Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Off Topic What American accent do you have? (quiz)

I found this fun.

I've read that linguists can actually listen to a person talk and pinpoint them down to within a 10-mile radius of their hometown. Of course, to do that requires evaluating many more words than on this simple quiz.

Take the quiz here .

Oh, I forgot to give my results: Midland, "which is just another way of saying, 'you don't have an accent'." How boring. Supposedly, this means I have a good voice for television or radio.

Well, it's good to know I have an accent, and a northeastern one at that.

Apparently, I have a Boston accent.

Although, I've only lived in the US for 6 years and that too in Texas and Washington, hmmm. But I've been to Boston.

Mine would be Northeastern too if it were from the US - Philadelphia predominantly. I wonder if that might apply to the majority of us who aren't from north America?
On a more bizarre note, someone I met a year or so ago said she actually thought I had a bit of an American accent... I was slightly flabbergasted!

Apparently, my accent is Philidelphia.

I rather suspect it isn't, but you never know. I'm not quite sure what a Philidelphia accent sounds like, so it could sound like broad Scottish for all I know.

LabRat

Apparently, my accent is strongly 'Inland North'.

The area I sound least like is 'North Central' which leaves me totally confused.

Would someone like to enlighten me how Inland North is different to North Central ... and why their accents are so different?


Thanks.

Female Hawk, this wikipedia article might shed some light.

I have a "Midland" accent.I guess that comes from my background, which isn't near anything they suggest. My father was from Illinois, my mother from California. Coming from a military family, I learned to talk originally in North Carolina, which accounts, I guess, for the graph showing the South heavily present in my speech, but I completed learning to talk in Trinidad where they speak English at warp speed. I've lived in Indiana, Brooklyn, NY, North Carolina, California, and the Panama Canal Zone, among speakers from every part of the country. I guess that explains a lot.

Nan

I came out as "Midland", too. Like Nan, I grew up all over the place (although my graph shows heavily on "the West" and "Inland North", which seems about right). Accents fascinate me and, given the chance to do it all over again, I might have gone into linguistics. Then again, I just love words, so maybe that's an outflow of how many different ways there are to say a word.

In another thread, Jenn (EditorJax) had mentioned that there are those who pronounce "Washington" with an "r" in it (Warshington). My paternal grandmother would have been one of them, she frequently had hard "r's" in her words. She grew up in rural southeast Idaho and she did her "warshing", ate (et) "carn" on the cob and was always careful not to step in cow "manar". Curiously, while two of my uncles did have that accent, my father never has (at least, not while I've known him).

I'm also Midland. Like Nan, I was raised in a military family. I started talking in Kansas, went to elementary school (1st thru 8th grade) in central Ohio, and went to high school and college in Louisiana. I have worked on the air for radio stations and I was often asked to either double as the narrator in church choir programs or just narrate.

When I left Louisiana to move to Texas (dadgummit, there's another influence, y'all), I left that radio station, and when I went back over a year later, the station had changed management and format, but they were still using some of my station IDs. I thought about calling them and asking for some money, but I never did. I doubt they had any. It was a 1000-watt AM station in Shreveport, so they were broke all the time.

Interesting!
When I was living in San Diego, people kept asking me where from the East Coast I was from. In New England most people could tellI had a European (German) accent.
Now they tell me:

What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The Inland North

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

Weird! But then again it's been a year since I was in the US last. Maybe the Irish, Scottish, and English people corrupted me in the meantime.

Natascha

I got midland as well... Which is weird cause I get told all of the time that I do have a Jersey accent. However, since I have lived in New Jersey my whole life, the only people that tell me that are those that don't live there.

<sigh> I have no accent. Oh well, I kind of already knew that.

Your Result: The West


Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.

I was born in SoCal and have lived all of my life here in California. Not always in Southern California, but always California.

Tara

I had to go digging from when I took this test a few years ago, but I have a Midland accent, which makes sense since that's where I grew up. I spent 7 years of my early life in Southern Illinois, then spent the next 7 in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania trying to lose the southern accent that I had in IL. It still sneaks in from time to time, especially now that I've been living in NC for 10 years.

Hmmm . . . I came out as Inland North, which is kind of strange, because I live in Maryland, which I'm pretty sure is technically South.

I don't get any questions like, "Are you from Chicago?" though.

Midland here.

Born in MO, 4.5 years in CO, 12 years in Phoenix and now almost 16 years in SW MO...

Sounds about right I guess...
Carol

I came out Inland North, too - almost equal amounts, on the graph, of The Midland, The Northeast , and Philadelphia - and a strong presence of The South.

I guess that kinda makes sense. I was born and raised in northern Indiana, near Chicago. Both my parents grew up in Chicago. As a young adult, I lived for a number of years around Washington, D.C. - in both Virginia and Maryland, and then moved to my current central Indiana location. Many people in central Indiana, to my ears, have a very pronounced southern accent. And my parents retired to northern Michigan (Traverse City) about 14 years ago. We spend a lot of vacation time up there with them.

