asperger's and accents

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I think that my accent is pretty much standard American with some subtle regional features. A few people have told me I have a slight New York accent. I've been told that by someone from Minnesota, someone from California, someone from England, and someone from New Zealand. No one who's actually from near New York has told me that I have a New York accent. Some people have even said that I *don't* have a New York accent. I was born and raised in New York.
My dad was born in Massachusetts, spent a portion of his childhood in Connecticut, and attended college at Boston University. I attended college in Vermont for four years. Thus, I wouldn't be surprised if a little bit of New England slips into my speech every now and then. I suspect that my accent and manner of speaking varies depending on to whom I'm speaking, and this makes it difficult to pinpoint my exact accent.

Thats how the Dutch Africaneers talk.

The English decent South Africans speak in a vaguely british/new zealand/aussie sounding dialect not unlike your own.

both of your are interesting cases!

Ive heard of something called "foriegn dialect disorder"(something like that). Native born americans who get head injuries and suddenly start to speak in a "dailect" that happens to sound like say a Russian dialect or the speech of some other national group that the person has no ethnic connection wih.

I dunno. Maybe aspergers can be like one of these brain/head injuries.

yes, me too. i often get asked where im from too...

the shrink who dx'd me had never heard of this, but ive read of it several times before.
i pick up accents- and sometimes verbal nuances, even stutters(! !!)- sometimes wholly, sometimes partially. its immensly embaressing- i used to think it was because i was so desperate to be accepted by others- some type of mirroring behaviour- but i think its more to do with messed up cognative and auditory processing.
id also add that im interested in speech patterns, linguistics, accents etc generally-so perhaps have an added predisposition for this.

I thinks its not uncommon for people (NT or aspie or whatever) to spontaneously start speaking in the accent of someone theyre talking to. A teacher I had in highschool took a poll of the class to see howmany did that - and a number(including the teacher herself) raised their hands.
I did that as a kid but kinda out grew it in my mid teens.

When I was 14 our family was staying at a motel on a cross country trip. An attractive young lady my age who's family happened to be lodging at the same place went out of her way to talk to me at the swiming pool. She spoke in deep twangy texas dialect. When I replied the same dialect just spontaneouly popped out of my own mouth - I was shocked at myself, and I had to suppress it to speak my normal mid atlantic dialect. I suppressed it because I was afraid the girl would think I was mocking her. Nothing like that has ever happened since.

I grew up in the midwestern US and as a kid was always told that I had a 'Boston accent'. I worked hard to try to make my speech patterns more like everyone else around here and I think I've succeeded because I never hear this anymore. Some very different pronunciations like drawing out words that start with 'wh' more like they were spelled 'hw' which seemed to confuse and/or amuse people. I finally started pronouncing 'white' as though it was spelled 'wite'. Also some chopping of words and sort of running them together.

Ya, it changes and mixes itself up. It depends on what tone I'm speaking, how quickly, and how comfortable I am talking with whoever I'm talking.

Sounds like normal speech to me. Im from the washington dc area.

I've been thought of as being American, British and Australian.... although i'm not from an English-speaking country (Denmark)...

From since I was small I was brought up speaking a regional dialect of Danish called something to the tune of Southern Jutlandish (Sønderjysk) which is grammatically similar to English, but also spoken quite fluently and fast compared to other Danish dialects...

As I grew up and started learning English, it was mostly from TV, thus I got more or less of an American accent, but enough to be considered an American when I moved to Australia in '99 even though I have never been to the US . As time went on and I was exposed to Australian accents every day at school, my accent started to change into the standard Australian accent you hear everywhere down there

As for the British accent... well I dunno how I picked up that one, I guess from TV and teachers (had a British English teacher in 10th grade)... I usually speak with a British accent when joking...

Mostly though, I speak with a mix of American and Australian accents...

Yes! Wow!
My whole life I've had a weird accent that noone's ever been able to determine, most people think it's either Polish or Irish.
And I have a habit of very quickly and unintentionally picking up the accent and mannerisms of anyone I observe or hold a conversation with.
I've only recently found out that I have Asperger's so this is revelatory.

I have the accent of center Italy (though i always lived and i still live in north Italy).
Last days i've seen and interview of a person that live in center italy, and it seemed to hear myself speaking.
When i went to school teacher asked me if i was from Tuscany because of my tuscan accent. Some people though i was french because of my way to pronunce the letter R.

I have a rather posh Dublin accent (posh irish is reminicent of american californian accent to me), though I grew up and live in a very working class area with strong working class accents, I used to get teased cause I had an out of place accent they'll use anything against you.

My accent changes an awful lot.

I usually fake a Canadian accent though. So people will understand me better. Even with that I have a very noticable accent within that accent.

I'm from the North East of the UK, so I should sound Gordie, but I sound like I'm from oxford or something I really don't like my accent, it makes me sound like a posh prick lol.

I speak high German without any accent, even though my parents both have a small but distinct Berlin dialect. I can speak most german dialects with ease, and could even fool native speakers of that accent into believing I was also. Like I already wrote in another thread, languages and especially dialects come rather easy to me. My default accent when speaking English is definitely British, allthough I can speak English with a wide array of faked accents like Japanese, Indian or French.

Hopefully this should work.

My Accent <- Click to download sound file.