like, “what was that? You sounded like a different person on the phone with him.”
Also the sound in bag is more like ray, say, etc. The video presenter isn't emphasizing it enough.
Put the pahp in the bague
@@bretlir Yes! You nailed it!
Awesome!! I lived in California, Michigan, NC, CO, and TX. I'm a Spanish speaker and now I'm a mix of accents!
Very cool! Thanks for commenting & checking out the lesson. 👍
Wonderful rendition of American accents.I am an Italian linguist teaching languages in Los Angeles and found your presentation very interesting! Well done!
I think that the hardest accent to replicate is the accent between Maryland and Philadelphia. It’s a mix of northern and southern. As well, it would be interesting to see a video about the connection between a Brooklyn accent, and a New Orleans accent.
Philadelphia here. Meeting people across America for the first time, some thought I was Southern, some Northern.😄. Philadelphia not only has a unique accent they also destroy the language. Hello=( Yo sup). How are you= (How yizz doin.) On and on 🤣
Isn't that the accent that Kate Winslet had to Master in that movie she played a detective?
@@christopherfritz3840 😀Yes. Water= wooter. Singular person is, yizz. Multiple people is, youze. How yizz doin Christofer?
It's definitely a challenging accent.
The actor Dominic West, who's from England, played the lead character on The Wire which was a police officer from Baltimore. West had so much trouble getting down the Baltimore accent that he and the producers agreed that he should just go with a "generic northeastern" accent.
Very few of the actors on that show were able to speak with a Baltimore accent, and the ones who did were natives of the area in real life.
There’s definitely a connection between Baltimore and Philly as far as their accents go.
In both places an “oa” sound seems to come out as an “ew” sound as in hoagie to hewgie and a Coke to a Cewk.
The mixture of the northern and southern accent is the most interesting thing to me.
It seems to be the epicenter where the north and south meet, long-term culturally, at least.
Although, you find the same thing in a New Orleans accent. I grew up in Brooklyn and the New Orleans accent is the closest thing to a Brooklyn accent that I’ve heard. The Brooklyn accent really must “still” lean heavily on when Brooklyn was a part of Amsterdam. When I was in Amsterdam, the way they spoke English reminded me of NYC in general. “ee” sounds becoming “uh” sounds. Get the phone, get the door becoming get duh phone, get duh door.
I'm from Minnesota, my daughter did not grow up there, but when in another country talking to an American she was asked if she's from Minnesota because of her accent. I wasn't aware we had one other than the stereotypes.
I'm from Detroit, and I went to the top of the mitten and got asked about my accent at a gas station. I was like "um, accent?" Apparently so 💁♀️
"..top of the mitten". Wha...? The UP? Upper Peninsula ?
@Nick Cifuno you don't know the mitten?
@@nickpaine nooo lol the north part of the lower peninsula thats shaped like a mitten
My company HQ's are based in MN and I think it really depends. I actually expected everyone to have a heavy MN accent but they don't. Those from up north have more distinct accents than those from Minneapolis. Also, the Wisconsin employees have a very noticeable accent... similar in many ways but slightly different.
You are the typical friendly American guy. God bless you! The way you pronounce English is breathtaking. You bring hope to all those foreigners who strive to learn your language🙂 I was impressed by your ability to reproduce so many accents, you are better than many actors. Thank you for helping us with English all over the world. Best Regards😃
Thanks for commenting & checking out the lesson. 👍
Beautiful smile, too!
What's the name of the accent, where some people tack on, 'er' at the end of words that don't exist such as IDEA-ER, Linda becomes LINDER, Cuba becomes CUBER, etc.?
That much is true! A smile that kills (Harrison Ford), posh accent (Annette Bening), charming and amiable manners (Gary Cooper). Cutting remarks and puns (Bugs Bunny), at times despthicable (Duffy duck). But to get -got-got and stop disparaging Mr U's Reputation! No more cruelties against colour and behaviour! Signed: ye friendly neighbour a.k.a. The Merry Man. Shall I pass the fan-test or the ominous verb "to flunk" is downing on my endangered fate? Linguistically Yours 🙂@@BillK-c2e
@@BillK-c2e I think that has something to do with "Rhotic" accents. You piqued my curiosity, and I found this video for you:
ua-cam.com/video/-CGISNe4LrI/v-deo.html
Also with a New York accent is a hold over from Old English which is to add an “r” sound to words that end in “w” as in “I sore you yesterday,” for “I saw you yesterday.”
you do a really good job at not over exaggerating the accents.
