Aspergers & Accents

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I have a fairly typical Upper-Midwestern "Fargo" accent. I round my long Os (so Minnesota becomes "Minnes-OH-ta,") and if I am talking quickly I occasionally turn my voiced th into a d (the becomes da) and my unvoiced th sounds like a t (thirds becomes terds). I usually say "yah" instead of "yeah," I pronounce the a in "bag" the same as the a in "flag", not like the a in "back." I also use the typical upper-Midwestern stock phrases like "uff da," "dontcha know," and "yah sure, you betcha."

My accent (and the whole way I talk) varies depending on my mood, the situation & who I am talkng to.

My "natural" accent is well-spoken but not posh (strange because most of my family & friends when I was growing up had a regional accent).

But I am equally at home with "common" (when I am angry & trying to be rude I revert to pure "Grange Hill" - a British TV show about London schoolkids for anyone who doean't know it).

I will always try & talk to people in their own "language" i.e. use teenage expressions when talking to teenagers -e.g. "innit", American idioms when talking to Americans, or Asian-English when talking to Asians - "yeah, yeah" & "right", or a Northern inflection when talking to Northerners.

I probably come across as being really weird when I do this as it is so unlike the way I would normally talk. I am probably trying to use it in the way most NT's use body language - to try & fit in. Sad, eh?

People ask me where I'm from a lot, apparently I "talk funny". I'm from SE Wisconsin and I can hear it in my speech, but there are "Wisconsin accents" much heavier than mine. I've been told I sound like I have an accent (foreign) by a lot of people around here though, so I guess I do talk funny. Oh, well.

this must come up a lot, because this is the 3rd post I've seen on it..

When I speak a foreign language, especially with my parents, I notice that my accent is not similar to my parent's dialect. They're always criticizing my pronunciations (e.g. you dropped a letter, you lisped this word, your H's are more fricative, you softened this letter, you used a word that isn't spoken where we're from). I don't even understand why because it doesn't happen when I speak english (the lisp, etc). I guess I picked it up from too many movies/music.

I also find that I copy people's accent subconsciously as well.


OT: I like speaking in an Iranian accent, it's funny. Hindustani as well.