does everyone have an accent?

Question

does everyone have an accent? i live in Chicago and i dont feel like i have an accent.

Answer 1

Yes you do have an "accent" I could hear it when you wrote that lol
Yours is a "Midwest" accent
seriously yes everyone has an accent, but in order to hear it you have to be from somewhere else!

The accents of the Midwest are often clearly different from the accents of the South and many urban areas of the American Northeast. The accent of most of the Midwest is thought by many to be "standard" American English. Many national radio and television shows in the U.S. like this accent more than many other accents. This may have started because many television show hosts — such as Walter Cronkite, Johnny Carson, David Letterman, Tom Brokaw and Casey Kasem — came from this area.

In some parts of the Midwest, the accents are quite different from the "neutral" accent of the rest of the Midwest. These accents usually are because of the heritage of the area. For example, Minnesota, western Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula have strong Scandinavian accents, which get stronger the farther north one goes. Many parts of Michigan have Dutch-flavored accents. Also, people from Chicago are known to have their own "nasal" accent. In the most southern parts of the Midwest, such as southern Indiana, the accents are more like the Southern accent than the standard Midwest accent. The southern part of Indiana is often called the "Northern South" because of traits like this.

A "Detroit girl"

Answer 2

Yes, I think so. If somebody from the Northwest traveled to New York State they would definitely hear an accent. They would hear the "r" spoken like "ahr." I've only been to New York City once and that was some time ago, but I definitely remember hearing that. No offense is meant. I love all accents.

My family lived in Texas for just a couple of years then we moved to San Jose, California. The people we met there often commented on our Texan accents and we weren't even aware of how we were talking.

I'm one of those people who picks up accents very quickly. If I'm with somebody who has just a mild accent to a very strong accent I end up talking with that accent. Only one time a person took offense and the person walked away before I could explain myself. A large percentage of adults are capable of this.

Sorry for the long answer.

Answer 3

Depending on where we live, North Americans have certain stereotypes about how people in other regions talk. Some stereotypes, spread by the mass media, are more generalized thatn others. Most Americans think they can imitate a "Souther accent." We also have nationwide stereotypes about speech in New York City and Boston. It is sometimes thought that Midwesterners don't have an accent. This belief stems from the fact that midwesten dialects don't have many stigmatized linguistic variants -- speech patterns that people in other recognize and look down on.

So I got this from my cultural anthropology text book. You could say we all have an accent, or you may not. Its your opinion.

Answer 4

Try speaking a Spanish phrase. Learn to pronounce the words phonetically until you have it technically correct. Then listen to a person from a Spanish-speaking country say it. You'll see that you have an accent. But if the native Spanish speaker speaks English, you'll think that they have an accent.

You only think you don't have an accent because you're surrounded by people who speak the same language as you in the same way. A person from China comes over, you'll say they have a Chinese accent. But if you go to China, you're the one with the accent. You get me?

Answer 5

Yes. Everyone has an accent. I'm from Michigan and I can identify Chicagoans by sound.

Because 'Newscaster English' is based on a generalized Midwestern accent, you will get people from Michigan or Ohio or Illinois saying that they don't have an accent.

Read about the Great Lakes Vowel Shift and see if it sounds like how you speak.

Answer 6

Everyone has an accent of some sort. Of course, we never feel we have an accent because we hear the same voices talking back.

Answer 7

Technically yes, you may not think you or the people around you in your area have an accent but outsiders do. An accent basically means a regional way of speaking, complete with regional slang that is different or foreign to outsiders.

Answer 8

Of course you don't feel like you have an accent. You live there. Come here to where I live, and you do have one.

Whenever you sound similar to the majority of people around you, it isn't considered an accent, IMHO.

Like I live in Monroe County in New York. It is an EIGHT HOUR DRIVE from where I live to NYC. To me, here, I don't have an accent. But put me in downtown NYC, there is a definate difference between the way I speak and the way a native person from the Bronx speaks.

Answer 9

Probably. And most of us DON'T think we have an accent- because we grew up in an area where most of the people all spoke in pretty much the same way. It's only when one goes outside of the area they grew up in- that they find out they have a certain accent. It's a really interesting phenomena.

Answer 10

Accent is just a matter of perspective. It pertains to the exact pronunciation used by people of a certain geographice area or background. Your accent is the one you grew up with as compared to the accent of say, someone from the south. To their ears you have a Chicago or mid-western accent. I have a Northern Michigan accent as opposed to one from Jersey, Chicago, or the South. My grand parents are southern- to my ear they have an accent, but vice versa.