asperger's and accents

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What about 'upper' class blacks still standing by their race-e.g. Van Jones, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakan, the NSBE (National Society for Black Engineers), etc

I've thus far been unable to determine where my accent comes from...
I live in California, as I always have, but I don't use a Californian accent... Or a Western one... Or a neutral-sounding American one.
My accent contains a number of odd Early Modern English vowel distinctions, detailed below:
father/bother - not merged; distinguished by length, not roundedness
cot/caught - not merged; typical East Coast distinction
Mary/merry/marry - not merged; typical East Coast distinction
lot/cloth - not split; they have the same vowel
tube/cube - these rhyme when I say them... And the vowel is the one found in "cube" in Californian pronunciation; it's a diphthong, it sounds nothing like "you".

A number of these characteristics my not sound odd, but keep in mind that no one else in California speaks this way! (Including Aspies whom I've met.)

I am a native Texan (at least 5th generation) living in the Texas Hill Country, and have an accent typical of someone from the Rust Belt (Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, western Pennsylvania, or western New York). That is weird because I have never been to that part of the country.

My parents don't have accents either. My ancestors from my Mom's side were from the area where Missouri, Oklahoma, and Arkansas meet. My dad's ancestors were concentrated in north Texas, between Fort Worth and Wichita Falls (in fact, the town of Boyd, in Wise County, was supposedly named after my ancestors--Boyd is my last name). They were a very powerful family in Montague and Wise counties.

I grew up in urban New Jersey.

As I grew up, and moved away, I fought to lose the Jersey accent.

Then I started traveling with a British company and I discovered that I mimic.

Now...I have a strange accent. It changes depending on who I talk to. My kids crack up when I get on the phone with the old friends from Jersey.

I'm from Yorkshire in England. I have a strong Yorkshire accent but have been mistaken for an American on a few occasions, in social and stressful situations, when I speak differently. My inner monologue is American and I write in an American accent. I put this down to, like the typical AS girl, closely studying American TV as a kid (and even now) to figure out how to behave.

Aut prosody topic

When a spoken sentence ends with a word containing the letter 'o' as the last letter in the word, the sound comes out as "aw" when I am upset. Examples are: Go=Gaw and No=Naw

Eh, up! 'appen, tha knows!

How's that? Heh heh!

Well, I'm American, and grew up mostly in northern California, so I probably just sound generically "American". However, my husband is from England (Chester) and most of what we watch on TV is British, from Netflix, because American TV just isn't very good. I've pretty much gotten so a Manchester or Liverpool accent is hardly noticeable, but if I hear something like a Boston or New York accent, it sounds harsh and abrasive. I also notice that a lot of times when English people try to do an American accent, they end up sounding like John Wayne, or the guys from the old Thunderbirds shows. I've never known any real Americans who sound like that.

There's one thing that drives me nuts about "American accents", and I know this is silly. But, in my kid's school textbooks, they write out how to pronounce certain vocabulary words. American English has this sound that we call the "shwa". It's the unemphasized "uh" that so many vowels get. For instance, in my kid's book, "philosophers" is given the pronunciation, "fuh-LAH-suh-fuhrs." I know that we tend to get kind of lazy with the vowels, but it irks me that that's given as the correct pronunciation. It shouldn't bother me, though. Language is dynamic, and you can't keep it from changing. But still.... I suppose a English school child's textbook wouldn't have all that "uh" in the pronunciation guide for every word.

I'm actually not sure if I say all those "uh's" so much. Perhaps I do. 'appen. I think I at least attempt to enunciate things clearly, but I do tend to take on the accent of the person I'm talking to, at least a little bit.


BTW, I can't help but find it a bit amusing that someone would watch American TV to find out how to behave.

Slightly off topic.

I can't recognise other accents apart from Liverpool and Birmingham !

I've been told I've picked up a slight British accent, people who seem to know more claim it sounds London-y. Is that a word?

The odd thing is, I'm from Nevada, Mum and father are from Cali, and grandparents are from Cali, Minnesota, and Oklahoma. The accent gets a bit more pronounced around anyone with a different accent, such as Australians or Brits, takes some time to fade away again. It's been spoken of since middle school, and I grew up in a VERY tiny introverted town, with no Brits to speak of. Where it came from, I'll never know.

