I'm from Seattle, but I lived in Hot Springs, AR for about 10 years. I was working at the Hilton as a waiter, and one particular customer had the thickest "Southern Belle" accent I'd ever heard. I didn't say anything about it, but she DID say something about the way I sounded. She said I had a "News Anchor" accent, lol. That really just about nailed it, imo. In the PNW, we all sound like news anchors, haha.
5th Generation Washingtonian. I worked at United Airlines Reservation Center in downtown Seattle in the 90s. People from around the country would call in for reservations and many people would ask if I was in Canada because they thought I sounded Canadian. I even had one guy from Florida who asked how the heck did his call end up in Canada when he was trying to call the Florida office.
@@gaywizard2000 I agree. I'm a West Coast Canadian, and I think the description of the Pacific Northwest accent definitely sounds like the way I speak!
I am from Kansas and I live in Spokane WA, the east side of Washington. I heard a lot of saying that are very canadian to me. The way they pronounce “bag” is BEG. and they also say “you betcha” and have sayings that as a midwest person are funny to me. I love listening to people talk here!
I’m from Spokane too! I feel like a lot of people in eastern Washington do speak similarly to Canadians :) You are totally right about the “bag” and BEG LOL 😂
I like the way she switches into the accent she is describing. I've heard the "warsh, Warsington" thing used by people from Appalachia, including my mother. These are folks whose ancestors came mostly from Britain (more English and Scottish, including Ulster Scots)- before US independence, so my thought is that it reflects the rhotic English "pirate" accent of the time. I've heard that the that "proper" London English accent lost the R in the late 18th-early 19th century and that spread to the Anglophile planter class in the US Southeast as an affectation.
@@lordfrostdraken Except in Wassilla where everyone sounds like they're from Minnesota. Before I learned that, I had thought that Sarah Palin was faking one, lol
Also from seattle and I've thought a lot about how we don't have the ogh or augh sounds in our dialect unless we're encountering a new word. Words like "borrow" and "sorry" use an A sound rather than an O. Thought, Shot and Caught are perfect rhymes here. I never thought about the "storytelling" way we form our sentences though, and it 100% makes sense now that I just sat here talking to myself for a sec. However, Seattle even sounds a touch different from, say, Portand OR because of our proximity to Canada, I use "Canadian" vowels in very rare instances, eh?
well i'm from nebraska and i would pronounce borrow and sorry the same way. so it doesn't seem specific to washington in your example. I think people get really hung up on trying to be offended by someone who claims they have no accent. like clearly, in the grand scheme of things, there's a standard, more widely-adopted way of speaking in america, that's why if you even read textbooks about english they will only point out something extreme like new york or the south.
Okay so im here in Portland Oregon and i feel like we sound the same as people from Washington. Very regular and standard. The moat easily understood english in the U.S.A imo. Btw ive never heard anyone frome Washington say Warshington. Js...lol
Raised in Guam, moved to seattle in 97. I didn't notice a PNW accent. It people confused with how to pronounce certain cities and words correcrly lol. They said I have an accent because i didnt sound like them and that people from Guam sound like they're singing when we speak english. It's how we flow and enunciate
i feel like that's not an accent though that's more like...someone picked up a bad habit of pronouncing that word lol. so do they also say "slip" instead of "sleep"? no. lol
I think it mostly comes from people who move here from the midwest, especially Irish descendants. My great-grandmother and grandfather both did this, but that linguistic tradition ended with my father.
@@rylian21you're wrong. My grandparents are all native to the Pacific Northwest and say 'warsh'. And I say "caught" and "cot" the same, as does every one of my family members. The 'warsh' thing is a bit old fashioned, but it's from here.
I spent 7 years of my childhood in SW Washington and I heard more people put the “r” sound in Washington than I did anywhere else. I was so confused… like, how could actual Washingtonians not know how to pronounce the name of the state? But, this was in the 80s’, those people were all adults, not my peers. So, definitely would be “old people” now.
Another one, and it wasn't until a friend from Main noticed it but northern Washington, I'm talking getting away from the hodgepodge of Seattle, and into the town where you have a couple of generation Washingtonians like mine, we have weird e's. Until a few years ago, I found out that it's not normal to say leg, layg, or egg, ayg. I've lived in Portland since I was 6 but my family carried that accent down here, and whenever we are back up in basically Canada land, all together, it comes way out
Yes, I came from the east coast and lived in Portland from '90-96. Some differences I noticed: ori-gin or ory-gun for Oregon, leg, layg, egg, ayg or byg bag and also gut for got and furgut for forgot
I’m from Seattle and it all depends what culture you are because everyone of a different race will have certain linguistics in their speech. I am a Romani descent so I have sort of a New Yorker accent, even though I never been to New York. It just depends on what culture you are…. But from what I’ve observed, Seattle has a huge white population so it’s typical Caucasian linguistics.
I met my 3 male first cousins and two of my young first cousins once removed (daughters of one of my first cousins) for the first time in about 2005 in KY when I was 50. (I am OR born and raised but have lived in a total 6 different states including WA where I was then living. The majority of my life spent in OR and WA.) When I met them in KY in 2005 at my aunt and uncle's home one of my first cousins asked me what I liked best during my road trip through KY. I quickly replied that I LOVED their lovely KY accents. I then looked at my silent young first cousins once removed and asked them if I had an accent. They both vigorously nodded and exclaimed "OH YEAH!!!" That was the first time I realized that I did indeed have a PNW accent.
