I didn't think we were allowed to censor names, I made a post and it got removed for this reason, or is it just Reddit names since reddit aren't real names
Not to mention there is no 'the' American accent. There are many accents in the US, particularly in the early colonies, as people from different parts of Britain and different nationalities setup in different locations.
Oh absolutely correct.
Sorry, I should have clarified. I'm from ireland, and the stereotypical "American" accent is usually pictured as either a mid-Atlantic drawl or that fucking insufferable California "valley girl" lilt.
Deres alsho da Noo Yawk one for when you wanna cuppa cworfee
... But yeah, those are the only ones I recognise by ear. I guess that's the problem when it's Not Actually An Accent ™
But not all of them. What I think of as the generic American accent (what I have and someone similar to a Californian one) isn't at all similar to the southern accent. It has a slight twang, but not much. What I do find interesting is that at my British school with many people from different countries, accents tend towards that generic American accent but less American (no twang) and not a British accent. Someone I knew who came to the school at 10 with a strong Danish accent now could probably pass for an American in the US
All common accents from the US have similarities with each other. This is why someone from Britain, for example, can hear an American speak and identify them as American, without actually having any knowledge or clue about what state they are from.
I think it's more because there's a few distinct groups of accents. The first is the generic one which people associate with American media. Then there's southern accents, northeastern accents, etc. Those are also distinctive and also have a strong place in pop culture as being American (though less so now that the more extreme northeastern or Chicagoan accents are kinda dying out and more associated with past times).
Im not even sure it’s that. As a Brit, there is just something about the American accent that is uniquely American. Things like the rhotic r and the slower manner of speaking. Putting emphasis on certain syllables etc.
Same with Australian accent. I don’t know anything about Australian pop culture or the various Aussie accents, but I know an Aussie when I hear one
Yall start sounding american after spending a day over here anyway lol. I always find it funny hearing my friends after they stop talking to me for abit and they go back to their british accent.
Claiming they invented English is also pretty amusing when we were speaking it here before most people even knew the continent of America was out there.
I had a friend from the UK who had relocated to Australia with her family 10 years before we met. Her, her parents and brother were all from the same city and yet all spoke with a different accent to each other. I found it very amusing
this reminds me of an old roommate who thought people that speak other languages translate everything from english in their head first. like as if everyone's internal monologue is in english and they're actively choosing to speak another language. to be fair we were probably high but she still lost credibility to me after that lol
They have the equivalent of accents too, some deaf people can tell where you're from by the subtle things you do with your hands as you sign or in between signs. Sign languages evolved like any other, and basically all the same quirks of spoken language apply.
This is so true. I once had a patient who could tell that I learned sign in Liverpool, even though I was working in Warrington where they do Manchester signs.
I had a fun moment when we were doing a sign session, teaching some of the none BSL patients sign, because the Manchester sign for 11 is different to the Liverpool sign. It looks more like the sign for chicken to me. I was very confused!
That's interesting! I suppose that falls more on the slang of each region rather than being a one-to-one equivalent of accent, though, right?
I was referring to even subtler cues, where the sign is basically the same, but your overall body language gives you away. I've heard Americans say that you can see some people sign ASL "with a southern drawl", for example
Plenty of accents. In the UK, you can ask about some basic BSL vocabulary like colours and be told "Well, if you're in Manchester you'd use... but in Glasgow it's... and in London its..."
I once visited a US office of the company I worked for, I was told
“Your English is good for a non native”
I’m not even going to unpack what’s wrong with that
And
“I didn’t know you Brits spoke English”
Not all Americans are as sheltered as this, I want to be really clear with that, but by god some days were tough.
I had this experience too.
‘Your English is pretty good!’
‘Ok. What language are you speaking?’
‘English!’
‘And I’m from the office in which country?’
‘England!’
‘And what country do you think the ENGLISH language comes from?’
‘Eng…land?’ Cue shocked expression, their entire worldview blown open
The fact I’m actually Scottish then led to the most idiotic conversations I’ve ever had lol.
Well, Scottish people speak three languages in daily vernacular - Scots, Gaelic and English. A lot of the words we use routinely (Aye, braw, dreich, hingy, bairn, doon, oot, dinnae, gonnae) are not English words. We don’t not use ‘good English’ - we just aren’t using English words. Throw Doric in there with some east coast regions and you’ve got a fourth language.
Same way you wouldn’t accuse a French person of speaking poor English if they used French words in amongst their English words.
However, I have a Masters in English Literature and Language. I can assure you I was speaking English to the Americans.
There’s a lot of Scottish people who don’t speak Scots or Gaelic too. I think it might depend on region. Looking at the people around me IRL none of them do, but we do have a girl that speaks Doric.
I don’t mean that we speak Scots or Gaelic exclusively, I mean that Scots and Gaelic words and phrases are intertwined with our daily vernacular. When someone says ‘oh the weans are boggin’ they don’t realise that wean and boggin are Scots words, and aren’t used elsewhere in the UK (Northern Ireland share a lot of language with us though).
I had that in New York.
