Are accents only prevelant amongst those that speak English? America vs United Kingdom vs Australia vs Africa

Question

I haven't really heard of accents amongst French Speakers or German speakers or even really spanish speakers. Is having an accent one of the few benefits of English speakers across the globe. In New York you may have an accent compared to a Texan. We in America have an accent different than thse in Briatain or Ireland. Those in Australia also have a very different accent as well.

Answer 1

Absolutely not! I know of no language that does not have regional accents. The French of Paris sounds very different to that of the South of France, and both those varieties are different from the French of Switzerland and Belgium, which in turn are drastically different from the French of Canada.

In German speaking countries regional accents are such that speakers from different areas sometimes do not understand each other; the same is true of Italy.

Spain has as many different accents as it does regions and all sound very different from the Spanish of Mexico, which in turn is different from the South America, which, again, has many different accents from country to country and within countries.

Tamils from Sri Lanka speak differently from Tamils from India; the Portuguese from Portugal is almost a different labuage from that of Brazil, and so the list goes on. Gaelic on Lewis differs from Gaelic on Skye. The pronunciation of Corsican differs so much just between the south and north of that tiny island that at least one book written to teach the language starts again half way through to teach the language of the other end of the language. Welsh is spoken differently in North Wales from South Wales - and so the list goes on. The same is probably true of every language on the face of the earth.

Answer 2

I'm pretty sure most every language in the world has accents. The reason you never hear accents in French or German might be cause you don't know those languages. I know that French has a big difference depending on what part of France you're in. For example, the city of Paris often makes fun of French in the countryside, and vice versa. I took French for six years in school.

Accents don't just apply to European languages. I speak Mandarin Chinese and I can tell you that different parts of China speak Mandarin in different ways. It's not a different dialect, it's the exact same language both spoken differently. I often make fun of people from Beijing and northern China for their funny way of talking.

btw, I live in Texas, so I know that Texans have accents as well, but not as heavy as you might think from all the stereotypes.

Answer 3

YES accents exist in other languages.
Spanish of Spain sounds as if it is spoken with a lisp (z, and sometimes c, is pronnounced like "th")
In LatinAmerica and in southern Spain, speakers generally pronnounce the "c" the "z" and the "s" all like "s".
Spanish of southern Argentina and Uruguay is known as "rioplatense" and tends to pronnounce the double l (ll) differently (more differences exist, but this is the best known different)
Some spanish speakers drop out the "d" in many words (cansado--> cansao). Some speakers nasalize "n" at the end of a word (pan).

There are MANY more differences, but these are some of the best known. Spanish is an EXTREMELY varied language.

Answer 4

Every language has regional accents. You may not hear them because you are not familiar enough with the language. Just put a little geographic isolation between common speakers, wait a few generations, and you'll have accents.

Answer 5

There are definite differences among speakers of German. Someone from Bavaria sounds quite different to someone from Prussia. There are great differences between the French of the languedoc and the Parisians, for example.

The Spanish of Madrid does not sound the same as the Spanish of Barcelona.

Answer 6

Everyone has accents. People who speak a foreign language have an accent, people from different regions have an accent compared to another region using the same language, etc., etc. It doesn't matter the language, everyone has an accent to someone else.

Answer 7

There are also often dialects in other countries where they are all technically speaking the same language, but a foreigner who learned one dialect could not understand the other dialect. People from within the same country can also have this problem, but I don't know how common it is any more. I can speak and understand German, but someone from Leer, Germany spoke to me in Plattdeutsch (low German) once and I had no idea what they were saying.

Answer 8

They're there, in every country. If you speak french, rent jean de florette and listen to how the country bumpkins say the word "je" I learned portuguese and spoke it decently enough to get by in rio and sao paulo, but when I first tried to talk to the woman who is now my wife, I couldn't understand her minas gerais accent at all.

justagirl: cool! They are 2 of my all time favorite films.

Answer 9

This is true of every language. You just don't recognize differences in accents of languages you don't understand.

Rossonero - I loved Jean de Forette, and Manot of the Spring. Thanks for the reminder, I've been meaning to see them again!