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What region of the country does this guy sound like he's from? I gotta admit I am stumped. Sounds maybe Midland* of some kind to me. But, I honestly have no clue. Weirdest accent I've ever heard.
*By Midland I mean the dialect families spanning from the Mid-Atlantic (Pennsylvania, NJ, Delaware, Northern Maryland), going west to Central Ohio, most of Indiana and Illinois, and the lower Midwest and parts of New Mexico.
Also to clear up, I am going with the linguist definiton of "Northern" meaning New England, all of New York, the Great Lakes area, and the Upper Midwest. Some Census designated Northern cities like Philly, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Omaha are not included because they are in the transitional Midland dialect zone where language is neither Northern or Southern
Last edited by EddieOlSkool; 04-01-2015 at 08:12 AM..
I am going with Northern, and specifically the southern Great Lakes area. Northern Ohio, Indiana or even Chicago area. Possibly extreme southern portions of Michigan. However he lacks the upper Midwest sound one finds if you go north of Detroit or Chicago, so no further north than that.
I am going with Northern, and specifically the southern Great Lakes area. Northern Ohio, Indiana or even Chicago area. Possibly extreme southern portions of Michigan. However he lacks the upper Midwest sound one finds if you go north of Detroit or Chicago, so no further north than that.
Really? I don't hear a shred of the real nasal way of talking Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Rochester have. Also I'm not sure I ever heard Upper Midwest English spoken in the Lower Peninsula, and I've been as far north as Traverse City and Mackinac City.
Here is one dialect map that places most of the Lower Peninsula in the "Chicago Accent" territory:
Another map that places all of the Lower Peninsula in the Inland North Region:
Anyway, back on topic about the video specifically. I wonder why I can't place it. He definitely doesn't sound like anyone in Chicago or Michigan I've known. When I think of Great Lakes sounding people, I think of Joan Cusack, the Belushis, Dennis Farina, and young John Goodman. I don't think he sounds anything like them. Northern Cities vowels are weird. Especially short vowels. A becomes "eea", E becomes "u" (like the u in "but"), I becomes "E" (bit sounds like bet), O becomes a broad A (like the way a Bostonian pronounces it in "pahk ya cah"), and U becomes something like an "O" sound in General American so that but sounds like bought. I don't think he speaks like that with those odd vowels but I will listen again. A tell tale sign for the Inland North Accent is rhyming "on" with "don" but not with "dawn". He rhymes it with "dawn" which is not typical in that area.
Last edited by EddieOlSkool; 04-01-2015 at 03:48 PM..
I said possibly Michigan and far southern Michigan if it is Michigan, but more likely northern Ohio or Indiana. That is just my opinion, as the accent is not from the northeast and its definitely not from the south. It also does not sound Canadian either. It doesn't sound like the accents out west either, but I really don't know western accents that well.
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