It’s not just the Minnesota accent, it’s prevalent through North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Michigan’s upper peninsula. I believe it’s actually called the Northern Accent.
It's the Canadian accent lol
@@tranquilized13 Except they punctuate with "ya?" rather than "eh?"
@@tranquilized13 As a Canadian I had to rewatch that segment as I couldn't pick out 'what was different'. :D
What I notice is the similarity to the Chicago accent where they say Chi KAAAH go and Minn e SOOOH tah
Yup people from the Upper Pennisula in Michigan have an accent (Yoopers) compared to lower Michigan. It is very close to Canadian accent.. aye... lol
I'm a black guy from the Chicago area, who's parents are from southern Georgia. I've noticed the way I speak has a mix of every accent it seems. When I was younger, I noticed how differently I sounded from kids from wealthier neighborhoods, so I worked to pronounce words more clearly. Now i'm older, and not so concerned about how I sound, but I definitely slip into speaking similiar to whoever i'm around. I don't conciously know i'm doing it.
Huh that is very interesting
You are not the only one. I have sometimes had to apologize to people whose accent I started using after I was talking to them for a few minutes. Most people don't notice or don't mind. We moved a lot when I was a kid. I think it developed as a defensive mechanism. I have one friend who does the same thing, but I am sure that most people just speak with the accent they learned first, and never developed a blending in skill.
@@Svince54 I do that sometimes too when I’m relaxed, I don’t know why or where I picked. that up. I did live in several different places when I was growing up, so maybe he was exposed to several different accents and languages.
Nobody cares about your race....good Lord thats all you and your people harp on
I like how 'coffee' is spoken in a NY accent. Cwah'fee. Charming!
Cawfee period 😅
Grew up in a coastal, beach community in California but picked up a little of my mother’s Minnesota accent. I love all of the regional US accents but will never forget a childhood cross country trip and my SoCal raised father not being able to understand the clerks at a convenience store outside of Atlanta in the 80s 😂
I am a Minnesotan and 2 months ago I went to California for a National Competition and this other high school kid who was from Ohio (we were all high schoolers) was purposely trying to find people with a Minnesotan accent. I made him very happy haha!
What a great lesson. We have similar language interests! Having taught for nearly 40 years and having taught in New Hampshire, New Jersey, Virginia, Ohio and Michigan.... when ever people hear me speak they pickup on what I have adapted by long term exposure to hearing natives speaking their accents. I've used these in my teaching style on purpose and for fun. Interestingly for example Ohio ( O-hii ) has several accents within the state such as south-eastern has a West Virginia drawl and Appalachian vocab...and then west of I-75 there's some speak with Indiana and Kentucky-isms...northwest sometimes sounds like Michigan farmers (melk vs, milk)....and the Cleveland historic New England connection has some inflections that the "natives" don't know they have but an outsider from the northeast will notice. Fun stuff...thanks
i promise you no matter where you are from, once you come down south you’ll start saying “y’all”, its the best word ever
i love this
My wife and I are both from Nebraska. She had the standard American accent I had more of a rural western dialect/accent. After moving to eastern South Dakota she’s picked up the Minnesota accent yet mine hasn’t changed or it’s gotten to be more standard but not when we go back to my family ranch I fall right back into the old accent.
Nebraskan here, I was hoping I’d find someone in the comments to talk about it haha. I feel like I have a mix of the standard American accent with a little bit of the western dialect. But yeah I’ve always wondered what people think Nebraskans sound like lol
I'm now self-studying my English grammar and speaking and tries to sound like American one (I'm from Poland, right now I'm 19 [I "speak" English for over 2 years] and my "fluent" accent I thank to internet and listening to a lot of sources: games, friends, YT) so that video is really helping me to get better knowledge of different accents in America and maybe one day recreate them as much as I can to the point that people won't notice that I'm from Poland.