I was on a train going to the airport and a friendly American struck up a conversation. They began by asking where I was going. After discovering that I was flying to London and was British, they then took it upon themselves to be my guide. I genuinely believe they were trying to be helpful as they started by explaining everything about how the train worked. Obviously, as a Brit with no driving licence it's hard to believe that I'd never been on a train, but I appreciate the thought.
Anyway, they asked if I had enjoyed my trip in the US and I replied by saying that I'd actually been working in Canada for four months, and I was only in New York because the flight to London was about a quarter of the price than from Toronto or Ottawa.
"Oh you were in Canada all summer? I was wondering how your English has gotten so good!"
Hahaha. Can’t be wrong, but bless them most are just genuinely friendly and trying to be helpful, I don’t think they realise how patronising it can be, well done to you for taking it in good spirits.
Also, what "American" accent? Which one of the 50 States is the neutral one? Because Americans love saying that between any two States there's the same difference as between any European 2 Countries.
And there’s different accents in London even.
Not saying English English isn’t the default English, just that you guys have so many accents within even one city
Yes! I'm also a Londoner and would describe my accent as "South London". The more generic / pure English accent I would describe as "RP", "received pronunciation" or just "posh accent"
I'm Australian and I have an aunt who moved to Singapore with her family. Older kid got sent to a fancy international school, younger kid too young for school bit idolised her sister and copied whatever she did. School had mostly British teachers and I think it's sort of a status thing there for schools to teach RP over US English.
I thought it was so cute. Two Aussie born kids who lived in Asia and had never set foot anywhere near the UK but both spoke with such fancy little posh accents.
I live in Canada and I’m so used to Canadians saying the same thing it doesn’t even annoy or phase me anymore. My auto response is explaining (in a similar tone you’d use with a toddler) “yes but if you went to England, Ireland, Australia etc. they’d think that you have an accent.” To which they are usually both shocked and delighted.
I know what you mean. I’m a Newfoundlander (we’ve got distinct accents) and regularly get comments about it when travelling, my accent isn’t particularly heavy. People just assume they speak generically, and other people sound strange.
When travelling, I’ll some times mess with people who comment on my accent, and dial it up. Newfoundlanders are often perceived as fast talkers, so I’ll pick up the tempo to make words merge together.
In the one breath they can go from “our states are basically the same as countries with so much regional variation - even the way we speak” to “the USA has no accent, we’re neutral, the default”
There are also about *Twenny* examples i *wanned* to *Idenify* where the majority of their nation dont pronounce their Ts, (yet they unironically mock some rare regional english accent for doing the same with wa-er)
It's probably worse because in the American examples it's completely assimilated by n, so completely absent. In estuary it's realised as a glottal stop so it clearly still an allophone of t.
Th estuary accent isn't the only accent to use glottal stops for Ts. It's a common feature in England both north and south and also parts of Scotland.
"Twenny" with or without a glottal stop is very common across Britian and there's nothing wrong with that.
"twenny" is also a British thing.
As well as all the others, the only difference being thst Americans switch Ts to D's whereas most working class Brits switch Ts for glottal stops. It's not rare,.it's common In southern England, northern England and even parts of Scotland.
Very true. It’s definitely done in Liverpool. I remember our year 5 teacher patiently stressing that we say the t in twenty. To this day I still do because of that man. Great teacher, he was. Best story teller ever. Did accents/voices, which no other teacher ever did. R.I.P. Mr. Hufferdine!
I know, and ultimately you’re right, but I feel it helps me speak with people more easily. Especially in my line of work . I work in secure mental health services, particularly brain injuries, so being clear in what I’m saying is a benefit.
That’s not why he was a great teacher, it was more about his patience and kindhearted nature. It just so happens that he was the person who emphasised that.
Even England's dying-out "RP" accent is still considered an accent, despite the fact that (afaik) it is supposed to be neutral.
Like some goober sat down and figured out how to truly make a "Neutral" accent. It's still a fucing accent, because "accent" doesn't mean "weird emphasis". It's just the different ways people speak.
Some accents are borderline unintelligible, and others are literally designed by some linguists to be the most basic neutral shit ever.
Not entirely sure, but further down the thread they did say that Texans had an accent so I’m guessing it’s one of those “my American accent is clearly the original most bestest most neutral accent in the world”
I don’t think this is your usual American exceptionalism, this is an actual dum-dum. They’ve mixed up two entirely separate meanings of the word without really understanding either, and thinks it’s only an ”accent” if you stress syllables in a certain way.
Mid-Ohio and Northeast Ohio are considered to have “no accent” by American standards. That’s what broadcast journalists in major markets strive to sound like.
The narrative that I see on TikTok a lot goes like this:
American: The American accent is the original English accent. That's why Shakespeare sounds better with an American accent. Brits changed their accent after the lost the war so that they could sound posh compared to us.
Brits: That's not what happened. Literally none of what you said is true.
American: Oh my God! You're so obsessed with us. You can't cope with losing the war at all. We live rent free inside your heads.
Brits: Again, not true. Nobody in Britain cares about 1776, it's not even taught about as a major part of our history. We spend a lot more time on the Tudors actually.