Oregon pronounced “orihgin”. Mountain pronounce like “moun’n”. Salmon pronounced “sammin” or “samm’n”. There’s definitely a few distinctions that I’ve noticed living here. Washington pronounced “warshingtin” or “washingtin”
Where have you been? Never heard one person pronounce those words like that in the PNW and I’ve lived hear my whole life and am good at picking up accents
@@orangeflaws8088 interesting. I didn’t feel like going into depth to make the annunciation clear… I just hoped someone would get what I mean. I hear these pronunciations a lot. Some of it is fast, or lazy annunciation no doubt, but if it’s widespread I think that’s considered an accent. I think some of it is generational too “warshington” especially. I’ve lived in the Midwest a while, which helps me hear the differences. I’d have to be talking to you to describe what I’m hearing.
@@myk_islive6471 yeah it’s probably an older Washington thing. I live in Oregon and the older people I’ve met don’t do that. But there are studies that show Oregon has the least intelligible amount of an accent (ie no accent in comparison to everywhere else) so it would make sense why I haven’t noticed that much if at all
Very interesting topic! I’m not American, came to the US when I was 24. But people would always thought I was born here or grew up here because I don’t have an accent. I’ve lived in MI for over 18 years now. I think I’ve picked up more of southern Michigan accent.
Born in western WA in 1949. Lived in Wa all my life. Never said Washington with an R sound. What is really odd about WA is our place names. Asotin Cathlamet Chehalis Chelan Mukilteo Spokane (I lived here for a time... I call it SpoCan't.) Hoquiam Puyallup Stillicum Stehekin Seqium and tons of others.
as to why our place names are so weird is because the vast majority of them are named after native american tribes in the area, take it for example the spokane tribe just north of spokane
Im from st.Louis I’ve been in WA since I was 8 im almost 22. My whole time being here my family from Missouri would tell me I’d sound like a white man. My father asked me one day to “Speak like one of them”.
i feel like that's not an accent lol. random words like this don't constitute an accent. if it were an accent then they would also say "boss" as "bosst" and "toss" as "tosst".
@@brianbiga4649accent literally means how you pronounce words. saying across with a t is pronouncing it differently. thats accent. if a bunch of people in a city start pronouncing 1 word a certain way, their accent shows in a word now. it doesnt have to affect all the words that are similar. i bet if you heard someone talking normally and then say 'fah-rest' for forrest you dont expect them to say 'starry' for story, right?
People who say “I never heard anyone say Warshington” clearly never hung out in rural Washington. Especially by the Canadian border such as Bellingham, Blaine, anywhere north of Skagit. Ask anyone above age 40 and you’ll hear a slight Canadian esque Accent.
My ex lds friends are from Utah and I love comparing dialects, they say my WA accent is very level and in the corners and tip of my mouth. Which makes sense when I pronounce "Kalama" compared to when they say "kal-lah-mah"
Born and raised in western Washington. Most people say my speech is an even mix of california, canadian, and midwestern accent. Culturally I would say I identify more with the midwest than anything.
Born and raised in Washington (thankfully, not Seattle). Couple years ago, I went on vacation to the Florida keys. A lot of people assumed My family was Canadian just from how we pronounced certain things.
I am a wash native, and we have a lot of parents and grands from the south (dustbowl people came to work on the dam), even now you hear muddied mix of southernisms here. Especially in eastern wa. a lot of us drop the g in ing, its like "washin' machine, and goin'". Maybe a bit sloppy. we are used to it. My boss from india wanted me to teach his wife ( from morocco)to speak english..I told him I barely speak english as it is...I then did teach her some english, but it was hard, as I tried to teach her PROPER english so she don' soun lyke a dang ol' hillbilly. At that time I discovered, yeah, we do have an accent. well, ah gotta let yer go, ahm fixin to get ta bed.
i like all these fun unique words people say, but i also DON'T THINK THAT IS AN ACCENT!!! it's just a goofy one-off example. to me, a strong accent affects most things coming out of someone's mouth lol if it were an accent they would also say "bool" instead of "bell" or "tool" instead of "tell"...but they prob don't... right?
My take has been that the city accents in Oregon and Washington (Seattle, Portland, Eugene, Vancouver) are closer to the Southern California accents of San Diego, Orange County, Bay Area with the exception of exaggerated pronunciation on most words and typically spoken faster with shorter enunciation. Its more of a cadence difference and length of the "note " of the spoken word. Example : (These examples are going to be misspelled to try to exaggerate enunciation and word length) Southern Californian- "I (enunciate three times as long as "I" so it would sound like "eeeay") feeeel li-ike getting Chineeese for dinner tuh-night" PNW - "I feel l'IKE getting Chinese for dinner tO-nIGHT" (the "ike" is harsher and more enunciated as well as the to- and the IGHT" part of night) Very similar sounds but PNW speakers are saying the words faster and using harsher and more obvious enunciations.
Born and raised in the PNW. I have only lived in Washington and northern Oregon. Truly, the only people I know who put an "r" in Washington are older folks or younger people who are making fun of older folks.