Yeah .. good luck with that. lol
Say "dude" a lot and people will think you're American.
I'm just here to learn American slangs.
Thank you, guys!!
I'm learning English language.
I'm from Monterrey, Mexico.
Best regards!!
Glad you enjoyed the lesson. Thanks for your comment. 😊
Loscientos mi Espanol no es buena. Dios teh bendiga mi amigo .
Antonio, if your writing is anything like the way you speak, then you are doing a great job!
This garbage is not English, is the garbage version of it, the one spoken in the U.S.
If I were you. I would wait until the Americans actually start speaking English.
There is British English and incorrect English :-)
3:55. There is also a Brooklyn accent 😉
Good Job.
As a native Californian, I think our accent is a conglomeration of
all other US accents, seeing that EVERYBODY and their uncle moved
to California and pitched their accent into the fray.
The L.A. stoner accent is unmistakable. I think it's actually a San Bernardino accent.
@@eliteteamkiller319 you mean the "valley girl" accent?
@H WHEN I was growing-up, "EVERYBODY'S" parents were from
somewhere else.
We children were born in California, but ALL OF OUR THE PARENTS
were from other states; None of them were native Californians.
@@shaunsteele6926 The Valley girl accent is a "Southern" California
"Upper Class" accent (not ghetto), that originated in the San Fernando Valley
area of Los Angeles.
@@eliteteamkiller319 Hmm, I need to hear that.
I'm from southern California, and we don't hear ourselves as
sounding different from others.
I can’t even imitate my native language dialects they way he does it with his! The guy is a genius lesson creator and extremely dedicated! 👏🏻
I grew up in Gaston County, NC. When I heard the Difference between the Southern Drawl, and then the Southern Twang, I was shocked at how much I did both, but I leaned closer to the Drawl. Thanks!
I grew up in wake county and later moved to europe and the middle east, where i made an effort to lose the accent (which was not that strong in the first place) due to people struggling to understand me. I was convinced all my southern drawl was gone till i encountered a group of people from NC on a flight and they asked me whether i was from NC 😁
Dropping the R is also called rhoticity. As a non-native speaker, I searched for a long time for the official word. But I always spoke and speak rhotic English, which is my natural way of speaking English. When I was in the US in 2015, some people even thought I was American. Thank you for this informative and beautiful video. Greetings from Austria
Yes, I know very well about Rhoticity in English. The “Rhotic” 👍 English dialect like you and me speak is the very best one and the most purest and accurate form of English.
“But” the R dropping “Non-Rhotic” 👎 dialect is terribly incorrect and they slaughter the English language being very wrong.
@@royjohnson465 👍
I am from Brazil. The strangest thing about the English language is the difficulty of identifying the punctuation in sentences: .,!?. I always have the feeling that Americans and English speak straight, without punctuation. The difference is that in the Portuguese language of Brazil, this detail is very clear.
I recently moved to Alaska, from Northern California. One ove the most distinctive accents I have ever heard is the native Inuit accent…I’ve grown to like it…it’s similar to the native accents I heard in the south west, but distinctive in its own way
This is probably true with most of them, but one thing I have noticed about a southern accent is that there is very fine line between doing it right and overdoing it. Usually with most actors, especially from the UK, they tend to over do it just a bit. The southern accent(s) has an almost singsong rhythm to them. Words are shortened or drawn out to keep a steady rhythm in many cases.
to me, the thicker Southern accent the better :) sounds so nice
@@colinafobe2152 I love it as well.
My personal accent is all jacked up though as I have lived in NC, Texas and Alabama so it is all over the place.
@@Xsetsu i wish i can speak english that way
The “sing/song” is the Irish/Scots influence. A good example of a UK actor overdoing a Southern accent to me was Lauren Cohen as Maggie in the Walking Dead. There were several instances that her “Southern” accent seemed strained and just not quite right.
But it doesn’t have to be someone from the UK. David Carradine did a horrible “Southern” accent in the North and South mini series back in the mid-80’s. Hew was from California trying to do a South Carolina gentleman. I remember laughing even as a young kid.
Some clusters of ppl especially blk southerners literally sound like they are singing when they talk.