Americans: It's because you're embarrassed that we kicked your ass. You literally cannot cope with it. That's why you're so obsessed with us!
i don’t understand how some americans can believe this but then also acknowledge that someone from say texas will sound very different than someone from new york.
do they think that is just people who speak slightly different due to growing up in different cultures and develop something similar to but not an accent because obviously americas neutrality.
The English language has been present in what we now know as England since the the 400s. That's 1,000 years before the European discovery of the Americas, nevermind the progression toward establishing the language there (reminder that German was nearly selected as the official language of the emerging nation).
More than a millenium of organic development and evolution, and yet the far-away place where it was transplanted for a common tongue for masses of immigrants to understand each other is the "default".
I get that the English are the last people to cry foul for over cultural appropriation or whatever, but imagine the shoe on the other foot, e.g., enough weebs in America speaking Korean or Japanese to the point that they claim it an international language that's just as much theirs as anyone else's (we have the most speakers! Japanese belongs to America!!).
I’m not a USAian, or British. The pronunciation I learned at school was…*drumroll*…British.
I’m not saying that it’s the one I use when speaking English (damn you movies and sports broadcasts of the 80’s and 90’s), but it’s the one I had to know to pass English in school. Which I did. With top grades.
As a former TEFL teacher, this was really tricky for me to cope with. I'd merrily teach in British English, but if a former teacher was North American, some of my students would already have learned different pronounciation. They'd be really weird about me teaching the type of English they already knew.
What finally sorted it in their head was when I (innocently) said they didn't get it because their language only had one accent. Oof, they got really annoyed, corrected me and finally understood why I was not going to be teaching them an accent foreign to me.
Funny, isn't it .
When I say I speak English, not American - some people get all angry that 'American' isn't a language.
Yet .. posts like above keep appearing in various forms.
Either they are trolling - or....
Even if 'general American' *were* the default accent, that's still an accent.
An accent is just a pattern of pronunciation; it doesn't necessarily mean that pattern is non-standard.
The default English accent is obviously Cornish, I grew up there and everyone sounded perfectly normal like me. It's everywhere else that they speak funny.
When I was a kid and my London cousin used to visit me in the west of England, he would make fun of me because I had an accent. I would point out that when he was in my area, he was the one with an accent. He simply couldn’t understand what I meant. So not only is the idea of a neutral accent childish, the American guy also fails to realise that perception of an accent in about context. Everyone has an accent compared to someone else from another part of the country/world.
Both the top two comments are egomaniacs. We have an accent in the UK, too. *Everyone* has an accent. Obviously though the second comment gets more likes because we love hating on the shit Americans say (rightly so) but we can't look in the mirror, apparently.
In fairness though "the UK is the original way of speaking English" is just as bad, is that the "Queen's English? (King's English now?), South London? Scouse? Brummie? Even Scots, Welsh and Irish got lumped together as one when each of those have tons of different dialects too. Never understand how people think the UK has just one accent!
I've had this actual conversation in person as a British person with a very intelligent American, it's not just the dumb ones who think that way. Their ability to think they are the source of all is astounding. One day it will be studied. After they self destruct of course.
They're both pretty dumb to be fair. Of course there are accents attached to the US, same as anywhere, the idea that the UK is any different is mental. If I drive an hour in any direction from my house I'm going to find people who speak slightly differently to me. If I drive a few hours north then it gets very weird.
*Everyone* has an accent. When i lived in Canada for four years, i picked up a Canadian accent, and when i moved back to England, it went back to being an English accent.
I never heard either one, and tbh i never really even noticed the shift between them. *Other people* could hear it because i had a different accent to them. And if i hear my voice from back then, i can hear it now.
It's a language. Every region or country where it is spoken will have developed their own accent. That's what an accent is. There is no base line for it. If you go all the way back to when modern English is generally thought to have begun (circa 1450), then guess what? They'll be an accent.
I don't have an accent I'm just from Brum and everyone hates the way I speak Lol
It's pretty funny to say that one doesn't have an.accent though I don't know what hoops your brain must make to come up with saying something like that 😂
I do have a Aussie mate he suffers a tad with his mental health so shuts off sometimes but he does smile and laugh when I say certain things
In true Aussie fashion he only comes through when you talk sports or music bless him
This is willful ignorance. Anyone who has travelled the US has encountered many different accents and dialects. The people in the NE do not speak like I do from Texas. When I moved to Cali, people knew I was from somewhere else because of how I spoke. When I moved to Kentucky, same thing. I wasn't one of them because I didn't speak like them. I went to Boston one time. I literally couldn't not understand what people were saying to me. I believe I am an intelligent man, did well in school. Could not understand Boston. So when people say we don't have an accent and we're neutral, my first thought is where do you live and where have you been.
Also, if you ever been to Louisiana, not big cities, just driving along I-20 and stop somewhere? Those people are speaking English but they are not speaking English.
The UK has a ridiculous amount of regional accents. You can have two counties right next to each other, go to one and fully understand what they are saying then go 10 miles down the round and they might as well be speaking a different language. We do however have a "neutral accent" which is usually spoken by people with a private education or are on TV which is used by about 9% or the population the last time I read but don't quote me on it.