'Toc

For some reason the quiz said I had 'the Minnesota accent'. Go figure.

Tank (who doesn't care what hollywood says, few of us talk like they did in the movie Fargo)

I got 'the midland' on mine. Funny, because I was born and raised in Texas and have lived in South Carolina for the past 11 years. I do have an extensive theatre background, so I was trained to not have an accent...maybe that has something to do with it? I still get asked 'you're not from around here, are you?' all the time.

For me it said the south which is correct. I was born in Richmond, VA 2 blocks from the White House of the Confederacy. Even though I spent 8 years in New Jersey and have lived in Maryland since 1983 (a couple blocks south of the Mason-Dixon line) I still say things like y'all, skillet, and creek.

The answer for me was Midland, which apparently means I don't have an accent at all.

I'm torn on this. I'm from Mississippi originally, and I know there are certain words I say where you can really hear the accent. But I've lived in Florida since I was about 8, and overall I really think living here has mitigated my accent a good deal (which makes me a little sad, actually). So maybe the quiz is right - mostly.

Mine said the West, the lowest common denominator of American speech, although the Midland was a very close second. That would make sense since I live in Colorado. I think they should have tested with the word "sure": Does it sound like the r-controlled vowel in "bird" (which is the West), or does it sound like the r-controlled vowel in "tour" (which is Midwestern and several other areas)?

Edited: I've been reading the Wipipedia link above, and it certainly points out the limitations of the quiz. Bostonian and North Central were 3rd and 4th place for me and rated fairly highly (about 75%, it looks like), but my accent is nothing like a Bostonian's. They don't pronounce many "r"s, which is why we imitate it by saying: I pahk my cah in Hahvahd yahd (I park my car in Harvard yard), whereas I have pretty growly "r"s.

Thank you.

As least I know what geographical area I sound like now.

How an Aussie with English parents ended up with that accent is anyone's guess!!!

Does anyone know in what part of the country 'bag' rhymes with 'vague'? And does that mean they say "bage" and "vage" or "bag" and "vag"?

LOL! I wondered the same thing.

I had my mom, my sister and my son take this test last night. My sister and son showed up as Midlands as well, but my mom was "The West". Which baffles me, because I'm pretty certain we all answered the same way. Mom grew up in the Western US and has lived there the majority of her life, so that makes sense. What actually doesn't make sense is why the rest of us *don't* score as "West".

I also find it funny that we all score "Boston" pretty high on the graph and yet we've only spent one week there. Must have been something in the water...

Yeah, I was wondering that, also. On the face of it, they seem so far apart it's hard to imagine how they could sound the same.

LabRat

It said my accent was Midlands, which sort of makes sense as I grew up in Pennsylvania. But I've lived 15 years in the south and I *know* that's influenced my accent.

Maybe it's "bahg" and "vahg" (sounds like fog)(at least in my accent ) that rhyme... still sounds bizarre, though.

PJ

Oh, no, I've heard people say "vag" for vague. Drives me absolutely bonkers. Of course, I can't remember who they *are* right now, so I can't tell you which accent does it. :p

(I still claim it's not an accent and is just flat out mispronunciation. Yup yup.)

Bethy (who scored Boston this time, but is usually Midland...hmm...maybe it's a sign she should go visit Boston for the first time ever?)

I have 3 stories about the U.S. Southern Accent - all told to me by my sister, who moved to North Carolina as an adult.

1 - The fumigator told her there were "spotters" in the barn. She asked if "spotters" were a type of snake. (The fumigator was saying 'spiders'.)

2 - Her kids came home from Sunday School and told her they had learned about Jacob and his whale. She told them it was Jonah and the whale. They insisted it was Jacob. Turns out they had learned the story of Jacob's well.

3 - Shortly after their family moved to North Carolina my nephew had his first spelling test. He spent all night practicing "sat", "mat", "bat", etc. He came home with an F on the test, and told his mom, "They didn't say any of the words I practiced!" His mom asked what words they gave on the test, and he said he'd never heard those words before, but he spelled them the best he could. His mom looked at the test and saw the words "seat", "meat", "beat". My sister had to go to the school and explain to the teacher that her son's first language was Spanish. He had spelled the words he heard phonetically - according to Spanish spelling, where "se" is pronounced like "say" (that is, Spanish "e" is pronounced like the long English "a"). The words my nephew heard sounded to him like "say-at", "may-at", "bay-at".

According to the quiz I have a North Eastern Accent. New York City, Jersey, Rhode Island or Connecticut being the most likely.

"Midlands". I've spent my entire life either IN Chicago or on the outskirts of it, but northern Illinois wasn't included in those results, only southern.

