What American accent do you have?

Northern

You have a Northern accent. That could either be the Chicago/Detroit/Cleveland/Buffalo accent (easily recognizable) or the Western New England accent that news networks go for.

As a Michigander, I have one of the "easily recognizable" varieties.

I agree with Travis about "roof" being both /u/ and /U/ up here. In my "fast speech" it comes out as /U/ but if I were reading a list of single words and "roof" were one of those words, I would pronounce it as /u/.

I fall into the category of someone who uses the "foot" vowel for words such as "roof", "room", etc. I believe that it is a North Central and Inland North characteristic.

Most people on the West Coast use a more fronted variation, which ends up sounding like "rewf" and "rewm" to my ears. You wouldn't believe how many times my pronunciation has triggered the response, "just where are you from, anyway?"

It said I had a Midland accent too. I am from Vermont that can't be true.

>> I think we can all agree that for this test, "Midland" just translates as "generic American". Which people anywhere could have. <<

Only because it is transitional. Not only is there great variation in the Midland cities, it is also cot-caught merged for some, and semi-distinct for others.

Most of the people I know are caught-cat merged, and they hail from all over the place -- from Cali, the South, NYC, the West, you name it. Many of them have generic accents that are unplaceable, instead of the regional ones you would expect.

>> Most of the people I know are caught-cat merged, and they hail from all over the place -- from Cali, the South, NYC, the West, you name it. <<

Or maybe they aren't, but you just think they are, because you are merged. I always like to ask people to say cot and caught, and then ask them if they are the same or different. Often I am surprised with people from non-NCVS non cot-caught merged accents when they say they are "different", but to me they sound the same when they pronounced them.

Oops, meant to say caught-COT, not CAT. I'm a lousy typist!

Well, let's put it this way -- when I hear people say "cawt" or "cawfee", it catches my ear, because to me, it's unusual. So what I'm saying is that I don't hear THESE people using that vowel in their words. No, I've nver actually sat down and asked them if they feel they are merged or unmerged, because most of them wouldn't have the faintest idea what the hell I was talking about! (And they already think I'm weird enough, I'm sure!)

So yes, I'm going by my own ear on this, and it is subjective. But we do have a noticeably UNmerged person at my work, so I do have a handy basis for comparison. I also do a lot of ordering by phone, and I notice it clearly on many of my calls. It's enough to get my attention, anyway.

The test is not accurate.
I am CCmerged but I got MIDLAND instead of WesternUS/Canadian.

>> Well, let's put it this way -- when I hear people say "cawt" or "cawfee", it catches my ear, because to me, it's unusual. <<

But some people have such a subtle distinction between the two that you would probably not notice at all. They pronounce them nearly identically--they just slightly round their lips when they say "caught", and slightly unround their lips for the other. They don't say cawt for caught, or anything like that. As a Westerner, you use both of those vowels for cot/caught--just not consistently, and you don't hear the difference.

Why do Black English speakers tend to pronounce "these" as "dese" and "think" as "tink"? I learned/learnt to say "houses" as "houziz" but many ignoramuses almost pronounce it how it is spelled/spelt as "housis".

Don't say the word "phlegm" as /flam/ but /flem/. If a man is in singular why do I hear some Americans saying "man" in plural when they refer to and spell the word "men"?

Even if I speak perfectly I have deal with those people who confuse me the words I know how to say. I need to accept the wrong from the right to understand these pronunciation variations.

<<But some people have such a subtle distinction between the two that you would probably not notice at all. They pronounce them nearly identically--they just slightly round their lips when they say "caught", and slightly unround their lips for the other. They don't say cawt for caught, or anything like that. As a Westerner, you use both of those vowels for cot/caught--just not consistently, and you don't hear the difference.>>

If it's THAT subtle, it hardly counts -- especially not to a layman like me. Linguists may make much finer distinctions, of course. And I was originally an Easterner, by the way -- I spent my formative years in Virginia and New York. I moved to NM at 22. As far as I know, I've always been merged.

Oh my dear you have moved from Virginia , good for you, because my obnoxious cousins were born and raised there. I hate Virginia just because of them. They are obnoxious of a high order.

''Why do Black English speakers tend to pronounce "these" as "dese" and "think" as "tink"? I learned/learnt to say "houses" as "houziz" but many ignoramuses almost pronounce it how it is spelled/spelt as "housis". ''

Well,

1. /t,d/ for /th, dh/ and
2. final devoicing: eyes [ais ''ice'' instead of aiz], located [loukeid@t ''locate it'' instead of loukeid@d]

are features of the Chicago accent

>>
1. /t,d/ for /th, dh/ and
2. final devoicing: eyes [ais ''ice'' instead of aiz], located [loukeid@t ''locate it'' instead of loukeid@d]

are features of the Chicago accent<<

I somehow strongly suspect that such is not the exact pattern followed in said dialect, and rather that the pattern probably is not all too different from that here, where stopping of /D/ and /T/ primarily occurs word-initially (and likely is not equally likely for /D/ and /T/ and may not actually consistently become [d] and [t] rather than, say, [d_d] and [t_d]), where final devoicing does not change the length of the preceding vowel (for "eyes", that would be [a:Is] whereas "ice" would be [@Is]), and where not all obstruents devoice are equally likely to devoice finally in all positions (for example, sibilants always devoicing finally except when followed by another vowel wheres stops only devoicing at the end of an utterance). True global realization of /D/ and /T/ as [d] and [t] tends to be more associated with dialects Up North in Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula, and Minnesota than dialects down by Chicago and southeastern Wisconsin.

The quiz said I had a Midland accent.

O_o

Yeah, I'm from the Midland, alright. Born and raised.