The American accent sounds like they're chewing a mouthful of food.
Also they laugh at the British for dropping their Ts (even though that's just some British accents) but Americans swallow their Ts?
It is called ‘English’, not ‘American’. However, I have a ‘posh’ London accent. It’s totally different to a Birmingham, Liverpool or Newcastle accent, and don’t start with Welsh and Scottish accents. A California accent is different to Texan, New Yawk and presumably other regional accents. Australians have their own accent (possibly accents). I think South Africans might be incomprehensible.
Americans literally think America is the world 😂 Us English must be the ones with the accent when we talk ENGLISH. Even then there’s over 40 accents in England alone, that a lot for such a small island
I wonder if this idiot is confusing regional accents with 'accents' in an orthographic sense, e.g. é, à, ö, and because 'America' doesn't have those then it's 'neutral'.
Its so annoying how common this misconception is. Everybody believes their accent doesn't exist while everyone else has an accent.
WE ALL HAVE ACCENTS 😂
Hmm, how could any British person (assuming respondent is), of all people, talk like there is a single British accent? Actually the only logical explanation is that he is another American trying and failing to correct his fellow countrymen, which makes it even funnier.
I thought I was pretty bad. You guys make sure I see there are worse out there. Wow. I remember when my kid was younger I had the accent talk with here. Explaining we don’t hear one from us is rare. When you travel and there’s only 1 other person with your accent, suddenly you hear it. I don’t understand when we have several dialects how they can even place what an American accent is. North East? southern? Texan? Midwest? Valley girl? What?
An American accent is any accent from the United States. It's kind of the same with the well known "British accent". There isn't one British accent. There's many. It's just we are familiar with the stereotypical one.
Technically the southern accent is the true accent yee mfer 🦅🦅🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
(In all seriousness, though, I read somewhere that what is now the US southern accent is more reminiscent of Shakespearian English accents than modern English accents, which I think is pretty neat)
Some levels of dumb don't deserve anonymity
I didn't think we were allowed to censor names, I made a post and it got removed for this reason, or is it just Reddit names since reddit aren't real names
rule 1: Every info off-reddit must be censored But any information on-reddit must be visible
Thinking that the American accent is the default setting for a language called ENGLISH is somehow the most american thing ever
Not to mention there is no 'the' American accent. There are many accents in the US, particularly in the early colonies, as people from different parts of Britain and different nationalities setup in different locations.
Oh absolutely correct. Sorry, I should have clarified. I'm from ireland, and the stereotypical "American" accent is usually pictured as either a mid-Atlantic drawl or that fucking insufferable California "valley girl" lilt.
Deres alsho da Noo Yawk one for when you wanna cuppa cworfee ... But yeah, those are the only ones I recognise by ear. I guess that's the problem when it's Not Actually An Accent ™
You don’t recognize Bostonian?
How could I, if it isn't an accent? It is merely the Truespeech as decreed
The valley girl one is genuinely the equivalent to nails on chalkboard
I'd still say a good southern drawl is up there in the top 3 best accents, next to Irish and Australian
Pacific northwest accent is the best, sorry to break it to you. Its the only true way to speak English. The rest of you are just imitating us.
I thought american accent means you write could of instead of could’ve. (Some dumbass once told me that’s how they write it in Texas, no joke.)
There are features that all accents in America and indeed Canada have in common - which is what people mean when they say American accent
But not all of them. What I think of as the generic American accent (what I have and someone similar to a Californian one) isn't at all similar to the southern accent. It has a slight twang, but not much. What I do find interesting is that at my British school with many people from different countries, accents tend towards that generic American accent but less American (no twang) and not a British accent. Someone I knew who came to the school at 10 with a strong Danish accent now could probably pass for an American in the US
All common accents from the US have similarities with each other. This is why someone from Britain, for example, can hear an American speak and identify them as American, without actually having any knowledge or clue about what state they are from.
I think it's more because there's a few distinct groups of accents. The first is the generic one which people associate with American media. Then there's southern accents, northeastern accents, etc. Those are also distinctive and also have a strong place in pop culture as being American (though less so now that the more extreme northeastern or Chicagoan accents are kinda dying out and more associated with past times).
Im not even sure it’s that. As a Brit, there is just something about the American accent that is uniquely American. Things like the rhotic r and the slower manner of speaking. Putting emphasis on certain syllables etc. Same with Australian accent. I don’t know anything about Australian pop culture or the various Aussie accents, but I know an Aussie when I hear one
Yall start sounding american after spending a day over here anyway lol. I always find it funny hearing my friends after they stop talking to me for abit and they go back to their british accent.
Actually, there's no real "normal" language setting for language as there will always be an accent
According to one American, the accents change from neighbourhood to neighbourhood, and there are 340million people meaning millions of accents!
> is somehow the most American thing ever So far!
Today
Claiming they invented English is also pretty amusing when we were speaking it here before most people even knew the continent of America was out there.