You did a pretty good job on us New Englanders. The only thing I will point out is packie s pronounced the same way as you would say pack, as in "pack your suitcase". Us and the New Yorkers are the only non-rhotic accents you will typically find in the US. The northeast is a bit of an outlier when it comes to the rule of American accents being rhotic.
American accent usually up tone. It was fun for me when first time I came to visit the USA because I usually pronounce as British accent. Then my American friend recognized my British voice. That is so interesting 😊.I personally both like American and British accents 😊 thank you so much for sharing this great video
Thanks for commenting & sharing. 👍
What's up tone
British accent is one of my favorites.
How does a UTAH accent sound like?
If a learner of English decides to acquire an American accent, which one would you recommend?
The way you're able to do the various accents is really cool! I work for a call center and speak to people all over the US on a daily basis, and I find all the different accents to be really interesting! I'm from Wisconsin, and several times a week I get asked if I'm from Canada! I've lived in Wisconsin for my entire life, but had no idea that I had an accent at all, until people pointed it out to me!😂
Same!
Same for me, being from Northern Minnesota…even in Europe I was asked if I was Canadian!
We don't talk funny. Everyone else does.
@@mpetersen6 YES!!!! This EXACTLY!
@@danadoozer9990
The same could be said by anyone speaking with a regional accent. Actually there are a variety of accents just in Wisconsin.
Non-native here. As soon as you made the Southern accent I immediately remembered the TV show called "Justified" with Timothy Olyphant. I can't quite remember which state the events of the show took place in, but that accent sounded a lot like what I heard in the show. Fascinating!
The story of Justified took place in Kentucky
I absolutely love America for this, these different accents are fascinating. I especially like the southern drawl though I speak with a California accent.
As a teacher of English in Portugal I simply adore accents and their differences. As for "like", Portuguese teenagers use our version of it constantly, which is really annoying. The word is "tipo" and it's our equivalent for "like". Loved the video!
Thanks for commenting & sharing. 👍
@@InteractiveEngi sound British when i say New York dropping the "r" Please compare British accent and NY accent 😭😭😭 I just Need help preventing Sounding like Lucy who taught me British accent hows the "æ" sound, Yeah and i needed help!!!!
@@InteractiveEng I need tips sir to not sound British
I'm from Minnesota and grew up with my Swedish great grandparents and Swedish and Norwegian grandparents,, even my kids tease me how I say certain words, like bag. I guess that I say it like bayg, just like this gentleman said
I'm from the UK and my daughter says "like" all the time. Obviously picked it up from American dominated SM. Does my head in as we say here.
Yes. British kids are picking up appalling grammar from American films and television showe.
Soy profesor de inglés en Latinoamérica y éste video me gusta.
As a native New Yorker, I also noticed that we tend to use "like" a lot. Especially the younger generation. Also, the New york accent is mostly influenced by the Jewish and Italian communities, so their accents tend to be stronger than let's say a Latino New Yorker.
And Jewish communities of New York come from Eastern Europe and mostly speak one of the Eastern Slavic languages.
That happens in lots of countries with the translation of like, like in Spain's spanish people in Madrid we tend to say "en plan"
Well years ago that was not the case. But now the younger folks just cant stop saying the word like since over time peoples vocabulary got more and more limited so people resort to filler words such as like because they do not know the proper word to convey the meaning.
*I love listening to you! Beyond doubt, you are a super good teacher! And yeah, as an Indian, I love the **_Standard American_** accent. One of the best examples of a heavy NY accent is Peter Clemenza in Godfather-I. I invariably needed subtitles to know what this guy was talkin'. Like **_The gunou be the~e_** (the gun will be there).*
Thanks so much! Glad you enjoyed the lesson. 😃
I’m from Boston but I’ve been living in the Bay Area for 27 years. The Cali accent is the opposite of Boston’s, where they hit the R’s EXTRA hard. Especially in Southern California where sometimes words like car are pronounced “cor”.
