Forevernuts wrote:
I suppose this mainly applies to people in the U.S (and Canada I guess) as not many countries have as many dramatically different regional accents as the United States.
Disagreed. Lots of countries, my own included, have vastly different regional accents that go well beyond mutual comprehension if they're broad, even when these countries are much smaller geographically (and usually in population too) than the US.
Old countries where the population has mostly stuck around in the same area have tended to develop this way. Rapid travel and communications have caused a trend of accents and dialects gradually converging towards the most influential standard (often the capital city region), but this is a comparatively recent event. Before that there was lots of time for accents to develop while travel and communication were slow and expensive. The US is different as it was settled by umpteen different ethnic groups that have been mixed up most everywhere, if differently, and the country as we know it hasn't been around for all that long. Some degree of convergence was necessary from the start, and the advent of rapid travel, communications, and expectations that people move long distances as needed for employment, came comparatively soon.
I can certainly perceive differences from region to region in the US, but they don't appear that vast by comparison to various European countries. The one notable exception I can recall is New Yorkers can be difficult for me to understand.
Forevernuts wrote:
I'm wondering if lacking a regional accent compared to the rest of your family/community is A.S related, because I've always had less of a dialect compared to most people where I live (there's a strong dialect here, I won't tell you which one lol). Does anyone find this too?
I've heard that mentioned before, and witnessed it personally, though I don't think it's true of me. I'm provincial but moved to the capital region in my mid-20s, so my accent has flattened a fair bit. A trained ear can still perceive traces of my home accent quite well, and it tends to go right back to its original state when I'm talking to people from my home region.