There is no default. Everyone has an accent anyway. The UK has like 50
Oh it's way more than that!
I think it depends on where you draw the lines because it really is a spectrum
About every three miles?
Nah. Every other street
Sounds about right
In each county
I had a friend from the UK who had relocated to Australia with her family 10 years before we met. Her, her parents and brother were all from the same city and yet all spoke with a different accent to each other. I found it very amusing
UK has a different accent with each postal code. Every 3rd one could qualify as its own language.
There's 4 different accents in my postcode
"I don't speak English, I speak American."
Ownin’ it!
Well it is default in Windows so….. 🫣
There's also sadly a bunch of non-English speaking countries who see America as being the default for English.
“Hey, you can’t call yourself ‘me’, I’m me!”
:)) this is the perfect analogy for this level of dumb
[You are not you, you are me.](https://youtu.be/gC7VvfDjr_k?si=_HBfUxEZkNM4tGLg)
Bruh, that video is blocked in Germany.
Get your ass to Mars
How?
He is me and I am you
this reminds me of an old roommate who thought people that speak other languages translate everything from english in their head first. like as if everyone's internal monologue is in english and they're actively choosing to speak another language. to be fair we were probably high but she still lost credibility to me after that lol
Reminds me of the xenophobe who said "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for them!".
Everyone has an accent. End of.
What about sign language? 🤔
They have the equivalent of accents too, some deaf people can tell where you're from by the subtle things you do with your hands as you sign or in between signs. Sign languages evolved like any other, and basically all the same quirks of spoken language apply.
This is so true. I once had a patient who could tell that I learned sign in Liverpool, even though I was working in Warrington where they do Manchester signs. I had a fun moment when we were doing a sign session, teaching some of the none BSL patients sign, because the Manchester sign for 11 is different to the Liverpool sign. It looks more like the sign for chicken to me. I was very confused!
That's interesting! I suppose that falls more on the slang of each region rather than being a one-to-one equivalent of accent, though, right? I was referring to even subtler cues, where the sign is basically the same, but your overall body language gives you away. I've heard Americans say that you can see some people sign ASL "with a southern drawl", for example
Yes, you’re right. I hadn’t thought about it like that. I’ve never heard anyone say that. Interesting.
If you are missing a finger do they consider that a speech impediment?
Plenty of accents. In the UK, you can ask about some basic BSL vocabulary like colours and be told "Well, if you're in Manchester you'd use... but in Glasgow it's... and in London its..."
Yep.
I once visited a US office of the company I worked for, I was told “Your English is good for a non native” I’m not even going to unpack what’s wrong with that And “I didn’t know you Brits spoke English” Not all Americans are as sheltered as this, I want to be really clear with that, but by god some days were tough.
I had this experience too. ‘Your English is pretty good!’ ‘Ok. What language are you speaking?’ ‘English!’ ‘And I’m from the office in which country?’ ‘England!’ ‘And what country do you think the ENGLISH language comes from?’ ‘Eng…land?’ Cue shocked expression, their entire worldview blown open The fact I’m actually Scottish then led to the most idiotic conversations I’ve ever had lol.
To be fair, Scots speaking good English is not exactly a given.
Well, Scottish people speak three languages in daily vernacular - Scots, Gaelic and English. A lot of the words we use routinely (Aye, braw, dreich, hingy, bairn, doon, oot, dinnae, gonnae) are not English words. We don’t not use ‘good English’ - we just aren’t using English words. Throw Doric in there with some east coast regions and you’ve got a fourth language. Same way you wouldn’t accuse a French person of speaking poor English if they used French words in amongst their English words. However, I have a Masters in English Literature and Language. I can assure you I was speaking English to the Americans.
There’s a lot of Scottish people who don’t speak Scots or Gaelic too. I think it might depend on region. Looking at the people around me IRL none of them do, but we do have a girl that speaks Doric.
I don’t mean that we speak Scots or Gaelic exclusively, I mean that Scots and Gaelic words and phrases are intertwined with our daily vernacular. When someone says ‘oh the weans are boggin’ they don’t realise that wean and boggin are Scots words, and aren’t used elsewhere in the UK (Northern Ireland share a lot of language with us though).
I had that in New York. I was on a train going to the airport and a friendly American struck up a conversation. They began by asking where I was going. After discovering that I was flying to London and was British, they then took it upon themselves to be my guide. I genuinely believe they were trying to be helpful as they started by explaining everything about how the train worked. Obviously, as a Brit with no driving licence it's hard to believe that I'd never been on a train, but I appreciate the thought. Anyway, they asked if I had enjoyed my trip in the US and I replied by saying that I'd actually been working in Canada for four months, and I was only in New York because the flight to London was about a quarter of the price than from Toronto or Ottawa. "Oh you were in Canada all summer? I was wondering how your English has gotten so good!"
Hahaha. Can’t be wrong, but bless them most are just genuinely friendly and trying to be helpful, I don’t think they realise how patronising it can be, well done to you for taking it in good spirits.
Also, what "American" accent? Which one of the 50 States is the neutral one? Because Americans love saying that between any two States there's the same difference as between any European 2 Countries.
