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Forums - General Discussion - Am I the only that thinks Irish (and Northern Irish) people sound similar to North Americans?

Nuvendil on 20 December 2017
VGPolyglot said:
Nuvendil said:

There is no North American or US accent. I mean keep in mind:

Landmass of Ireland: 32,595 sq mi

Landmass of the European Union: 1,707,642 sq mi

Landmass of the United States: 3,531,905 sq mi (The Lower 48 ALONE are 2,959,064 sq mi)

The United States is absolutely gigantic. Think of how many dialects and accents are in the British Isles. Same applies, though far more spead out. Georgia sounds different from much of deep Alabama which sounds different from Virginia which sounds different from Ohio which sounds different from Boston which sounds different from Jersey and so on. 

Having said that, Scotts-Irish descendants may have similarities in some areas in the country.

I'd say though that the differences between American accents tend to not be as different as depicted, especially with the media and internet which I believe is converging dialects. For example, I live in Canada but pronounce many words the American way due to the influence of media.

Well I live in the Southern US and have relatives from Ohio so I get a good dose of the spectrum.  There's some pretty wide variants.  For example, I doubt you pronounce "wash" "warsh" and "fire" "far".  The thing is we have big regions with these accents and then in between each is considerable bleedover rather than sharp, pronounced areas where these dialects and accents form.  Except, of course, where geography has created subdivisions of sorts.  But there are a lot of younger people like me with little discernable accent because they are exposed to a lot of them together plus television and other media exposure.  



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Aeolus451 on 20 December 2017

They don't sound like most Americans except for the Irish Americans maybe.....



HomokHarcos on 20 December 2017
Nuvendil said:
VGPolyglot said:

I'd say though that the differences between American accents tend to not be as different as depicted, especially with the media and internet which I believe is converging dialects. For example, I live in Canada but pronounce many words the American way due to the influence of media.

Well I live in the Southern US and have relatives from Ohio so I get a good dose of the spectrum.  There's some pretty wide variants.  For example, I doubt you pronounce "wash" "warsh" and "fire" "far".  The thing is we have big regions with these accents and then in between each is considerable bleedover rather than sharp, pronounced areas where these dialects and accents form.  Except, of course, where geography has created subdivisions of sorts.  But there are a lot of younger people like me with little discernable accent because they are exposed to a lot of them together plus television and other media exposure.  

Do you pronounce pin and pen the same way? I do, but apparently most northerners don't, so I don't know where I got that from.



AngryLittleAlchemist on 21 December 2017
SegataSanshiro said:
It's funny how people who live in the UK (tho this is Irish) mock Americans for thinking they all have the same accent yet topics like this do the same thinking the yanks all have the same accent. Brooklyn (pre hipster) sounded different than most NYC people. NYC in general sounds different than Boston. Georgia Southern accent is vastly different than a Tennessee accent. Where I live we don't have an accent at all. There is no singular 'American Accent' at all.

This is true. It's funny actually, I got in a fight in the Youtube comments section(unprecedented and shocking, I know) because someone basicaly called Americans stupid for not knowing accents. They got pretty pissed that people didn't like the voice acting in Xenoblade 2. They literally said something as cringy as "You guys don't know any of our accents. Our dialect is literally alien to you, and yet I feel like I know all the american accents just from watching TV". The irony in that last part was way too strong. 

Although to be fair it is kind of a well acknowledged fact that there are many accents in Europe as a whole.



Nuvendil on 21 December 2017
HomokHarcos said:
Nuvendil said:

Well I live in the Southern US and have relatives from Ohio so I get a good dose of the spectrum.  There's some pretty wide variants.  For example, I doubt you pronounce "wash" "warsh" and "fire" "far".  The thing is we have big regions with these accents and then in between each is considerable bleedover rather than sharp, pronounced areas where these dialects and accents form.  Except, of course, where geography has created subdivisions of sorts.  But there are a lot of younger people like me with little discernable accent because they are exposed to a lot of them together plus television and other media exposure.  

Do you pronounce pin and pen the same way? I do, but apparently most northerners don't, so I don't know where I got that from.

I pronounce them slightly differently.  Hard to say where you got that, I'm not sure it's a regional thing or just a speaking quirk some people pick up.



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Trunkin on 23 December 2017
Ka-pi96 said:
I do not think they are even close. Irish accents sound good. North American ones....

lol, I was thinking the exact opposite!



Nogamez on 23 December 2017

Differant accent to what? Im from England and we have a ton of accents here. Same as USA.



Cobretti2 on 23 December 2017
HomokHarcos said:
Nuvendil said:

Well I live in the Southern US and have relatives from Ohio so I get a good dose of the spectrum.  There's some pretty wide variants.  For example, I doubt you pronounce "wash" "warsh" and "fire" "far".  The thing is we have big regions with these accents and then in between each is considerable bleedover rather than sharp, pronounced areas where these dialects and accents form.  Except, of course, where geography has created subdivisions of sorts.  But there are a lot of younger people like me with little discernable accent because they are exposed to a lot of them together plus television and other media exposure.  

Do you pronounce pin and pen the same way? I do, but apparently most northerners don't, so I don't know where I got that from.

New Zealand I reckon lol.

 



 

 

Cobretti2 on 23 December 2017

The videos don't sound like your typical american in a movie.

Obviously nothing like they do down south.