CringeFest 7: I don't have an accent

IndyMike   Sun Jun 29, 2008 7:21 pm GMT
The guest comments regarding Indianapolis and Columbus are incorrect. I live in Indy and the dialect spoken here is definitely not "Standard American English". The Indianapolis dialect is called "Midland English". It is spoken in the lower 2/3 of Indiana and continues to Kentucky and Tennessee. Whenever I travel to Chicago or Milwaukee I am always asked if I am from Texas or the south.

Although I don't think that the Indianapolis accent has as strong a "drawl" as further south. I remember watching a sitcom called "One Day at a Time" which was supposed to be based in Indianapolis and I remember thinking, that can't be Indiana. To give you an idea of what an Indianapolis accent sounds like watch "Mama's Family", although they were in Missouri I could have sworn they were in Indianapolis.

The "Midland" dialect is spoken in the Northern part of the south (Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, etc.) and the southern part of the Midwest (Central and Southern Indiana, southern and western Missouri, southern Ohio, southern Illinois, and even part of Pennsylvania). The "drawl" gets stronger the further south that you go. The drawl in Indy is weaker than in Nashville but stronger than in Columbus, Ohio. The "Midlane" dialect has two subdialects "northern Midland" and "southern Midland".

Another misconception is that Standard English is spoken in cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit or Cleveland. This is also not true. The dialect spoken in those citiies is called "Inland North" and if you have ever watched the Saturday Night Live skit about "Da Bears" you know what I am talking about. Standard American English is basically the "media" or "tv" dialect that is taught in speech classes. The regions that come the closest to this SAE dialect are Central Iowa and Nebraska. Omaha would be the center zero for this dialect. Check out the map...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_American_English

I studied linguistics so perhaps I was a little too technical. Hopefully this gives you an idea of the types of English spoken in the Midwest.
furrykef   Sun Jun 29, 2008 9:08 pm GMT
<<IDIOTS OF THE WORLD, PLEASE UNDERSTAND THAT EVERY SINGLE FUCKING PERSON ON EARTH HAS AN ACCENT OF SOME SORT.>>

I don't understand this sort of vehemence. It really is not necessary.

A lot of people, when they say they have no accent, really just mean that their accent blends well with the standard accent. They aren't always right, though. I used to think that I "didn't have" an accent in this sense, but I've come to realize that there are features of my speech that are slightly marked, such as the large number of mergers in my dialect.

Mergers can make it difficult to tell if your accent is really standard. If you're aware of the mergers, of course you'll know whether or not you have them, but if you don't, it's easy to think you sound standard when in fact you don't, because you may be subconsciously merging the vowels of standard speakers and therefore have trouble perceiving what you're saying differently.

- Kef
Jasper   Mon Jun 30, 2008 6:17 am GMT
"Another misconception is that Standard English is spoken in cities like Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit or Cleveland. This is also not true. The dialect spoken in those citiies is called "Inland North" and if you have ever watched the Saturday Night Live skit..."

The most amusing thing is that people from those areas really don't THINK they have an accent. (It's a running joke in these parts). No matter what they think, the accent is distinctive enough to be parodied; Saturday Night Live used to feature Rosanne Rosanna Dana, and who could forget the character MARGE in the movie FARGO?
Travis   Mon Jun 30, 2008 3:26 pm GMT
Well, depends. At least here in Milwaukee, it depends on just who is speaking. For individuals who speak varieties which are higher in prestige overall, even with significant phonetic differences from GA, I would say that such is likely applicable to some extent. On the other hand, it is commonly known here that we, in general, do speak different from other Americans outside the Upper Midwest (or even other parts of the Upper Midwest). The thing, though, is that to a large extent we honestly couldn't care less that we happen to not speak as close to some standard as some other Americans - and if we do care, the fact that we don't speak like other Americans is not seen as a negative thing at all, but rather as part of our identity.
Guest   Mon Jul 07, 2008 3:22 pm GMT
>> One important factor is that people are likely to perceive standardness not in relation to any kind of national-level standard variety but rather their own *regional* prestige variety. That definitely seems to be the case here in Wisconsin, where I have heard people speak in what is clearly a very "high" idiolect, but with very clear regional dialect features being present at the same time. <<

How close is this accent to the national standard or regional prestige variety? http://www2.zippyshare.com/v/86472443/file.html
Moionfire   Tue Jul 22, 2008 11:34 pm GMT
Yes, it is annoying when people say they don't have an accent. Everyone has an accent.

