The Wire Review - regional influences?

DDFD   Mon Feb 09, 2009 12:19 am GMT
All - since everyone seems to be doing this, here's a sample of my speech. Can you figure out the region? I've actually moved around a lot, so maybe someone can guess at my birth region and then any subsequent influences?

To make things more interesting than the usual read-a-paragraph stuff, the sample is a short podcast-style review of The Wire (a TV show which, incidentally, has a lot of very interesting accents and speech styles in it). I was just speaking off the top of my head, so there are a lot of ahs, ums and pauses.

http://www.zippyshare.com/v/52666675/file.html

I've posted here before, but I'm not using my usual nick right now because I mentioned where I'm from in some of my previous posts.
American   Mon Feb 09, 2009 1:01 am GMT
You lived back East originally and then moved to the Southwest?
Penn   Mon Feb 09, 2009 1:02 am GMT
Pennsylvania? You don't seem to have the 3M merger, and you have a diphthongized /oU/.
Penn   Mon Feb 09, 2009 1:03 am GMT
I wonder why Windows Media Player can't play your file. I had to use Winamp instead.
DDFD   Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:39 am GMT
Some interesting guesses (at least one of the regions is right for part of my life), though no one quite nails it. I'm going to keep this one open a little while longer.

As to why WMP wouldn't play it - not sure. Possibly because I recorded this in Garage Studio on a Mac?
Guest   Mon Feb 09, 2009 2:54 am GMT
Right! To my British ears this sounds Canadian. But then again I'm not all that great with Accents in the America's.
The reason behind this was that your vowel pronounciations seem to involve a wide formation in the back of the mouth.
That was my two-pennies worth!
Penn   Mon Feb 09, 2009 3:16 am GMT
>> To my British ears this sounds Canadian. <<

No, this is not a Canadian accent at all. It's actually about as far as you can get from one. A Canadian accent is characterized by:

-Merger of the vowels in words such as: "bother-father-cot-caught-don-dawn"

-Merger of the vowels in words such as: "Mary-marry-merry"

-Words like "sorry", "tomorrow", "borrow" have /O/ rather than /A/ like in many (but not all) dialects in the US.

-Words like "pasta" have the "cat" vowel rather than the "cot/caught" vowel.

-Monophthongal, /e/ and /o/

-Back and rounded /o/

-/u/ fronted after coronals.

---
This accent did not have the merry-marry-Mary merger. Therefore it is absolutely impossible that it is a Western/Central Canadian accent. It also was not a more easternly Canadian dialect.

----

>> The reason behind this was that your vowel pronounciations seem to involve a wide formation in the back of the mouth. <<

I strongly disagree.
Guest   Mon Feb 09, 2009 3:22 am GMT
@Penn:

Thankyou for the information. I find accents very interesting and I was only trying to have a little input.
I sense that you didn't take too well to my suggestion but, as I mentioned, "I'm not all that great with Accents in the America's."
:)
DDFD   Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:08 pm GMT
Not Canadian.

I've actually spent a lot of time outside the States in my life. Any influences you can detect?

I'll post the answer tonight if there are no interesting further observations.
Cc   Wed Feb 11, 2009 2:51 am GMT
Are you cot-caught merged? I can't tell.
X   Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:26 am GMT
Sounds like a bit of New York City mixed with Baltimore and something else. I also did not hear any influences from Canada or the Southwestern US.
cc   Wed Feb 11, 2009 4:28 am GMT
Well it's clearly a Northeastern accent. But how to explain the very fronted /oU/ sound. Maybe he lived in either the the Southwest, the Midlands, or the South and picked up that feature. Or is from somewhere in the Northeast that borders the South.
DDFD   Wed Feb 11, 2009 8:01 pm GMT
I suppose it's time to post "the answer". I must confess my first post was a bit of smoke-and-mirrors business, intended to avoid the implication that I'm not a native speaker (when you expect an accent, you hear an accent). As it happens, I was born in Eastern Europe and never visited an English-speaking country until I was 17. I've been living in the States since then - 4 years in Oregon, 1.5 years in the New York area .

I used this post to check what you would recognize of my accent. I tried a similar experiment half a year ago, and people picked up on the foreignness quite readily, so I'm pleased with the improvement.

I know people often pick up on my accent in person (though usually not over the phone), so I suspect that, if you go back and listen carefully, you may very well hear some give-aways. Still, I'm content that they were not obvious.

Ideally, I was aiming for General American, with no mergers or particularly distinguishing features. That's what I've been working on with an accent coach for the past 1.5 years.

I've been posting in the forums as 'T'.
Penn   Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:15 am GMT
>> Ideally, I was aiming for General American, with no mergers or particularly distinguishing features. That's what I've been working on with an accent coach for the past 1.5 years. <<

Why not aim for an Oregon accent?
T   Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:25 am GMT
Because I started accent work seriously only once I was already in the New York area... and I wasn't too keen on that Brooklyn sound ;). Besides, ultimately I want the flexibility to switch between accents, and General American is the best staging ground for that.