Californian here, and that is so true. Also, the "ar" and "or" sounds are very prounounced. "Orange" is ORange, while in NY/NJ its "AREange." "Marry" in California is "MAREey," and in NY/NJ its "MARRey."
as a new yorker here, people have been telling me i have a very strong accent and didn't believe them, this video shut me up real quick
I've been learning mostly the British accent (RP) and now pivoting to General American accent it's really surprising to see that New York accent shares a fundamental character with RP (the 'r' dropping feature) rather than it's counterpart.
There are several non-rhotic accents along the east coast of the USA in what were the original colonies, from New England to Georgia.
I was born in California and lived there for 9 years, but am now living in a different state and I just realized that I do have that Valley Californian accent. It’s barely noticeable since I’m so used to it, haha
I chuckled when you mentioned the Florida panhandle and Louisiana. I grew up in both states! When my son got into kindergarten, his teacher called me in for a conference to discuss his language skills. She was suggesting I put him in Speech Therapy because he wasn't speaking clearly at 5 years old (we had moved to the Pocono, PA area by then). I was infuriated! My son was incredibly verbal, highly communicative, and had a vast understanding of multi-syllabic words. So I stood my son in front of her and asked him some simple questions:
'What water falls from the sky" his answer ---> "Rain." (pronounced 'rane')
"What sound does a telephone make?" -----> "Ring." (pronounced 'rayng [soft g])
"What color is grass? -----> "Green." (pronounced grayne)
"What is bread made from?" -----> "Grain."
----Deep South takes most 'ee' sounds and pronounced them 'ay" as in 'hay'-----
And when I showed him certain pictures? ----Ow-ell (Owl), tow-ell (towel), ow-er (hour), gray-ess (grass); you get the point.
Simply and firmly stated, if she was to teach language arts, certainly she understood that children speak in different dialects. It was not her job to correct my son on the certain way he learned to speak growing up. We spoke proper English, no 'aint's' and "gunnas" (going to), we say "May I" and "Please" and "Thank You" and address all adults as Mr. or Miss/Mrs. She conceded.
But we do say "Fixin' to"....
I completely understand your frustration with this. I'm 58 now, when I was about 8 we moved from Boston to eastern Ohio, My mother and I both had thick Brookline accents (think President John Kennedy's accent). I eventually had to go to speech classes to lose my accent because no one could understand what I was saying. I'm so sorry now that my accent is gone and replaced with the very plain Ohio accent.
new yorkers especially from the bronx also add Rs at the end of words sometimes like Rusher instead of russia
This is something I absolutely love about being an American. We got some weird accents and I think we can all have a little bit of a chuckle at how different we sound.
I mean its not exclusive to Americans
Growing up in India, it was Cola. Then it was Pop while I was in Chicago. Now it’s Soda down here in Texas.
Texas has called all sodas a Coke. Or a Soddy Pop with an East Texas drawl. Soda is a recent thing. I’m 66 and still have the Texas drawl
When I moved from New Yor to North Carolina I noticed that the southern drawl/southern twang distinctions tended to be more related to social class than geography. Affluent, urban, and educated people tended to talk more like Scarlet O'Hara and rural working-class people more like Gomer Pyle.
From my time in the south, that Scarlet Ohara thing seemed almost non-existent.
@@echt114 That may well be the case today. I moved to a small town in NC in the early 1980s and lived there for three years. I suspect that NC has become much less "southern" since then. There are probably a lot fewer fast-food restaurants that have liver mush biscuits on their breakfast menu.
Gomer Pyle 😅 I moved to sc from ny and I can attest to this.
Northerners have nasal voices it's like nails on a chalkboard . When I hear them talk , I wanna pass them a hankie and say blow your darn nose
no, it is real. North Carolina has definitely "desouthernized" a little bit recently, but in rural areas this is true.
Hi there,
when I was an Au Pair in San Francisco people tried to figure out where I come from. Just from the accent they would say around Boston. In reality I am a German-Mexican who grew up in Germany parents talking English together. In German school we learned British English but my Mom's collegues were American Military. So with time my English became a British/English, lol.
Cool content! Thank you for your great work.
