Do Californians have an accent? (live in, bill, pay)

[BacktoBlue]

I know this could be posted in the CA forum but I wanted to post this here to see what people residing in other states think.

Whenever I go out of state, people usually ask if I'm from California. I am. They tell me they could tell by the way I talk. I never thought we had a native accent in California. Do you think Californians have an accent? If so what makes it noticeable when we visit your state?

[mccarley]

If the South has an accent, then Calif. can have one also.

[BacktoBlue]

Ok but what is it about our "accent" that people know we're from California?

[LuckyGem]

The inflection in our speech where when you say something everything sounds like a question because the pitch goes up at the end instead of down.

It's that Mexican-Spanish language influence we have in California.

It's pretty noticeable in southern California where I am.

Here's some humor about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FtEL38LDlI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TV-G...eature=related

[grapico]

I don't think there is a certain accent. But there definitely is a distinct vocabulary, and when somebody uses certain words, I can peg them from California.

[LuckyGem]

Dude!

[grapico]

Originally Posted by LuckyGem

Dude!

Don't think you can peg it with stuff from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Bogus Journey, nor Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

[Westerner92]

Many Californians have a fairly neutral accent (there's no such thing as having no accent), but some have an identifiable accent. I can't really describe it. Maybe part of it is the persona many of them have.

[eek]

the over pronunciation of r's...and the "surfer" sound. sorry, i don't know how else to put it.

i can tell if a person is from cali by listening to them.

also, my ex gf would use the following in a sentence:

hella
exhausting
dude

for example:

"dude, you'Re hella exhausting."

[BacktoBlue]

Originally Posted by LuckyGem

The inflection in our speech where when you say something everything sounds like a question because the pitch goes up at the end instead of down.

It's that Mexican-Spanish language influence we have in California.

It's pretty noticeable in southern California where I am.

Here's some humor about it:

HAHA That was funny!

I actually live in SoCal in San Diego and I guess I never noticed it because I don't like pay attention to the way someone talks most of the time you know?