Also, Scots-Irish settlement of the Upper Ohio Valley and the Appalachians made for rhotic speach west of those mountains. Whether and weather are the same - PNW doesn't differentiate. Older folks say the days of the week: Sundee, Mondee, etc. Because of the Scandinavians, we will say, "I'm going to the store, you want to go with?" - including "with". Older guys will say "cork" for "caulk" (cork boots for loggers). Add to this the some Chinook Jargon, "skookum" (big, powerful, fast), "chuk" (water) and more.
see this is an accent. this is why there are levels of strong accent versus a more flat one because certain accents are so strong it affects most everything that comes out of their mouth.
so how should it be pronounced? lol. how do the Maine people say "running"? you pronounce/emphasize the g? they only people i've heard do that are foreigners lol.
@@brianbiga4649it’s not that it should be pronounced anyway necessarily- it’s divergent from the typical General American English pronunciation which is with an “ih” sound like in “if.” And trust me, people in Maine do NOT pronounce things in any sort of standardized way.
i was born in spokane and only 1 lady at my school said warsh everyone else i ever ran into said wash. even my grandma said wash . its always someone not born here whos family migrated here who have a weird accent trying to say words.
What she left out in the video is that people of different races? Have different sounding voices and sometimes different dialect Like whites and blacks speak different English and as a person of Romani heritage, I would say my linguistics are a little bit different compared to white people’s speeches and there’s a lot of Asians in Seattle and they speak English with a little bit of an Asian accent Seattle has multi accents. It just depends what race you are that makes a difference and how you talk.
Has anyone noted the greater area slur? People in the smaller areas don't enunciate anything and slur everything together... it's a really hard to understand at first!!!
Yes! My wife is from Washington and she pronounces "caught" and "cot" the same. I'm from NE Ohio and I pronounce them very differently. She laughs at my (somewhat) northeastern pronunciation, whereupon I give her a tutorial: Bought, caught, taught, wrought, naught 😄
I grew up on a small island on the Columbia river near the coast. English wasnt even spoken here until the 1930s. Primarily Scandinavian. ....and there is no damn R in Washington. lol
In order, I've lived in rural California, Idaho, and Oregon. In Idaho they could pick out the California influence because Idaho has a pinch of country and California really doesn't. When I talk about your state, I'll pronounce each letter in Washington. But if I'm talking fast it becomes WASH-indun
I don’t consider “warsh” a PNW/Washington State accent identifier to me it’s more of a midwestern Great Plains pronunciation. My paternal grandparents were grandchildren of early settlers in western Washington and northern Idaho, and I was born and lived in western Washington for most of my formative years and attended college in Idaho and I don’t recall any of them saying “warsh.” However, my wife who was from Nebraska said “warsh” all the time. That warsh has become identified with a Washington accent makes me wonder if the rhotic pronunciation has moved into the state since I lived there in the 60s and 70s, and was in college in the 80s.
I am from Seattle. Well, the "Ave"... Not sure if that is really Seattle. There is a way of speaking on the Ave, dude... But here in New York City there are many many accents from folks in Queens and Brooklyn - but not just Brooklyn the many many neighborhoods of Brooklyn. I love the Italian, Bensonhurst accent. A lot. The thing about Seattle is if you are dyslexic it is hard to learn to spell. Is is Monopoly? Menopoly? Monapoly? We make all the vowels sound the same so the new speller just has to guess.
Two notable examples of PNW natives with a Midwest accent are Ken Patera and Mike O’Hearn. The PNW must have had a sh*t load of Midwest native migration going back over a hundred years.
I moved to Georgia a little over a year ago, and am from Spokane, Washington(which is very close to Canada.). I have had MANY people ask me where I’m from, if I’m from Canada, or where the heck I’m from😂😂. It could be as someone from the PNW living in the south, our accent is not as common.
Yea im from everett. Whenever i go to northern idaho and spokane i notice more southern inspired accents. Not southern, but almost a mix. How are you liking georgia? Do you miss washington? I love it here but am thinking of moving to nashville to learn how to farm. God bless Morgan
At least from the area I'm in, and it is a bit of a rural area, there's a bit of southern influence in the way the older generations speak. Maybe not entirely correct, but from how I see it. And some of them like to say things like Warshington. It's not really a constant for people of certain generations, my father and I have grown up in the same rural area and have lived in Washington our whole lives but speak like anyone else in the state. Maybe with a bit of that southern-ish or what I'm assuming is a rural sound (I say this because I've only ever heard people in rural areas have that kind of sound to their accent). And to clarify he's from the tail end of the Baby Boomers and I'm towards the beginning of Gen Z. Although for whatever reason apparently I pronounce theater kinda strangely, according to others. Thee-ay-der. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts!
I live in MS now, but grew up near Sedro-Woolley area "see-dro wool-ee (smooth transition on woolley)". Ppl not from there tend to say "seh-dro". It's in Skagit "skah-jiit" county. I'd take trips to Bellingham "bell-leeng-ham". Supposedly I say "egg" funny to southerners. Its more like canadian egg? Soft ey instead of eh. Not prominent and obvious, but barely there. Ive literally never heard anyone but people from the NE area say "worsh". The cot/caught is true tho.
