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?
Lv 6
? asked in Society & CultureLanguages · 1 decade ago

An accent where there shouldn't be one?

Being born and raised in CA I wouldn't expect to have a "british type accent" Yet ever since I was a young child people have asked where my accent is from, or what country Im from, or my favorite where in England am I from. I have never even been to England. I don't know anyone from England Family and friends say my voice is kind of different, not british, but "more british like then it should be" I hear my voice in recordings and it sounds a bit different but I don't know I would say foreign accent different. Heck today I had to separate people in two different places ask me this. The thing is its almost always a british accent people think the hear. I got Australian a couple times. Anybody ever heard of this, its just odd. lol

Update:

Iam very bad at learning languages. I did have mild speech issues as a child, never came across british people or watch british tv shows

3 Answers

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  • tl;dr
    Lv 6
    1 decade ago
    Favorite Answer

    There's no real way I can answer your question definitively but I can make a few educated guesses.

    (1) For some reason you are extra-sensitive to accents, you might actually have a talent for language learning or spoken performance.

    (2) You may have a mild form of speech impediment (light lisping, some difficulty forming certain vowels) which is being heard as a British accent, or something like it.

    (3) You may have begun unconsciously emulating a British accent at an early age, and simply continued to do so. Remember, the development of an accent can be subconscious [1].

    I went through a couple experiences, one while in middle school, where (to my horror) I found myself imitating the Middle-Eastern accent of a fellow student I had met, *while talking to him* .I was mortified and couldn't understand why I would do something so rude.

    The other, when after working as a CSA for several months in the Southern U.S., I began (quite unintentionally) to speak with a breathy Southern American accent (I normally speak with a very clear non-regional accent). Again I was surprised and a little confused, as this had never been my intention.

    On the plus side it turns out I was able to develop very good accents when I began studying other languages.

  • VX9
    Lv 4
    1 decade ago

    I know a guy who was from Kansas City, Missouri who had very weird accent. Almost like some kind of Italian mafia accent. I always used to ask him where he got his accent and he told me people asks him that all the time and he believes he does not have an accent. This kid was US born 100% ginger.

  • ?
    Lv 4
    5 years ago

    There s no such factor as a British accessory. Britain is made of four international locations: Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales but when I needed to reply, I might say the southern English accessory

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