What they probably mean is that they speak with the "standard accent" of their respective country. However, most people don't speak with the "standard accent..."

In the USA the standard accent is General American, but like RP, no one really speaks it perfectly- it is a non-regional and largely manufactured accent....

I am told I have a great "TV voice, so maybe I have a standard accent. Personally I think I have too much rhoticity...
Christina   Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:27 pm GMT
Stephen Colbert says Omaha, Nebraska is the only place with no accent.

Stephen Colbert is God. Stephen Colbert is always right.
Christina's Guest   Wed Jul 23, 2008 5:20 pm GMT
<<Stephen Colbert is God. Stephen Colbert is always right. >>

If Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart were to disagree, I would fear a disruption in the space time continuum of matter/anti-matter proportions.
Quidsane   Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:40 pm GMT
Yes...
but people <raised> in Phoenix have no accent.
It's true.
Jasper   Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:31 pm GMT
↑ Speakers in Phoenix are cot/caught merged, which does not fit the most traditional definition of General American.

When I was doing my field studies, I found a single speaker from Phoenix; she was cot/caught merged, but there was no dipthongization of standard vowels, no vowel-raising (not even on long-I), no vowel-lowering, and no sign of CVS. Then again, she is over 40. Older Phoenix speakers might indeed come very close to the GA standard.

One speaker I found--a 38-year-old female from the San Francisco/ Sacramento area, fit almost all the definitions of the accepted standard of GA. (She might have failed some of the more obscure rules, but I'm not well-versed on all of them.)
Jasper   Mon Aug 18, 2008 6:51 pm GMT
Apropos my previous post, I found a cot/caught merger map. My GA sample from SanFran/Sacramento was cot/caught unmerged; it will be noticed that the area is the only cot/caught unmerged spot on the West Coast. To wit:

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/maps/Map1.html
Uriel   Thu Aug 21, 2008 4:13 am GMT
Well, of course all people have accents of some kind. I know why you are exasperated.

However, the reason Americans will often claim to have no accent is because here we associate the word "accent" (in the context of our own country, of course) with "distinctive regional accent". Many Americans across the country lack any sort of particularly distinctive regional accent, and sound largely the same no matter whether they are from Atlanta or Denver or Anchorage. Thus, they would consider themselves to be "accentless". Especially as oppsed to other Americans who have very obvious Southern drawls or New England non-rhoticity.

Granted, once OUT of the country completely, the rules change, and we have American accents versus Scottish or Australian accents. But within the US, we really CAN have "no accent". And if you have never left the country or had any interest in linguistics, it is easy to forget that other people A) rarely have this sort of far-flung accent homogeneity -- although Canadians and Australians might; and B) do not get the distinction we have between generic "non-accent" and regional accents, often because that phenomenon might not even exist in their own country -- it doesn't seem to ever happen in the UK, for example, that you can have no particular regional accent. I'm guessing that this estuary business people speak of might be starting to fill that roll of a generic, identity-less accent, and from the vehemence with which people seem to despise it, I can only guess that the British are fairly horrified by that whole concept -- while Americans are very used to not being able to readily identify each other's origins by speech.
Matt   Thu Aug 21, 2008 7:56 am GMT
I have no accent. I speak southern British English of a type such that other British people cannot guess where I am from.
Guest   Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:37 am GMT
-<<The only two cities in the US with no accent: Indianapolis and Columbus.
(Their neutral accent: Midwestern/newscasters' accent)>>

This is perhaps the most widely held misconception in the Midwest today. People from those areas speak in a dialect known as the Great Lakes dialect, characterized by vowel raising that tends to be perceived as nasal by non-speakers. -


This is not true at all, Indianapolis and Columbus are NCVSfree, they don't use the Great Lakes dialect there, but a Standard Midwestern US English (although the low back merger is becoming increasingly popular with younger speakers).
Guest   Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:44 am GMT
-Stephen Colbert says Omaha, Nebraska is the only place with no accent. -

No accent means no voice.
No one ever hears anything on/from Omaha, Nebraska, so it's logical Nebraskan claiming they have no accent (no voice = no accent).

It's funny that forgotten, boring cities claim their neutrality of accent (like Omaha, Nebraska, Prato in Italy, Vitória in Brazil or Hannover in Germany)

Of course people don't know where you're from when most people don't even hear of Omaha, Prato, Vitória or Hannover .

LOL