Aspergers & Accents

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I'm American, but sometimes I sound as though I'm English, especially when I'm singing.

Well, that is something I have said all my life: Americans sound British when they sing, and Brits sound American when they sing.

I have a slight London accent which is good for where I live but before I used to live in Jersey and when I lived there I had no hint of a Jersey accent but I did start talking a bit in a Jersey accent when I first moved to Kent but it didn't last very long but in a place like Jersey you will find that with an accent like a London accent you accused of being common.

I have a very slight Scouse accent, but according to Dad it's so faint that compared to everyone else around here I sound practically accentless. My accent seems to have changed over time though; when I was younger I had more of a Cheshire accent, and for a while a colonial accent. I was also mistaken for American a couple of times in school, and recently was mistaken for German while on holiday. ;^^

I spent ten years in Oklahoma before we moved to North Carolina, where I spent the next 13 years. I have neither accent. I worked in a gas station for about 6 months, interacting with all sorts of clientele, and the question that I got asked most frequently was whether or not I was from the North. In that south, that often can be an insult, so I always made sure to reply indignantly with a big "NO!"

I grew up in the south in America and never got the southern accent. I've also been around others from Germany and my accent changed to theirs in the middle of a convo and felt
when others pointed it out.

Well I always wanted to know if the Boston accent was accurately portrayed by the Winchester character in the M*A*S*H TV show.
A silly thing to ask I know.
But I always found that Winchester's accent was unique among the American accents and it sometimes sounded Australian in the way certain words were pronounced.
For instance the word "Charges" would be pronounced with certain a flatness on the "r" that sounded very Australian.
The guy that played Winchester (David Ogden Stiers) has a totally different accent to his character.

Of course, Winchester’s voice could very well be a gross over exaggeration used for entertainment purposes.
Take the Australian show "Kingswood Country" for an example of over exaggeration of an Aussie accent.

Anyway, have they finished the "Big Dig" over there in Boston?
I heard on the Discovery Channel maybe 5 years ago (and it was probably old then) that there was a major capital works project involving the construction of freeways and other major roads under the central business district of Boston itself.
As far as I can recall the project started decades ago and was still underway into the early 21st century. This is obviously because a project of this magnitude is bound to take a long time to finish especially when you consider how careful you have to be when tunnelling under skyscrapers and the like.

BTW
I work for the Government in roads infrastructure so I find stuff like this terribly interesting.
Here in Perth we recently finished tunning under our central business district as part of a railway extension from Perth to Mandurah. (riveting stuff I know. ha-ha)

When I first read about AS, it was English kids talking with american accents. Then I heard about American kids with British accents! My AS son is a whiz at accents, especially Britsh (he LOVES Brian Jaques) And my husband too, (Long Island NY born & bred) is often accused of being from Canada. (He once had a scotsman covinced he was a native born highlander!)

Personally, I'm from the midwest, which is considered pretty much accent-less. I pick up accents very quickly. I can imitate just about anything I hear! After I moved to N Carolina, (where I thought at first they were all faking it, it was soooo thick), I picked up a southern drawl, which still lingers here in south florida.
But lately I've noticed certain odd vowels slipping out with out my even trying. Like I find myself saying "clahss"for "class", or hay-ad" for had, or caahfee". My husband insists it's my "Chicahgo" accent returning.

My theory, based on how I was as a kid, is that talking to people as ourselves is too painful, so we "put on" an accent, like having someone else talk for us. I still do this when I'm upset or nervous. (I revert to third person, childlike talk when discussing painful memories with my husband). I think that's also why we love to quote movies and such to express ourselves when we don't have words of our own. T(hen people think we're really weird if they don't fet the reference )

I know all my cats' different "accents" too. I can tell which of my cats is "talking" without even looking at them. Prince has a loud, typically Siamese voice. Paul sounds like a baby crying. Peter has a small, timid voice. Puffy has an insistent tone of voice. Samantha, my first Siamese, had the loudest voice of any cat I ever knew.

Agent80s that accent is such a sterio-type Ive been to Boston quite a few times before, Im barely two hours away from it.

No, there is a very distinctive Bostonian accent, but not everyone seems to have it. My brother's godfather, for instance, has a very noticeable Boston accent. Possibly it only exists in certain parts of the city? I used to think that it was only the older generation (ex. 50 and above) that had it, until I heard some teens on the train into NYC with Boston accents as well. My guess that they were from Boston was confirmed in the course of the conversation they were having with some local kids. I've never seen MASH though, so I don't know how accurate the portrayal was.

Ah so Winchester's accent is a bit over the top. Kinda thought it might be.
The thought of anyone from Boston referring to one of their best Universities as "Haarvarrd" (like Winchester) does seem a bit far-fetched.

BTW
LostInSpace: The cat in your avatar looks almost exactly the same as my cat!
Would it be racist to say that all tabbies look alike.

This topic is interesting because I have always wondered why I still have a bit of a British accent. People accuse me of doing it in on purpose to get attention, etc. My younger sister and brother do not have a British accent. They don't understand how I can still remember how to talk with the accent because I left England when I was 7.

I'm so confused on why I do this. I don't mean to do it. I don't know that I'm doing it until someone points it out to me. I sometimes find that I can't pronounce a lot of words properly unless I say it with a British accent.

Are there any theories on why we do this?

I think the British accent is a result of a need to speak clearly.
Growing up completely unaware of Aspergers Syndrome, I natural assumed everyone put as much emphasis on words as I did.
So assuming that everyone was as prone to misinterpretation others (as I was), I spoke clear unaccented, unabridged English such as you would hear on a "Learn To Speak English" cassette.
It seems to me that a neurotypical is capable of communicating not just in verbal meaning of words sense but in a combination of verbal, body language, tonal control, situation (or contextual) implied meaning, ect (although Aspies aren’t totally un-proficient in these types).
Thus, it seems to me that with the various facets of non-verbal communication it isn’t necessary for a neurotypical to have a perfect, textbook accent to convey verbal meaning.

When I look at other members of the animal kingdom such as dogs, cats ect.
They don’t have a language as we do and yet they can communicate with each other and even socialise.
My best guess is that as humans, we have evolved to become more reliant on our direct language based communication then implied or sensed meaning.
As our intelligence improved, we became more concerned with details and details are very difficult to convey without a language.
Bees for example use pheromones for basic communication but if one bee wants to tell all the others the exact location of (for example) a tree, they use a kind of dance-based language combined with buzzing of a certain frequency.
I do not know the specifics of bee body language but I know that it is a transfer of meaning in a direct, literal sense (hence a language).

lol My friends and I were just having this conversation on the bus on Wednesday! One girl who has never ridden our bus before asked me if I was always that proper. I said for the most part, yes. lol She couldn't even believe I was originally from Houston, too (since I have no southern accent). I don't really sound like the Hoosiers here either though. A lot of people actually say I sound Californian and I'm unusually proper for my age, even though I do often use teenage slang.

I have an accent. I have been talking like this since I was six. I sounded totally different when I was five couldn't believe that was me talking but I was very hard to understand because I didn't speak correctly.


People think I am from somewhere else like from the east. Some think England, and some think Australia.


Could it be my condition or me being deaf. Doctors say it's both.