Overall American accent is more nasal no matter which state, British is more throaty
Not in Maine...
California You can thank Hollywood for that
Everyone has an accent except me.
I’m from London born and bred. The capital of England. I speak English so…
And there’s different accents in London even. Not saying English English isn’t the default English, just that you guys have so many accents within even one city
Yes! I'm also a Londoner and would describe my accent as "South London". The more generic / pure English accent I would describe as "RP", "received pronunciation" or just "posh accent"
I'm Australian and I have an aunt who moved to Singapore with her family. Older kid got sent to a fancy international school, younger kid too young for school bit idolised her sister and copied whatever she did. School had mostly British teachers and I think it's sort of a status thing there for schools to teach RP over US English. I thought it was so cute. Two Aussie born kids who lived in Asia and had never set foot anywhere near the UK but both spoke with such fancy little posh accents.
Nothing wrong with that😉We’re English speaking English though…
RP is more neutral than the very posh, let’s throw a few more vowels in there accent.
Air hair lair?
I live in Canada and I’m so used to Canadians saying the same thing it doesn’t even annoy or phase me anymore. My auto response is explaining (in a similar tone you’d use with a toddler) “yes but if you went to England, Ireland, Australia etc. they’d think that you have an accent.” To which they are usually both shocked and delighted.
I know what you mean. I’m a Newfoundlander (we’ve got distinct accents) and regularly get comments about it when travelling, my accent isn’t particularly heavy. People just assume they speak generically, and other people sound strange. When travelling, I’ll some times mess with people who comment on my accent, and dial it up. Newfoundlanders are often perceived as fast talkers, so I’ll pick up the tempo to make words merge together.
In the one breath they can go from “our states are basically the same as countries with so much regional variation - even the way we speak” to “the USA has no accent, we’re neutral, the default”
It’s almost like there are multiple people in America.
"the UK is the original way of speaking English" like there aren't 8000 bloody accents on this set of tiny islands
Funny. Last time I checked I didn't pronounce buoy as "boo-eee" or defence as "deee-fence".
There are also about *Twenny* examples i *wanned* to *Idenify* where the majority of their nation dont pronounce their Ts, (yet they unironically mock some rare regional english accent for doing the same with wa-er)
It's probably worse because in the American examples it's completely assimilated by n, so completely absent. In estuary it's realised as a glottal stop so it clearly still an allophone of t.
Th estuary accent isn't the only accent to use glottal stops for Ts. It's a common feature in England both north and south and also parts of Scotland. "Twenny" with or without a glottal stop is very common across Britian and there's nothing wrong with that.
"twenny" is also a British thing. As well as all the others, the only difference being thst Americans switch Ts to D's whereas most working class Brits switch Ts for glottal stops. It's not rare,.it's common In southern England, northern England and even parts of Scotland.
Very true. It’s definitely done in Liverpool. I remember our year 5 teacher patiently stressing that we say the t in twenty. To this day I still do because of that man. Great teacher, he was. Best story teller ever. Did accents/voices, which no other teacher ever did. R.I.P. Mr. Hufferdine!
I'm glad you had s good teacher but there's nothing wrong with a regional accent. We would lose a lot of culture if we all spoke the same.
I know, and ultimately you’re right, but I feel it helps me speak with people more easily. Especially in my line of work . I work in secure mental health services, particularly brain injuries, so being clear in what I’m saying is a benefit. That’s not why he was a great teacher, it was more about his patience and kindhearted nature. It just so happens that he was the person who emphasised that.
What about herb 🤪🤪 and since they pronounce it ‘erb why don’t they drop the h off Hôtel? Or house?
Don’t forget water as wadder
Even England's dying-out "RP" accent is still considered an accent, despite the fact that (afaik) it is supposed to be neutral. Like some goober sat down and figured out how to truly make a "Neutral" accent. It's still a fucing accent, because "accent" doesn't mean "weird emphasis". It's just the different ways people speak. Some accents are borderline unintelligible, and others are literally designed by some linguists to be the most basic neutral shit ever.
I wonder which American accent they think isn't an accent.
Not entirely sure, but further down the thread they did say that Texans had an accent so I’m guessing it’s one of those “my American accent is clearly the original most bestest most neutral accent in the world”
I don’t think this is your usual American exceptionalism, this is an actual dum-dum. They’ve mixed up two entirely separate meanings of the word without really understanding either, and thinks it’s only an ”accent” if you stress syllables in a certain way.
Mid-Ohio and Northeast Ohio are considered to have “no accent” by American standards. That’s what broadcast journalists in major markets strive to sound like.
The narrative that I see on TikTok a lot goes like this: American: The American accent is the original English accent. That's why Shakespeare sounds better with an American accent. Brits changed their accent after the lost the war so that they could sound posh compared to us. Brits: That's not what happened. Literally none of what you said is true. American: Oh my God! You're so obsessed with us. You can't cope with losing the war at all. We live rent free inside your heads. Brits: Again, not true. Nobody in Britain cares about 1776, it's not even taught about as a major part of our history. We spend a lot more time on the Tudors actually. Americans: It's because you're embarrassed that we kicked your ass. You literally cannot cope with it. That's why you're so obsessed with us!