Im from wa, but my sis and ma always sain "aig" and "steam arn" (for gettin the rinkels outta yer close), Ma and sis were from texas and came here in the 1930s, and they never liked our "snikes and bars", (snakes and bears)
‘warsh’ comes directly from the West Country (South West England) not Ireland. I’ve never heard anyone in Britain or Ireland say ‘wursh’, nor have I heard anyone say ‘wash’ as ‘wawsh’ (I’m referring to a non-rhotic ‘worsh’ not ‘wahsh’) in England and I’m English.
our towns are indian words, Spokane is not "spokayne," its Spo- can. Wenatchee is ", wen-at-chee" then there is Puallup, its not "pully-up", ...we were in Texas and a waitress asked my dad where we were from, he told her Grand Coulee (as in the DAM), she wanted to know if that was close to Spo-kane, dad (dry sense of humor) told her Grand Coulee was between "Spo-kane" and "pully-up" She did not get the joke, but the rest of us roared. We love our indian history and learn these funny names as kids. Remember the witchdoctor song? the Walla Walla thing came from our town of Walla walla" we got some real doozies out here, just look at a map of washington.
Actually, second comment, this makes sense because I had a coworker from Seattle say that we enunciate words less than Seattle and thought we had an accent in our area of WA
There's really not much of one, it's weird, everyone thinks they don't have an accent then they learn that they do but up north west we really don't have an accent, everything is pretty plain
forgot ta tell ya, met a jewish guy from new york who told me about his "bubbe" , took me a while to figure out he meant his granny, I thot he meant his baby chickens
I'm from Seattle, but I lived in Hot Springs, AR for about 10 years. I was working at the Hilton as a waiter, and one particular customer had the thickest "Southern Belle" accent I'd ever heard. I didn't say anything about it, but she DID say something about the way I sounded. She said I had a "News Anchor" accent, lol. That really just about nailed it, imo. In the PNW, we all sound like news anchors, haha.
😂
Funny, I've been told that all my life!
I always just assumed we didn't have an accent because all tv journalists mimic the "pnw accent."
That Warshington drives me wild! There is no R.
5th Generation Washingtonian. I worked at United Airlines Reservation Center in downtown Seattle in the 90s. People from around the country would call in for reservations and many people would ask if I was in Canada because they thought I sounded Canadian. I even had one guy from Florida who asked how the heck did his call end up in Canada when he was trying to call the Florida office.
Lol, I'm Canadian and think we sound the same, basically. Western Canada.
I have an Australian friend who said I sounded more Canadian than American" to him lol
Go east and they sound closer to Canadians to me. Minnesota etc.
@@eliteteamkiller319 that's a whole different accent and the great lakes area is a world of bonkers accents unto itself!
@@gaywizard2000 I agree. I'm a West Coast Canadian, and I think the description of the Pacific Northwest accent definitely sounds like the way I speak!
I am from Kansas and I live in Spokane WA, the east side of Washington. I heard a lot of saying that are very canadian to me. The way they pronounce “bag” is BEG. and they also say “you betcha” and have sayings that as a midwest person are funny to me. I love listening to people talk here!
I’m from Spokane too! I feel like a lot of people in eastern Washington do speak similarly to Canadians :)
You are totally right about the “bag” and BEG LOL 😂
Yes all of WA State does the "eh" sound almost for, a, e, and i.
From Seattle. Have always said bag.
I like the way she switches into the accent she is describing. I've heard the "warsh, Warsington" thing used by people from Appalachia, including my mother. These are folks whose ancestors came mostly from Britain (more English and Scottish, including Ulster Scots)- before US independence, so my thought is that it reflects the rhotic English "pirate" accent of the time. I've heard that the that "proper" London English accent lost the R in the late 18th-early 19th century and that spread to the Anglophile planter class in the US Southeast as an affectation.
Im from Alaska, we got the flattest accent, the most neutral.
@@lordfrostdraken Except in Wassilla where everyone sounds like they're from Minnesota. Before I learned that, I had thought that Sarah Palin was faking one, lol
@@edwardmiessner6502 yeah fair enough heh. Alaska is a big state after all, so the accent fluctuates even across the state itself
Also from seattle and I've thought a lot about how we don't have the ogh or augh sounds in our dialect unless we're encountering a new word. Words like "borrow" and "sorry" use an A sound rather than an O. Thought, Shot and Caught are perfect rhymes here. I never thought about the "storytelling" way we form our sentences though, and it 100% makes sense now that I just sat here talking to myself for a sec. However, Seattle even sounds a touch different from, say, Portand OR because of our proximity to Canada, I use "Canadian" vowels in very rare instances, eh?
well i'm from nebraska and i would pronounce borrow and sorry the same way. so it doesn't seem specific to washington in your example. I think people get really hung up on trying to be offended by someone who claims they have no accent. like clearly, in the grand scheme of things, there's a standard, more widely-adopted way of speaking in america, that's why if you even read textbooks about english they will only point out something extreme like new york or the south.