It’ll be kind of hard to explain the Miami accent. Haha. The first thing people notice is that we always say “Bro.” Many of us with a Latino background will always pronounce the “L” in “Salmon.” We also say words like: ain’t, y’all, lemme, gotta, etc. It’s a mashup of standard English with little hints of twang or different stressed sounds due to many of us being from Spanish speaking households. Example sentences: (Man 1.) What’s up, Bro?? You go to work today?? (Man 2.) Nah, Man. I gotta go to court today. Example 2: (Man 1.) Aye, Bro. I was watchin’ Dragonball Z earlier. (Man 2.) Bro, I haven’t watched Dragonball Z since we was jits. Hahaha. (Jits=Florida slang for “kids”.)
My mom is Russian and she will pronounce the “L” in Salmon. Pretty cool similarity
Born and raised in Miami, my dad is from Queens NY my mom is Colombian. I learned English from my dad so I have the NY accent but a little more dialed down, and I understand Florida slang 😂 that being said if I’m out in Doral or Hialeah I get told I sound like a New Yorker, if I’m in Brickell people ask me which borough I’m from 😂
TLDR; I’m a mut lmao
Also the Miami L sound is very pronounced. Not as noticeable here in Broward but all of the other points are true for most people.
Don't forget, What it be. (What's going on).
Jits equals AAE for a word that was shortened that I won’t mention here Bc y’all have a serious problem with admitting influence from the Afro American Community.
Another thing, California accent tends to drop the “t” and it turns into an additional “n” in some places, ex. Sacraminnow, Sanna Clarita, Sanna Barbara, etc.
Also, HRTs on display for California Valley dialect
I'm from California. And I hate that we do this but I do it to sound more like a local.
That's not just California. Most Americans drop Ts when they are preceded by an N and between syllables in many, but not all, words.
yeah we tend not to pronounce a "T" unless it's at the beginning of a word. Just stems from a lazy way of speaking I think lol
I never even noticed lmao
Thank you for pointing out the difference between Southern twang and Southern drawl. The twangy parts (TN, Arkansas, KY) speak quickly and often swirl words together. The drawl states (GA, TX, the Carolinas) are slower and easier on the ears. Also, you hear more twang in rural areas and drawl in the big cities.
I agree with your locales for southern drawl/twang. When he said twang I was thinking Tennessee and Kentucky, or maybe Appalachia are. When he said Florida, I was surprised. I guess there is more twang here, but only in rural areas. But Georgia, Carolinas and Texas do drawl. Except a Texan drawl is far different, longer than a Georgian, from my perspective.
In Arkansas (my home) we lowland, highland, and flood plain accent.
A Highland accent (mine) t&d’s disappear in the middle of words or sentences, but is alway pronounced at the beginning of words.
Whaya talken abou.
Also S’s can have slight sh in highland Arkansas.
Texan always sounds like it's having an identity crisis, nasally twangs mashing together with long drawls.
In WV & Ohio there are also many regional variations in speech patterns. The one from the Cleveland area varies especially in the way vowels are pronounced from that of southeastern Ohio. The speech in the southern part of WV is slightly similar to that of northern KY & TN. We in Ohio & WV also typically use the word (for the sweetened, carbonated drinks in bottles or cans) “pop” for “soda.”
I'm from Long Island, NY and this is spot on! Awesome!
New York & Boston accents share a lot of similarities with the English accent
same with the southern
That's why they called new England, the first colony that still maintains some of the originality.
But there are definitely features distinct to each. For example, you won't hear the "aw" sound pronounced as a heavy "ooaw" in Boston or coffee like you would in NYC or Rhode Island.
I grew up in the Boston area. One of the ways to distinguish a Boston verses New York accent is that the Boston one is more of an "ah" sound and the New York one is more of an "aw" sound at the end of some words. Boston words are said more opened ah-mouth shape, New York is more of an aw mouth-shape when speaking. Hope this helps people distinguish the two.😎
Do you mean that in Boston, they would say 'Bahston and New Yahk'; but in New York, they would say 'Bawston and New Yawk'? Could this r-dropping tendency of New Yorkers be a cringe reaction to their time-honoured name?
New York City is actually an island, though, isn't it, off the mainland of the United States of America?
In Boston, they also roll their “R’s”.