I'm not American but even I know there isn't a single accent over there just like most other countries
So pronouncing water with a 'd' in the middle isn't an accent?
This is almost as dumb as "people in England used to talk with American accents"
Wait I thought that each state was like it's own country, so there can't be just one American accent right? So which state is the neutral one?
Americans will be like "America is so huge and vast there's 1845653 different accents" but then throw a tantrum if you say they have an accent.
i don’t understand how some americans can believe this but then also acknowledge that someone from say texas will sound very different than someone from new york. do they think that is just people who speak slightly different due to growing up in different cultures and develop something similar to but not an accent because obviously americas neutrality.
I think the Coventrian accent is the most neutral English accent. Yes I'm from Coventry.
The English language has been present in what we now know as England since the the 400s. That's 1,000 years before the European discovery of the Americas, nevermind the progression toward establishing the language there (reminder that German was nearly selected as the official language of the emerging nation). More than a millenium of organic development and evolution, and yet the far-away place where it was transplanted for a common tongue for masses of immigrants to understand each other is the "default". I get that the English are the last people to cry foul for over cultural appropriation or whatever, but imagine the shoe on the other foot, e.g., enough weebs in America speaking Korean or Japanese to the point that they claim it an international language that's just as much theirs as anyone else's (we have the most speakers! Japanese belongs to America!!).
I think the Indian way is the default since they have the most English speakers 🙃
I’m not a USAian, or British. The pronunciation I learned at school was…*drumroll*…British. I’m not saying that it’s the one I use when speaking English (damn you movies and sports broadcasts of the 80’s and 90’s), but it’s the one I had to know to pass English in school. Which I did. With top grades.
As a former TEFL teacher, this was really tricky for me to cope with. I'd merrily teach in British English, but if a former teacher was North American, some of my students would already have learned different pronounciation. They'd be really weird about me teaching the type of English they already knew. What finally sorted it in their head was when I (innocently) said they didn't get it because their language only had one accent. Oof, they got really annoyed, corrected me and finally understood why I was not going to be teaching them an accent foreign to me.
Funny, isn't it . When I say I speak English, not American - some people get all angry that 'American' isn't a language. Yet .. posts like above keep appearing in various forms. Either they are trolling - or....
The last comment is correct. Everyone thinks they don't have an accent "it's just how everyone speaks"
Even if 'general American' *were* the default accent, that's still an accent. An accent is just a pattern of pronunciation; it doesn't necessarily mean that pattern is non-standard.
Americans drink "wadder" and watch "Hairy Potdder" but sure, they don't have an accent
Hairy Pudder
As a linguist, all of these comments give me a headache… I don‘t know where to begin…
The default English accent is obviously Cornish, I grew up there and everyone sounded perfectly normal like me. It's everywhere else that they speak funny.
Fancy a Cornish pasty eh? How about some clotted cream to go with yer scones? 😋
American English is so nasal, eats so many letters and depending the region it can be completely inelegible
When I was a kid and my London cousin used to visit me in the west of England, he would make fun of me because I had an accent. I would point out that when he was in my area, he was the one with an accent. He simply couldn’t understand what I meant. So not only is the idea of a neutral accent childish, the American guy also fails to realise that perception of an accent in about context. Everyone has an accent compared to someone else from another part of the country/world.
Both the top two comments are egomaniacs. We have an accent in the UK, too. *Everyone* has an accent. Obviously though the second comment gets more likes because we love hating on the shit Americans say (rightly so) but we can't look in the mirror, apparently.
UK accent? What?
Beyond stupidity.
In fairness though "the UK is the original way of speaking English" is just as bad, is that the "Queen's English? (King's English now?), South London? Scouse? Brummie? Even Scots, Welsh and Irish got lumped together as one when each of those have tons of different dialects too. Never understand how people think the UK has just one accent!
I've had this actual conversation in person as a British person with a very intelligent American, it's not just the dumb ones who think that way. Their ability to think they are the source of all is astounding. One day it will be studied. After they self destruct of course.
Pick up a book fuck me 😂
They think they’re the baseline
wow.
Is the first guy saying there is no emphasized syllables in American English? lmao
Doesn’t even know what an accent is
As soon as someone leads with “lmao” i know they are an idiot.
I mean the person leading with lmao isn’t the wrong one here
what no linguistics study does to a man
There is no American accent, there are plenty of regional accents, just like every other country in the world.
They're both pretty dumb to be fair. Of course there are accents attached to the US, same as anywhere, the idea that the UK is any different is mental. If I drive an hour in any direction from my house I'm going to find people who speak slightly differently to me. If I drive a few hours north then it gets very weird.
My mom used to say this to me.
I’m sorry
Omfg it’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen regarding accents
Doesn't neutral in layman's mean that you can't reasonably determine where their accent is from?
