About a week ago I read a blog by Emi Meadows titled “9 Struggles Having a Southern Accent.” In it she was explaining how she didn’t know she had an accent till she went to college or somewhere. She was from Georgia and had no idea of her accent till someone told her how nice it sounded.
That got me thinking. Everyone has an accent. The thing about each person’s accent is that we can’t hear them ourselves.
In the states alone there must be 50 different accents, at least. How do I figure that? Well there are 50 states in America and each state has their own accent. Seriously down south they have a southern accent. And I believe each southern state has their own accent.
Then you have the northeastern states. Boston, Rhode Island and New York have their own distinct accents. Then you have your mid western accents. And the list goes on.
To make things even more complicated different areas of different states have their own accent. New York for example. When it comes to NY you have the Brooklyn accent, Long Island accent and the upstate NY accent. Sounds complicated doesn’t it. It’s not I promise.
I always find it funny when southerners are visiting New York and we can tell their accent right away. But when people from the NY are visiting down south, the people there know we aren’t from the area, but sometimes they can’t tell which part of the country we are from. After we tell them we are from New York they automatically think New York City. That’s a whole other conversation.
To me some accents sound better than others. Not to be mean or anything but I don’t care for the Boston or Rhode Island accent. The southern accent, to me, I think it depends on where the person is from and how deep of a southern accent they have. Again no offence.
When you think about it some more you realize we aren’t the only country with an accent. People from England have a British accent. People from Ireland have an Irish accent and people from Australia have an Australian accent. All three of these accents are seriously cool sounding! At least to me they are.
Me, I have a Brooklyn accent. Growing up I didn’t know I had an accent till my first trip to Upstate NY. The people would look at me and they would be like – “What kind of accent is that!” I would tell them “I’m from Brooklyn”. Since then I have been asked to say something, anything to people so they can hear my Brooklyn accent. When I explain to them it doesn’t come out on demand they get disappointed. When they do finally here it I get that same reaction — “What was that!”
I decided to add a small video to this blog. It’s me answering my husband’s questions. Tell me what you think, do you hear my Brooklyn accent or not?