7 Difficult American Accents You'll NEVER Guess

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⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:23 - Accent #1
2:25 - Accent #2
4:00 - Accent #3
5:27 - Accent #4
7:55 - Accent #5
9:29 - Accent #6
11:13 - Accent #7

📜 SOURCES & ATTRIBUTIONS:

🎬 Video Clips:
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YOOPER

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[peterhobson]

I'm retired from the US Navy. One ship I was in made a port call in Scotland. We needed work done on our copier and had a technician come out from Glasgow. A Black sailor from Alabama was this technician's escort. The two of them were reduced to writing notes to each other because neither of them could understand the other's accent. But if you'd ask them, they'd both have said they were speaking their mother tongue, English.

[allisonshaw]

In the US we Native Americans also have what is called the Rez accent in addition to our tribal accents (and every single one of the 500+ languages has its own accent).

[coinwater]

Glad you brought up that "southern" is not just one accent. I have lived in Arkansas, Texas, and Louisiana. All those states touch each other, and all have different accents. I'm origionally from Arkansas, and I'm proud of my accent. It embarassed me as a kid when I visited other places, but I like it now.

[dimplesd]

I’m a decendant of Gullah people. I love to hear my relatives from Charleston talk. ❤
A lot of American linguists think pre-civil war southerners didn’t have the drawl common to post or antebellum southerners. The drawl started as a result of reduced migration and interactions between northern and southern people. Also, the example from Gone with the Wind is a non American doing a southern accent that was taught to her by a non southerner.

[bryantorres]

The East LA Chicano accent is also another pretty well known influenced by Mexican Spanish and made popular by Mexican-Americans creating a lot of terms in "Spanglish" and also having a distinct sound and slang.

[Bigtmac]

Anyone from the south will tell you there is no southern accent, each state is completely different. If you have a Texan, a Georgian, & a Tennessean in a room and you'll see how different it is.

EDIT: It's like saying someone from Maine, Illinois, and New York all share an accent.

[kaorisan]

As someone who’s from Michigan, the Yooper accent is WAYYYY thicker and harder to understand than what is portrayed in this video 😆 it’s very reminiscent of Canadian accents.

[tiptaptigers]

im from Maine and the guy doing the directions is PEAK.

[KembaWalkerGOAT]

You could do a whole video on the Carolinas alone.

Hoi Toider, Gullah-Geechee, Appalachian, Piedmont Southern, Low-Country, the Charleston accent, Lumbee English, Waccamaw Siouan, Inner Banks Brogue, and the Green Swamp's isolated Crusoe Island dialect of French-influenced English.... Insanely diverse region.

[spencen]

Hey, I want to point out something interesting, I've noticed that in all the American accent videos I've watched, there's rarely any mention of a unique American accent that I'm quite familiar with: the Hawaiian accent. It's fascinating how this distinctive accent, influenced by the rich cultural blend of Hawaii, often gets overlooked in discussions about American accents.

[NormanTheDummy_YouTube]

Me: "I SPEAK American English, I will know ALL of these..."
Me 5 seconds later: "wtf is he saying?"

[oggardner]

I’m glad you highlighted the Gullah accent! It’s such a unique dialect and it has an immense amount of history behind it.

[alexteoli]

I actually thought the first accent sounded from the New York region so makes so much sense when you said that the accents came from similar immigrant populations interacting with eachother

[charlesharmon]

I’m born and raised in Baton Rouge, LA. The variety of accents just in Louisiana is astounding. There are different accents around New Orleans. Someone from the Florida Parishes sounds different than someone south of the Lake. Cajun people from the prairie around Ville Platte sound different than Cajun people from down the Bayou around Thibodaux. Then you throw in the different racial accents it makes this a unique place and you feel like your in a foreign country when visiting other states sometimes.

[UCCTime]

My Dad was a Yooper and I recognized the accent immediately (the snow mobile also gave me a clue). We grew up in the lower penisula of Michigan (a different accent entirely) but never noticed the odd way our Dad spoke until we got older and moved away. It still blows my mind how many born and raised Americans have no idea what "da yoop" is, born culturally and geographically.

[eyelessgame]

I love the diversity of accents in my country. Thank you so much for this video!

[albinrose]

Another fun fact about the Northern Midwest/ Yooper accent (or dialect): the urge to start verbs with "take" (as in, "Okay, take and set up the tent over there" or "take and back the truck up to the edge of the dock") comes from Scandinavian languages, where the verb "to take" is closely related to the verb "to do."

[javiermoretti]

Fun fact: The "French Quarter" in New Orleans was most built by the Spanish. When the French gave up Louisiana to the Spanish, the Spanish found the building standards in NOLA to be inferior. They put in fire breaks between buildings and the distinctive wrought iron railings.

[WTheW_gaming]

Watching someone from the UK covering American accents is one of the best things ever

[pamelagood]

Love this! Growing up a military brat and moving all around the US, I have always been fascinated by accents/dialects and how they have evolved.