Okay so im here in Portland Oregon and i feel like we sound the same as people from Washington. Very regular and standard. The moat easily understood english in the U.S.A imo. Btw ive never heard anyone frome Washington say Warshington. Js...lol
Hardly anyone here in Washington state say”Warsh”. If so, it is always an old person lol
I hear that in the midwest and south.
never heard anyone say it like that anywhere
@@KeizerHedorahLook up Loretta Lynn singing ‘Coalminer’s Daughter’ and you’ll hear her say ‘warshboard’.
Yep! I live here and I say wash but my grandma says Warsh and is the only one I know who says it like that. And she's from Nevada...
or some tennessee hillbilly
Raised in Guam, moved to seattle in 97. I didn't notice a PNW accent. It people confused with how to pronounce certain cities and words correcrly lol. They said I have an accent because i didnt sound like them and that people from Guam sound like they're singing when we speak english. It's how we flow and enunciate
This was awesome. Idaho native here. My favorite one is "crick" not "creek"
i feel like that's not an accent though that's more like...someone picked up a bad habit of pronouncing that word lol. so do they also say "slip" instead of "sleep"? no. lol
@@brianbiga4649 you people from the city wouldn't understand colloquial dialect.
I'm from WA and "Cot" and "Caught" are exactly the same. We also tend to drop our "T" a bit. "Winter" sounds a bit like "winner"
I have lived in Western Washington since 1967 and never heard "Warshington" anywhere here. Also, I pronounce "cot" and caught" somewhat differently.
I think it mostly comes from people who move here from the midwest, especially Irish descendants. My great-grandmother and grandfather both did this, but that linguistic tradition ended with my father.
In Western Washington since 1977. "Cot" and "caught" are different for me, as well. I've heard "Warshington" but not from anyone under seventy.
@@rylian21you're wrong. My grandparents are all native to the Pacific Northwest and say 'warsh'. And I say "caught" and "cot" the same, as does every one of my family members. The 'warsh' thing is a bit old fashioned, but it's from here.
I spent 7 years of my childhood in SW Washington and I heard more people put the “r” sound in Washington than I did anywhere else. I was so confused… like, how could actual Washingtonians not know how to pronounce the name of the state? But, this was in the 80s’, those people were all adults, not my peers. So, definitely would be “old people” now.
Another one, and it wasn't until a friend from Main noticed it but northern Washington, I'm talking getting away from the hodgepodge of Seattle, and into the town where you have a couple of generation Washingtonians like mine, we have weird e's. Until a few years ago, I found out that it's not normal to say leg, layg, or egg, ayg. I've lived in Portland since I was 6 but my family carried that accent down here, and whenever we are back up in basically Canada land, all together, it comes way out
You from Bellingham?.
Like bag?? Yessss!!
Yes, I came from the east coast and lived in Portland from '90-96. Some differences I noticed:
ori-gin or ory-gun for Oregon,
leg, layg, egg, ayg or byg bag
and also gut for got and furgut for forgot
I’m from Seattle and it all depends what culture you are because everyone of a different race will have certain linguistics in their speech. I am a Romani descent so I have sort of a New Yorker accent, even though I never been to New York. It just depends on what culture you are…. But from what I’ve observed, Seattle has a huge white population so it’s typical Caucasian linguistics.
I met my 3 male first cousins and two of my young first cousins once removed (daughters of one of my first cousins) for the first time in about 2005 in KY when I was 50. (I am OR born and raised but have lived in a total 6 different states including WA where I was then living. The majority of my life spent in OR and WA.) When I met them in KY in 2005 at my aunt and uncle's home one of my first cousins asked me what I liked best during my road trip through KY. I quickly replied that I LOVED their lovely KY accents. I then looked at my silent young first cousins once removed and asked them if I had an accent. They both vigorously nodded and exclaimed "OH YEAH!!!" That was the first time I realized that I did indeed have a PNW accent.
Oregon pronounced “orihgin”. Mountain pronounce like “moun’n”. Salmon pronounced “sammin” or “samm’n”. There’s definitely a few distinctions that I’ve noticed living here. Washington pronounced “warshingtin” or “washingtin”
Also already sometimes pronounced “ardy” or “aridy”
Where have you been? Never heard one person pronounce those words like that in the PNW and I’ve lived hear my whole life and am good at picking up accents
@@orangeflaws8088 interesting. I didn’t feel like going into depth to make the annunciation clear… I just hoped someone would get what I mean. I hear these pronunciations a lot. Some of it is fast, or lazy annunciation no doubt, but if it’s widespread I think that’s considered an accent. I think some of it is generational too “warshington” especially. I’ve lived in the Midwest a while, which helps me hear the differences. I’d have to be talking to you to describe what I’m hearing.
@@myk_islive6471 yeah it’s probably an older Washington thing. I live in Oregon and the older people I’ve met don’t do that. But there are studies that show Oregon has the least intelligible amount of an accent (ie no accent in comparison to everywhere else) so it would make sense why I haven’t noticed that much if at all
@@orangeflaws8088do you say Oregon like “ore a gone” or something then? Because Orihgin is exactly like how every other PNWer would say it…
Very interesting topic! I’m not American, came to the US when I was 24. But people would always thought I was born here or grew up here because I don’t have an accent. I’ve lived in MI for over 18 years now. I think I’ve picked up more of southern Michigan accent.
Born in western WA in 1949. Lived in Wa all my life. Never said Washington with an R sound. What is really odd about WA is our place names.