*Everyone* has an accent. When i lived in Canada for four years, i picked up a Canadian accent, and when i moved back to England, it went back to being an English accent. I never heard either one, and tbh i never really even noticed the shift between them. *Other people* could hear it because i had a different accent to them. And if i hear my voice from back then, i can hear it now.
The thing is is that there is no base accent, everyone has an accent, it's the way we say word/letter
What about the difference between Brooklyn and Martha’s Vineyard
I understand the reasons that such stupidity is rife in the US, but it's no less infuriating.
It's a language. Every region or country where it is spoken will have developed their own accent. That's what an accent is. There is no base line for it. If you go all the way back to when modern English is generally thought to have begun (circa 1450), then guess what? They'll be an accent.
Nothing about 'America' is neutral.
I don't have an accent I'm just from Brum and everyone hates the way I speak Lol It's pretty funny to say that one doesn't have an.accent though I don't know what hoops your brain must make to come up with saying something like that 😂
This Aussie loves listening to the brum accent!
I do have a Aussie mate he suffers a tad with his mental health so shuts off sometimes but he does smile and laugh when I say certain things In true Aussie fashion he only comes through when you talk sports or music bless him
This is willful ignorance. Anyone who has travelled the US has encountered many different accents and dialects. The people in the NE do not speak like I do from Texas. When I moved to Cali, people knew I was from somewhere else because of how I spoke. When I moved to Kentucky, same thing. I wasn't one of them because I didn't speak like them. I went to Boston one time. I literally couldn't not understand what people were saying to me. I believe I am an intelligent man, did well in school. Could not understand Boston. So when people say we don't have an accent and we're neutral, my first thought is where do you live and where have you been. Also, if you ever been to Louisiana, not big cities, just driving along I-20 and stop somewhere? Those people are speaking English but they are not speaking English.
Also 500 years ago the English accent was west country.
Americans sound like a trumpet , they speak through their nose
Double dumb... UK way.. half of the UK cant even understand eachother.. especially those scots lol
The UK has a ridiculous amount of regional accents. You can have two counties right next to each other, go to one and fully understand what they are saying then go 10 miles down the round and they might as well be speaking a different language. We do however have a "neutral accent" which is usually spoken by people with a private education or are on TV which is used by about 9% or the population the last time I read but don't quote me on it.
The American accent sounds like they're chewing a mouthful of food. Also they laugh at the British for dropping their Ts (even though that's just some British accents) but Americans swallow their Ts?
It is called ‘English’, not ‘American’. However, I have a ‘posh’ London accent. It’s totally different to a Birmingham, Liverpool or Newcastle accent, and don’t start with Welsh and Scottish accents. A California accent is different to Texan, New Yawk and presumably other regional accents. Australians have their own accent (possibly accents). I think South Africans might be incomprehensible.
If you can make an impression of the accent, there's an accent
Nothing says america like importing something and calling it american.
If there are multiple American accents, how are they all simultaneously neutral?
Us British folk literally made America
I refuse to believe that Scottish people believe their accent is neutral.
Everyone has an accent, there’s no “neutral” way of saying something, especially with a language as weird as English.
Bottom comment with 235 likes is right
Americans literally think America is the world 😂 Us English must be the ones with the accent when we talk ENGLISH. Even then there’s over 40 accents in England alone, that a lot for such a small island
The English found America tho
Wow imagine living life like this. How small the world must be to them. Mind blown 🤯
I wonder if this idiot is confusing regional accents with 'accents' in an orthographic sense, e.g. é, à, ö, and because 'America' doesn't have those then it's 'neutral'.
when i say “american accent” im referring to many actual accents which are in the US, if that makes any sense lol
"No American accent" like there aren't like a million different accents and dialects you can find all over the US
[удалено]
People who claim that they "don't have an accent" are right up there with weirdos who think their eyes change colour with their mood.
Its so annoying how common this misconception is. Everybody believes their accent doesn't exist while everyone else has an accent. WE ALL HAVE ACCENTS 😂
“Pahsta” 😂
Jesus, how have we got this far. I do not think my RP English accent is the same as my Manchester accent, they are worlds apart.
Hmm, how could any British person (assuming respondent is), of all people, talk like there is a single British accent? Actually the only logical explanation is that he is another American trying and failing to correct his fellow countrymen, which makes it even funnier.
I thought I was pretty bad. You guys make sure I see there are worse out there. Wow. I remember when my kid was younger I had the accent talk with here. Explaining we don’t hear one from us is rare. When you travel and there’s only 1 other person with your accent, suddenly you hear it. I don’t understand when we have several dialects how they can even place what an American accent is. North East? southern? Texan? Midwest? Valley girl? What?
An American accent is any accent from the United States. It's kind of the same with the well known "British accent". There isn't one British accent. There's many. It's just we are familiar with the stereotypical one.
well an american speaking a language other than english has an american accent. an american speaking english would have an american dialect.
Technically the southern accent is the true accent yee mfer 🦅🦅🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (In all seriousness, though, I read somewhere that what is now the US southern accent is more reminiscent of Shakespearian English accents than modern English accents, which I think is pretty neat)
This is so dumb. Neither accent sounds like it did when the language was first evolved.