@@rastrats I come from about 50 miles south of Boston so I won't speak for South Boston, but we pronounce Boston and New York with the 'aw' sound. Most words with 'or' such as lord are pronounced lawd. Even the conjunction 'or' is pronounced as 'aw'. Words with 'ar' are pronounced 'ah' as in cah and pahk. So one would say: You can go by cah aw bus.
@Roger Stratford, Manhattan is an island, surrounded by two rivers. It's not in the ocean. Manhattan is one of 5 Burroughs which comprise NYC. Staten Island is an island to the south/ west of Manhattan, adjacent to New Jersey. Queens and Brooklyn are both on the west-most part of Long Island, which extends about a 2 hour drive eastward beyond that. The Bronx is to the north of Manhattan and connected to the mainland.
So, NYC is really not an island separated from the mainland, and it is not quite ocean-facing, as the water by the coast is considered a bay. Only Brooklyn and Staten Island have parts which yield into the ocean.
The city as a whole is marked by a number of natural separators, and accent diversity is heard throughout the city, and even in neighborhoods. The basics provided here are pretty general, though, and fairly accurate. The strong "aw" sound shows up in words like law, saw, coffee, talk, thought, poor, more. 😊
I grew up outside of Boston and the only time I've ever heard anyone say "Bahtston" was someone trying to imitate the accent. I think someone in the Chicago area might naturally say it that way. New York could be said a few way for people in eastern New England: New Yawk (where the aw is pronounced like in awe), New Yo(r)k (not really any accurate way to write this, but where the ork is pronounced like in the word orc, but without the "r"), and New York (like in standard american english). Not everyone is non-rhotic! LOL!
I think it's important and accurate to say that most of these vowels are dipthongs in these instances. I can't even begin to explain how we say Boston, but it's definitely not Bahston nor Bawston. You'll definitely hear Bawston in southern Rhode Island and Connecticut, but there's a reason for that. :)
As a Minnesotan, I loved your Minnesota coverage!
I appreciate it. 👍
Most regions also have some very specific local accents and dialects. Sometimes as specific as counties or small towns. Especially in rural communities, it can very a lot across each state.
I’m from Alabama. You nailed it, especially the southern drawl.
6:36. My mother grew up in Tennessee, and although she lived in New York most of her life, she never completely lost her Southern accent (you can take the girl out of the South, but you can't take the South out of the girl). She added diphthongs to single-syllable words, saying "foe-er" for four and "doe-er" for door. But she balanced it out by removing syllables from other words. She definitely said "Dubya" when spelling our last name, and my father was not "Howard," he was "Hawrd."
I grew up in Indiana, with a mother who wanted us kids to speak like Chicagoans and not have a “Hoosier Twang” at all, and a father who was from Boston! To my mother the Chicago accent was the true standard American accent.
i don't understand the Hoosier twang thing, unless you are talking about people from southern Indiana, North Indiana seems to have a pretty neutral accent and for the most part central Indiana also has a neutral accent outside of a few cities where its mostly people originally from TN/KY.
Me growing up in Indiana people would figure I was from New York due in how I spoke. I guess I drop too many r's
Facts. Chicago accent is the only normal one, coming from a stoned Chicagoan.
The Midwestern accent is what all National newscasters use. It truly is the standard
That's why Northwestern University has such a huge journalism school.
Actually, Omaha is looked at as the accent free American English. Think Pat Sajak.
You never picked up on the Southwest accent or Arizona accent. It's wild and unique. I'm a NYC/Philly transplant. I moved to Arizona in 1980. First up to Northern AZ right of the Apache Rez then to Tucson. In Arizona we mix reservation lingo/sounds with Spanglish and California Valley spill over. Body language and certain facial expressions also play an important role especially among the indigenous peoples.
As a texan who lives in california (also in the bay area), I can confidently say there are multiple accents in both places and I can tell where you likely grew up in either state with great accuracy. There are several much less common words that make it clear.. or at least as clear as it is when you hear most canadians say the word "against" or most texans say "nuclear"
I'm from canada, and I've found the new orleans accent most fascination to hear
There are lots of differences in our speech patterns even in the same states from region to region. The Outer Banks of NC for example is very different from mainland NC. It's more of a British influence among native OBers. It's also in danger of fading out.