Asotin
Cathlamet
Chehalis
Chelan
Mukilteo
Spokane (I lived here for a time... I call it SpoCan't.)
Hoquiam
Puyallup
Stillicum
Stehekin
Seqium
and tons of others.
I think Wahkiakum County is pretty funny for some reason
as to why our place names are so weird is because the vast majority of them are named after native american tribes in the area, take it for example the spokane tribe just north of spokane
Yeah, Sequim and Puyallup will catch out non-locals, for sure.
dont forget Pysht , which almost sound dirty
Chelan, Steheiken…2 of my favorite places
Im from st.Louis I’ve been in WA since I was 8 im almost 22. My whole time being here my family from Missouri would tell me I’d sound like a white man. My father asked me one day to “Speak like one of them”.
My dad and lots of people I know still pronounce it Warshington. My g-g-grandma came from Ireland, so that makes sense.
Also People in Washington I've noted say Acrosst with a 't' at the end instead of Across.
i feel like that's not an accent lol. random words like this don't constitute an accent. if it were an accent then they would also say "boss" as "bosst" and "toss" as "tosst".
@@brianbiga4649accent literally means how you pronounce words. saying across with a t is pronouncing it differently. thats accent. if a bunch of people in a city start pronouncing 1 word a certain way, their accent shows in a word now. it doesnt have to affect all the words that are similar.
i bet if you heard someone talking normally and then say 'fah-rest' for forrest you dont expect them to say 'starry' for story, right?
Grew up in South Texas and just moved to Washington last year. Called my mom last week and she remarked that I didn’t sound like a Texan anymore
People who say “I never heard anyone say Warshington” clearly never hung out in rural Washington. Especially by the Canadian border such as Bellingham, Blaine, anywhere north of Skagit. Ask anyone above age 40 and you’ll hear a slight Canadian esque Accent.
The thing I notice most is "root" being pronounced "reut", with a flat "oo" sound.
My ex lds friends are from Utah and I love comparing dialects, they say my WA accent is very level and in the corners and tip of my mouth. Which makes sense when I pronounce "Kalama" compared to when they say "kal-lah-mah"
Kalama is an awesome town!.
unless you’re a fossil no one says “Warsh” however got me on “caught” ggs
Find yourself someone who looks at you like Liz looks at Paula
Born and raised in western Washington. Most people say my speech is an even mix of california, canadian, and midwestern accent. Culturally I would say I identify more with the midwest than anything.
Born and raised in Washington (thankfully, not Seattle). Couple years ago, I went on vacation to the Florida keys. A lot of people assumed My family was Canadian just from how we pronounced certain things.
I am a wash native, and we have a lot of parents and grands from the south (dustbowl people came to work on the dam), even now you hear muddied mix of southernisms here. Especially in eastern wa. a lot of us drop the g in ing, its like "washin' machine, and goin'". Maybe a bit sloppy. we are used to it. My boss from india wanted me to teach his wife ( from morocco)to speak english..I told him I barely speak english as it is...I then did teach her some english, but it was hard, as I tried to teach her PROPER english so she don' soun lyke a dang ol' hillbilly. At that time I discovered, yeah, we do have an accent. well, ah gotta let yer go, ahm fixin to get ta bed.
this is the first video i found where people arent making stuff up about us and i actually kinda understand what she is talkin bout with our accents
I want her to ready off some of the towns and road names we have to see if she knows how to say them
Personally, growing up in the pnw. Ive found others growing up here including myself tend to say "wool" instead of "well" depending on the context
i like all these fun unique words people say, but i also DON'T THINK THAT IS AN ACCENT!!! it's just a goofy one-off example. to me, a strong accent affects most things coming out of someone's mouth lol if it were an accent they would also say "bool" instead of "bell" or "tool" instead of "tell"...but they prob don't... right?
That storytelling bit is so true. People here on the east coast where I moved to are so bland in their talking haha.
I like that she was immediately proven wrong
Refreshing to watch a non political, fun and interesting video.
The homeless bums on Seattle/Tacoma streets have a bit of a whisky slur. Its quite unique and defined.
Dathhhss raicssssthhsssss
LMAO
This is a really interesting topic…I do the same actually with the Arabian Peninsula Accents
My take has been that the city accents in Oregon and Washington (Seattle, Portland, Eugene, Vancouver) are closer to the Southern California accents of San Diego, Orange County, Bay Area with the exception of exaggerated pronunciation on most words and typically spoken faster with shorter enunciation. Its more of a cadence difference and length of the "note " of the spoken word.
Example : (These examples are going to be misspelled to try to exaggerate enunciation and word length)
Southern Californian- "I (enunciate three times as long as "I" so it would sound like "eeeay") feeeel li-ike getting Chineeese for dinner tuh-night"
PNW - "I feel l'IKE getting Chinese for dinner tO-nIGHT" (the "ike" is harsher and more enunciated as well as the to- and the IGHT" part of night)
Very similar sounds but PNW speakers are saying the words faster and using harsher and more obvious enunciations.
In Vancouver, BC... Met a guy from Tacoma, Washington... he definitely had a twang
Born and raised in the PNW. I have only lived in Washington and northern Oregon. Truly, the only people I know who put an "r" in Washington are older folks or younger people who are making fun of older folks.
