What's with British people and American accents?!

I never, ever imagined in my wildest dreams (or nightmares?) that the four Beatles ever sounded like California Valley Girls! I've heard several recordings of their everyday speech - aside from their singing - and they always sounded exactly as you would expect your average Scouser scally to sound.

By the same token no Valley Girl I have heard speaking sounded anything like Cilla Black, another product of Scouseland, and as her name implies - a female. Positively no similarity whatsoever.

I'm American and I cannot reliably tell a Californian accent from a Midwestern one. So I don't see how foreigners can either. Yes there are some distinct accents from around the US, but in reality they are nowhere nearly as diverse most non-native English speaking Antimooners make them out to be.

Having grown up in New York, Washington State and Kansas, lived in California and Texas I can say I recognise the the following US accents as somewhat distinct.

Distinct Accents from the North East
Yonkers/Bronx
Manhattan/Queens
Brooklyn
Boston

Everybody else from the North East.


Distinct Accents from the South
South (You can hear that they are from the South)
Deep South (Those Goddamn Yankees!)

Pretty much everybody else throughout the US, i.e. CNN English.

The "Californian accent" that Antimooners seem to thinks exists is a media invention. In reality Californians fall into the "Pretty much everybody else throughout the US" category.

AAVE does not fit in any of the above categories.

Thank you. So being told that I sound Midwestern with Californian *influences* doesn't mean I sound that horrible, after all.
Anyway, I'll have to make do with people's opinions. I cannot change a whole nation, and I believe that everyone is prejudiced to some extent, including me. Oh well, that's life.
By the way, I did talk to people who sounded "Québécois" over voice chat, but they were either Canadian or American, so that didn't shock me.
However, if I ever met a Brit who sounded Québécois, I'd indeed, be a bit disturbed by his accent.

What does a Quebec accent sound like to you, Donna? How does it differ from your own accent?

Gotta agree with Paul on being able to pick out accents. I lived in California for 4 years, and spent summers there for the three years prior, went to school with people from nothern and southern California, and never noticed any major difference in accent from "the rest". Even the CA raising everyone goes on about was a pretty miniscule detail that it would take time to discern. Nor did I ever meet anyone with a true Valley Girl accent, although I have to admit that I've never hung out int he San Fernando Valley and there must be some basis to the phenomenon other than Frank and Moon Zappa and that song.

Welcome, people, to the Americanisation of the world.

❝I'm American and I cannot reliably tell a Californian accent from a Midwestern one....
The "Californian accent" that Antimooners seem to thinks exists is a media invention. In reality Californians fall into the "Pretty much everybody else throughout the US" category. ❞


Paul, this is simply not true. I, being a long-time resident of Reno, NV, can spot a Midwestern accent from a mile away; it's as distinct a dialect to me as a New York accent would be to you.

Moreover, the idea of the "California accent" is one based on fact and has been pretty thoroughly documented. I submit, for your perusal:

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

And likewise, I can generally pick out California English pretty easily if I try to do so. In particular, the pronunciation of the mid and high back vowels, historical /aʊ/ and, to a lesser extent, /æ/ are quite noticable to me, and are also distinguishable from those in General American proper to me.

I didn't say that the Beatles sound like Valley Girls, only that they come closer than most Californians, in that the whole "pronouncing statements as if they were questions" is quite pronounced in the Beatles, and virtually nonexistant among Californians.

By "midwestern", do people mean the Minnesota accent? Or is that a different accent?

Guys, I know this won't help but I think I did find something that could explain the whole thing.
Apparently, I picked up loads of Valley girl vocab - I got the whole package, from "duh" to "or something".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_girl

I don't know how this happened. My bet is that I was influenced by something I watched or read, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Standard "Midwestern" used to be spoken in the Midwest till 1950ies.
It survives only in central Ohio (Columbus*).
Great Lakes region (except for Erie PA) is home to an accented variant influenced by Northern Cities vowel Shift. Most actors from Chicago, Detroit...opt for a Californian/West accent in Hollywood...
Midwestern (Great Lakes) accent is rare in Hollywood, when it's featured in a movie, it's heavily marketed: ''Meg Ryan puts on a Detroit accent in -Against the Ropes-'', ''Go see Meg Ryan with a Midwestern accent in a new movie''


---
*Although the low back merger is spreading from Western PA, so
central Ohio is now partially to frequently cot/caught merged

The last episode I saw of Stephen Fry's journey through every single one of the 50 American States saw him travel from Chicago through Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, the two Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Kansas, Oklahoma and ending up in Texas (if I missed out any State in this section then I'm sorry) - but what I mean to say is this - all the many people he chatted with, in all those States, all seemed to speak with the same accent as far as I could tell.

Obviously I am unable to detect all the finer points of American accent variabilities in anything like the same way I did when the American Bill Bryson presented a similar TV program when he carried out a similar journey across the length and breadth of the British Isles and all the different accents and dialects were so clearly identifiable.

❝I lived in California for 4 years, and spent summers there for the three years prior, went to school with people from nothern and southern California, and never noticed any major difference in accent from "the rest".❞

Uriel, the California Vowel Shift, being only about 25 years old, is restricted to young people; people older than about 35 or so don't speak with this easily-discernable accent, although they do have features such as the cot-caught merger, etc.

That being said, speakers of CVS are pretty obvious if you know what to listen for.

<<Apparently, I picked up loads of Valley girl vocab - I got the whole package, from "duh" to "or something".>>

That's common in all dialects of American English, at least now. Using lots of, like, fillers like "like", is, like, a way to speak or something, common in all the US... ok, whatever dude. <-- All found in most dialects as far as I know.

Speaking about Californian accents, I rarely hear people speak like this: "Shut up, betch! You don't even know where California ez!" (= bitch, is).
Is that the CVS? If so, it doesn't seem very widespread to me... well, I don't hear it much at least.

↑ Johnny, put in layman's terms, the California Vowel Shift seems to involve a lot of vowel-lowering; in other words, the speakers open their mouth a lot more when they speak, making words like "Beth" sound almost--but not quite--like "bath". Moreover, the sound of "u" in words like "Dude" is pronounced in the extreme front of the mouth and "tightened", making the vowel "u" sound almost--but not quite--like the German umlaut ü. Personally, I find the effect aesthetically pleasing.

You'll almost never hear it in speakers older than 35 or so, but young people--especially females, for some reason--speak in it all the time. It seems like the effect is more pronounced the further south you go in California, although this is admittedly a subjective perception.

<<That being said, speakers of CVS are pretty obvious *if you know what to listen for*. >>

But that last part of the sentence is the key, Jasper --most people wouldn't know to listen for that, and thus wouldn't notice it -- or, if they did, wouldn't know where to place it. My mother's neighbor talks kind of funny. It wasn't until having the Northern Cities Vowel Shift described to me on this very website that I recognized her accent for what it was, and was able to place it in some sort of context. Had I not stumbled across this site, she would have just been someone who inexplicably put Y's in front of her vowels -- but I would not have associated that practice with the midwest. I suspect that for most ordinary people, any slight weirdness with Californians' vowels would be just that -- a slight oddity, not really an accent unto itself.