I love the different speech patterns in our country. The only time I have a problem is when someone from New Jersey or New York and sometimes other parts of the North say Southerners have a "bad" accent. Really pisses me to hear someone who says "youse guuys" say that.
New York City accents sound very British to British ears. I'm from an area in Connecticut that has a New York City accent. When I was a tourist in England, I was told that I sounded extremely British but they could occasionally hear some American. I would be asked if I was an expat who moved to the USA from England. They even pinpointed my accent to Derby, England. The area of Connecticut I'm from was settled by Derby, England in 1639. New York City must have had an influx of settlers from Derby, England. Apparently, the New York City type accent is an old colonial accent that never quite made it to American. If you want to know what the Founding Fathers sounded like, just listen to a New York City resident or, better yet, one from the lower Naugatuck Valley in Connecticut 😂😂😂
From TN accents are different in every state in the south and sometimes different parts of the state have different accents.
Californian accents are basically🐻
1)Californian TV broadcast English 📺🎙️📻
2)Valley girl 👱♀️🌄
3)Surfer, Skater, Val dude🏄🛹
4)Urbanite inner city dweller Latino👨🏽🛣️🌆
5)Urbanite inner city dweller black👨🏿🌉 🌃
6)Rural whites in Central California👨🌾🖼️🌽
There's a guy named Luke from my business class who is a stereotypical surfer dude with the thickest L.A. stoner DUUUUDE accent ever lol
you forgot gay
@@twinkincarnatemost gays talk like blck women snapping their neck and fingers, other gays speak like Valley Girls
@@Blue-jd8jf what is latino? Because u put a brown guy.
@@MaquiagemparaEles the majority of latinos in California are Mestizos from Mexico and Central America. On average Mestizos are brown because they have Native American and Spanish ancestry
What you call the “New York” accent is only indicative of New York City, not the entire State of New York. In Western NY, from Rochester to Buffalo, the accent is entirely different from NYC, and more in common with Michigan than what people assume is a New York accent. You even have certain areas of Western New York where people sound like more like Canadians.
Ayup. Example: William Mattar 😂
I’m from down state. I unconsciously switch to what I call “ going all NY on people” when it’s necessary. It gets the job done, if you know what I’m talkin a bout.
This is correct. Buffalo has more in common with the upper Mid West, then NYC.
yeah and for us L.I guys its different as well.
I don't find Western New Yorkers sound Canadian at all. Definitely similar to the Midwestern accent like more similar to Chicago, Cleveland or Detroit. Minneapolis definitely sounds Canadian though.
California native here! Can confirm we put EMPHASIS on certain WORDS in our SENTENCES? And also, we end our sentences in ways that sound like questions (though this truly is Valley Girl, and I personally don't do this, but I definitely hear it)? We also say "like" a lot as filler. I don't even notice it when I do it, for the most part, unless someone points it out to me.
the valley girl sound is a dialect not accent and to my ears it like raking fingernails across a chalkboard
Dude you like really are from california, like I havnt met many people from home.
Also from California. The "like" "literally" "oh my god" words get very annoying. I've only gotten more annoyed to it as I've gotten older and I'm 30.
Need to point out he made sure to say he demonstrated a stereotyped accent. Not all Californians speak this way. And I’m native Californian.
I’m from MN and how your saying bag is like beg where when we say it it’s like bay and the g is an afterthought and subtle
I am from the UK (4 countries, together smaller than most states) and we have a different accent every 20 miles.
Why
Being from California I can also tell you we tend to drop the “T” in words like Santa turns to sanna, Sacramento turns to sacramenno, mountain turns to mounin etc lol
Isn't it just a common English thing? Even though I'm not a native speaker, I've heard many americans and british pronounce words without "t", especially at the end of the word. [start] turns into [stah'] or [star'] (different from star) in words like "mountain" that "t" gets reduced to a glottal stop and so on.
The Pittsburgh accent is also rather interesting. The speech is kind of a vowel shift, but it comes with a whole new vocabulary like “yinz” or “jagger” among a whole host of funny-founding words.
Gotta love the Pittsburgh accent n'at
Never ever used “yinz” growing up, always "yunz".