I wonder if she could tell by listening to me or anyone where they grew up.
Also, Scots-Irish settlement of the Upper Ohio Valley and the Appalachians made for rhotic speach west of those mountains. Whether and weather are the same - PNW doesn't differentiate. Older folks say the days of the week: Sundee, Mondee, etc. Because of the Scandinavians, we will say, "I'm going to the store, you want to go with?" - including "with". Older guys will say "cork" for "caulk" (cork boots for loggers). Add to this the some Chinook Jargon, "skookum" (big, powerful, fast), "chuk" (water) and more.
She nailed it.
Being from NY, people would make fun of me. Then living in the Bahaston area, they pahk the cah in hahvahd yahd. Lol
see this is an accent. this is why there are levels of strong accent versus a more flat one because certain accents are so strong it affects most everything that comes out of their mouth.
One thing, as a Mainer, that I found when living in Portland was that people said the gerund ending "-ing" as "-een."
so how should it be pronounced? lol. how do the Maine people say "running"? you pronounce/emphasize the g? they only people i've heard do that are foreigners lol.
@@brianbiga4649it’s not that it should be pronounced anyway necessarily- it’s divergent from the typical General American English pronunciation which is with an “ih” sound like in “if.” And trust me, people in Maine do NOT pronounce things in any sort of standardized way.
i was born in spokane and only 1 lady at my school said warsh everyone else i ever ran into said wash. even my grandma said wash . its always someone not born here whos family migrated here who have a weird accent trying to say words.
What she left out in the video is that people of different races? Have different sounding voices and sometimes different dialect Like whites and blacks speak different English and as a person of Romani heritage, I would say my linguistics are a little bit different compared to white people’s speeches and there’s a lot of Asians in Seattle and they speak English with a little bit of an Asian accent Seattle has multi accents. It just depends what race you are that makes a difference and how you talk.
Has anyone noted the greater area slur? People in the smaller areas don't enunciate anything and slur everything together... it's a really hard to understand at first!!!
Yep I was about to say, I notice people enunciate words more when I go out of Washington. I think I am especially bad and Really slur my words
Yes! My wife is from Washington and she pronounces "caught" and "cot" the same. I'm from NE Ohio and I pronounce them very differently. She laughs at my (somewhat) northeastern pronunciation, whereupon I give her a tutorial: Bought, caught, taught, wrought, naught 😄
the weirdest thing when i moved to texas i was there for 9 years and i was told i sound like im from newyork🤣
I grew up on a small island on the Columbia river near the coast. English wasnt even spoken here until the 1930s. Primarily Scandinavian. ....and there is no damn R in Washington. lol
it really depends where you live probably. Raised near Vancouver and that was common
@@PersephoneDarling28 not Vancouver. closer to Long Beach. doesnt matter, THERE IS NO R IN WASHINGTON. full stop.
@@hapyharyhard0n581 Bruh, chill out and go enjoy some Warshington Sammin
@@PersephoneDarling28 Salmon dumbass...
In order, I've lived in rural California, Idaho, and Oregon.
In Idaho they could pick out the California influence because Idaho has a pinch of country and California really doesn't.
When I talk about your state, I'll pronounce each letter in Washington. But if I'm talking fast it becomes WASH-indun
When i was in the military, I was told that we in WA State soften our vowells. Especially e and i, it all sounds like "eh."
I don’t consider “warsh” a PNW/Washington State accent identifier to me it’s more of a midwestern Great Plains pronunciation. My paternal grandparents were grandchildren of early settlers in western Washington and northern Idaho, and I was born and lived in western Washington for most of my formative years and attended college in Idaho and I don’t recall any of them saying “warsh.” However, my wife who was from Nebraska said “warsh” all the time. That warsh has become identified with a Washington accent makes me wonder if the rhotic pronunciation has moved into the state since I lived there in the 60s and 70s, and was in college in the 80s.
I am from Seattle. Well, the "Ave"... Not sure if that is really Seattle. There is a way of speaking on the Ave, dude... But here in New York City there are many many accents from folks in Queens and Brooklyn - but not just Brooklyn the many many neighborhoods of Brooklyn. I love the Italian, Bensonhurst accent. A lot. The thing about Seattle is if you are dyslexic it is hard to learn to spell. Is is Monopoly? Menopoly? Monapoly? We make all the vowels sound the same so the new speller just has to guess.
Bag is pronounced Baygg or Beg. Egg is pronounced Aygg. I didn't notice the caught/cot but after thinking about it, that's pretty common here, too.
Thank you! Been married to my wife for 26 years, and now I know why I have to ask her to repeat the word "bag". It's just not a short a sound to me😄
someone at disneyland thought i was canadian
now where is she from? She sounds SO MUCH like my aunt, who is a Seattle Native. I think its down to the voice itself though rather than the accent.
I say "I ont o" instead of "I don't know" and I'm from Bellevue.
same here...
Two notable examples of PNW natives with a Midwest accent are Ken Patera and Mike O’Hearn. The PNW must have had a sh*t load of Midwest native migration going back over a hundred years.
I moved to Georgia a little over a year ago, and am from Spokane, Washington(which is very close to Canada.). I have had MANY people ask me where I’m from, if I’m from Canada, or where the heck I’m from😂😂. It could be as someone from the PNW living in the south, our accent is not as common.