The Inland North with the Northeast the most and the West the least. But I've lived my whole life in California, which was west last time I looked. However, I was born in Minnesota and grew up in a household of Minnesotans transplanted to California. Grandpa was Norwegian. Or as wikipedia said, "Minnewegian".
So I guess in California, full of immigrants from elsewhere, it's more a potpourri of accents than a distinct accent alone.

Artemis

Midland, reporting in. Let's see, my top two are...Northeast and Inland North. Just chalk it up to another military family. We spent most of our time in TX or AL, but we lived in a very Mexican part (and have Mexican relatives) in Texas, and one half of the family is from Queens. I just moved back to the Gulf of Mexico from Gawgia, but so far 'Y'all hasn't crept into my vocab.

Cheers
JD

Oh, I can definitely see this, Sue. When I lived in the Rockies, folks weren't born in a barn, they were barn in a born (sound wise to me anyway).


I came out Midlands, and I'm from Kentucky. The other day at work, though, someone told me I didn't have an Appalachian accent at all. That must come from the influence of other places I've lived.

And just an interesting aside for Labby. I've heard it said that an Appalachian accent is close to a Scottish accent.

urk! Midland accent. And yet I live, normally, 45 minutes from Boston. Me and a friend were talking about this just the other day...I just don't really seem to have an accent. Weirder still...my brother's been told he has a German accent by several people...our family's been in the US since the mayflower....

Your Result: The West

Your accent is the lowest common denominator of American speech. Unless you're a SoCal surfer, no one thinks you have an accent. And really, you may not even be from the West at all, you could easily be from Florida or one of those big Southern cities like Dallas or Atlanta.

Pretty accurate since I'm from one of them bigger Southern Cities. Yeehaw. Hee hee. Surprisingly most local Houstonians have no accent at all. It's the surrounding cities that have the Texas twang mostly.

Wow. That quiz pegged me as from Philadelphia. I actually was born and grew up in Arlington, VA, but my mother is from Philadelphia, so it makes sense to me that I would inherit a lot of her pronunciations. Neat!

What American accent do you have?
Your Result: The Midland
"You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
Result Breakdown:
100% The Midland
87% Philadelphia
85% The Inland North
81% The South
64% The Northeast
33% The West
19% Boston
15% North Central
Quiz Created on GoTo Quiz

Seems like all of us who don't speak english as a first language get the 'Inland North' result...curious!

To know if my pronunciation of the words was different or the same I had to repeat them a few times so when I saw 'bag' and 'vague'I was surprised because just by reading them I knew it's pronunciation was different.

It'd be interesting to know if anyone in this board pronunces them the same or at least pretty similar.

Carolyn

Well.. I've never lived in the US... but apparently my mixed up kiwi/aussie accent sounds like someone from 'the northeast'.

"Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak."

Now... I have BEEN to NY... I have heard how people in NY talk.. and I can tell you that no aussie or kiwi I know, myself included, sounds like a NY-er.

What a laugh!!!

Hey, I took the quiz. Where are my results?



Jude

Apparently I have a Boston accent..despite having never been outside of Europe in my life, lol!

I say vag like vague, it also rhymes with tag, bag, hag, gag, lag, rag, and sag (I'm a teacher, so I see all these sounds). I'm more likely to say vague is said like vag, however.

Your Result: North Central

"North Central" is what professional linguists call the Minnesota accent. If you saw "Fargo" you probably didn't think the characters sounded very out of the ordinary. Outsiders probably mistake you for a Canadian a lot.


I would never think someone on Fargo sounds anything like me, but I think it's funny that the test says I'd be confused with a Canadian, since that's exactly what I am.

Even though I've never set foot on the States (though not by choice but by lack of funds ) I am the proud owner of a Midland accent. Good to know

I just took the quiz again, and the rsult is hilarious. I have a Philadelphia accent! I've never been in Philadelphia in my life. I spent my first 20 years in Arkansas, then lived in Nashville, Tenn. for a year, near Chicago for 3 years, southern California for 3 years, northern California for 3 years, and near Seattle for 40 years. Have no idea how you get Philadelphia out of that.

Jude

I just took it and got "The Inland North."

You may think you speak "Standard English straight out of the dictionary" but when you step away from the Great Lakes you get asked annoying questions like "Are you from Wisconsin?" or "Are you from Chicago?" Chances are you call carbonated drinks "pop."

Lol, I've visited Chicago briefly a few times but otherwise aside from being born in NY but moving out here to LA at only 7 months old, I've lived in sunny CA all my life. Or at the majority of it aside from when I lived in very Northern, CA.

Mona

The South

Which I don't hear well all the time it does kind of make since, I was born right out of New Orleans and for the first 9 years on my life lived there off and on for half the year then was back there from 14 on and off until 18.