I once Skype chatted with some friends in NSW, and over the course of an hour, one noticed I went from sounding slightly British to sounding like a native Ozzie. Was weird.

I can probably tell what part of Texas someone is from based on the way they talk. The stereotypical Southern nobility accent (like the ones in the old Civil War movies) is more synonymous with the eastern part of the state, in cities like Longview, Tyler, Nacogdoches, Lufkin, etc. It's called "Plantation Southern". Then there is the famous Texas twangy accent, synonymous with north Texas and the Hill Country (Dallas-Ft. Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Waco, Wichita Falls, Abilene, etc.) The dividing line is along a line from Victoria, to Bryan-College Station, to Palestine, to Texarkana.

Some people in the area between Houston and Beaumont/Port Arthur have the Cajun accent.

West Texans (El Paso, Midland/Odessa, Lubbock, etc.) tend to not have accents.

Even among the Hispanic population, I can tell by their accents of they're from Mexico, Puerto Rico, South America, etc.

I've got a pretty strong Yorkshire accent which is normal for where I live, but something I noticed is that people who I think have got aspergers in real life don't really seem to have an accent and i've never worked out if it was Aspergers or just a coincidence.

I don't talk any differently to anyone else. I sound like a typical Essex girl - which I am.

For the people that feel they change their accents depending on with whom they talk:
Communication Accommodation Theory...click here
we learned about that in linguistics class.... you do it so that the person you talk to feels more comfortable. My mom will talk very southern when she talks to older people from the south. Hahah She is Northern.


Anyhow. My family moved to the south when I was 9. My siblings have adapted the accent around here and I remain with my odd accent. People here say that I enunciate and talk quickly versus shortening up the word. For example "What are you doing?" and "Whuh are ya doin'?"

It may have to do with an aspie's rigid view on grammar and pronunciation in speech...if that's your sort of thing....which it is mine.

For instance improper use of the subjunctive mood. (Really common in southern English)
People will say, "I wish I was there!! I really miss you today."
When in all actuality you should say, "I wish I were there! I really miss you today."
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

East Texans have their own accent. It's likea Texas accent meets Scarlett O'Hara. I lived in the Galveston/Houston area for over 20 years, and had East Texans explain to me the distinction of an East Texan accent. If they come from an area where Cajuns settled it will be influenced by the Cajun accent, but an actual French Cajun accent is quite distinct. Cajuns are a dwindling minority in East Texas, so a true cajun accent isn't common. An East Texan accent can vary when the speaker is black or Hispanic, reflecting Southern Afro-American and Chicano influence respectively.

I currently live in El Paso. People here have accents (technically, no one can not have ana accent). White West Texan have more of the stereotypical Texas "Wild West" accent. Sometimes it can be so strong you think the person is joking. Hispanic West Texans will have a varying mix of Chicano (Latino American) and Mexican accents, but there are other Latino accents that you'll hear here too. There's even differnt regional accents within Mexico. Because I am in El Paso, I hear a lot of Chichuahua accents, so when I hear an accent from another part of mexico, it really stands out.

I'm originally from Southern California. That's my accent, with some Aspie-ism thrown in, like words that start with vowels which I tend to pronounce a little oddly. My biggest problem is where to put the stress in a multisylabic words. I have only picked up a few Texanism, like the drawn "r" but it's not consistant. I do it mostly when I'm being sacristic and what to sound more like a Texan. But considering I've lived in Texas for so long, I barely have picked up anything. When I was in Canada recently, people would ask me "How come you don't talk like a Texan?"

It's actually difficult from me to learn to speaking differently and it's been a challenge for me when learning other langauges. I can read French and German pretty well, but my pronunciation is pretty poor unless I listen to a native speaker right before I speak. I can usually mimick a native speaker on the spot, thanks to my eidetic memory, but I have trouble incorporating new sounds and speech patterns long-term. When I learn a new langauge, I have to practice a lot at pronunciation to learn it, and even then I can forget it easily.

THIS is hilarious... I am American and people always wonder what part of Austrailia I am from.

Yes. This has been a mystery my whole life why people ask me about my accent. Hmmmm....

When I could hear better I was great at dialects and I tended to pick up the dialect (accent) of people with whom I was in close contact.

Now I just sound like the boy from the Bronx that I was born as.

ruveyn