Yea im from everett. Whenever i go to northern idaho and spokane i notice more southern inspired accents. Not southern, but almost a mix. How are you liking georgia? Do you miss washington? I love it here but am thinking of moving to nashville to learn how to farm. God bless Morgan
At least from the area I'm in, and it is a bit of a rural area, there's a bit of southern influence in the way the older generations speak. Maybe not entirely correct, but from how I see it. And some of them like to say things like Warshington. It's not really a constant for people of certain generations, my father and I have grown up in the same rural area and have lived in Washington our whole lives but speak like anyone else in the state. Maybe with a bit of that southern-ish or what I'm assuming is a rural sound (I say this because I've only ever heard people in rural areas have that kind of sound to their accent). And to clarify he's from the tail end of the Baby Boomers and I'm towards the beginning of Gen Z. Although for whatever reason apparently I pronounce theater kinda strangely, according to others. Thee-ay-der. I'd love to hear other people's thoughts!
Washington State may have a caught-cot merger but Eastern Massachusetts has a caught-cot reversal!
I just assumed we talked ‘boring’ from what I’ve been told 😭
I've lived in the Pacific Northwest my entire life, and not once have I heard someone say "wershington". Who says that???
Bag vs Baayge?
I've heard locals say "bag" like "beg"
@@jontheroadagain I have lived in the PNW my whole life and no one I know says it like that. People keep reiterating this, but I never hear it.
@@Excalion88 lucky you
@@jontheroadagain *derpa derp, lucky you derrrp* It was just an observation. No need to get all bent out of shape.
Who's bent out of shape? I'm happy for you
I live in MS now, but grew up near Sedro-Woolley area "see-dro wool-ee (smooth transition on woolley)". Ppl not from there tend to say "seh-dro". It's in Skagit "skah-jiit" county. I'd take trips to Bellingham "bell-leeng-ham".
Supposedly I say "egg" funny to southerners. Its more like canadian egg? Soft ey instead of eh. Not prominent and obvious, but barely there.
Ive literally never heard anyone but people from the NE area say "worsh". The cot/caught is true tho.
Im from wa, but my sis and ma always sain "aig" and "steam arn" (for gettin the rinkels outta yer close), Ma and sis were from texas and came here in the 1930s, and they never liked our "snikes and bars", (snakes and bears)
You got to remember the original colonies were Spanish totally in Greeks Irish
Right at the beginning, the guy pronounced "whether" as if it was "weather."
how else can you pronounce it?
‘warsh’ comes directly from the West Country (South West England) not Ireland. I’ve never heard anyone in Britain or Ireland say ‘wursh’, nor have I heard anyone say ‘wash’ as ‘wawsh’ (I’m referring to a non-rhotic ‘worsh’ not ‘wahsh’) in England and I’m English.
our towns are indian words, Spokane is not "spokayne," its Spo- can. Wenatchee is ", wen-at-chee" then there is Puallup, its not "pully-up", ...we were in Texas and a waitress asked my dad where we were from, he told her Grand Coulee (as in the DAM), she wanted to know if that was close to Spo-kane, dad (dry sense of humor) told her Grand Coulee was between "Spo-kane" and "pully-up" She did not get the joke, but the rest of us roared. We love our indian history and learn these funny names as kids. Remember the witchdoctor song? the Walla Walla thing came from our town of Walla walla" we got some real doozies out here, just look at a map of washington.
I always thought the British immigrants mostly arrived in the colonies/US before the non-rhotic accent really developed in the UK.
My mom always says warsh. It drives me nuts.
So you're saying we do things correctly and everyone else is wrong?
What is up with words like mountain,and people say mounin?
T is replaced by a glottal stop.
@@stellarsjay1773 right. no one says "mounin" it's more nuanced and specific like what you said.
We were taught to enunciate! Yes, we are story tellers.
Oh I’m from the towns and we don’t enunciate, we slur lol
Actually, second comment, this makes sense because I had a coworker from Seattle say that we enunciate words less than Seattle and thought we had an accent in our area of WA
I’ve never heard anyone ever say Warshington
So speaking normally is an accent?
That's funny sometimes I do slip the r in there warshington. Lol
Lived here my whole life and never heard it said that way.
@@melissajustice8338 same
Ledner Port
I don't think I have an accent and have lived in Washington state my entire life.
There's really not much of one, it's weird, everyone thinks they don't have an accent then they learn that they do but up north west we really don't have an accent, everything is pretty plain
forgot ta tell ya, met a jewish guy from new york who told me about his "bubbe" , took me a while to figure out he meant his granny, I thot he meant his baby chickens
Born and raised in Oregon (columbia county) and there is no unique accent here.
On point 👍🤣👍🤣👍🤣
Marcelina Mill
I’m from Texas and we don’t sound like that lol
Doyle Square
Pragress for progress. Raidiator for Radiator. Bang gore for Bangor.
Everyone has an accent to someone else
Wyman Mills
Lorine Estate
Balistreri Forks
Jaskolski Rapid
Heaney Mills
Would love to hear take on my buddy giant bob
Nicola Crest
Over Time and History and Population.
Reinger Coves
Pfeffer Highway
Frami Falls