Hidden accents. This subject is something that I have always found to be sort of interesting.


So what is a hidden accent? Generally, it's an accent that comes out in your speech under what I believe to be unconventional circumstances. The most common form of hidden accent seems to be among the drunk population. A lot of heavy drinkers seem to admit that they gain an accent when they drink - not slurring, but an actual accent.. Or at least some sort of noise that resembles one! I know one person who does take on a sort of English accent when he drinks a lot. It's subtle, but it's definitely there.

I personally believe that it has to do with genetics and heritage. Take me for example. I'm completely Canadian, and I suppose I speak with an English Canadian accent. I barely even know a lick of French and I don't like trying to speak the language, but.. When I am at work (like I am now), an accent can come out of me. It usually only comes out in one or two syllables, but it definitely happens. I don't know if it is French or what, but when I have to make a page over the intercom or communicate with someone over the radio, I tend to try and speak VERY precisely. As a result, well, my mannerisms change slightly and the way some words come out really don't sound like they're coming from an English Canadian.

Take the call over the radio that I just made as an example. I had to get in contact with someone named Mary, and when I called for her, out came something that sounded like "Mah Yee?"

When I must page someone over the intercom to call a certain telephone number, sometimes the numbers that I say will have a slight accent. For example, sometimes three will come out like "ta ree" and I'll roll the R a little bit. This happens almost EVERY single time I say "three" over the intercom.

A few months ago, I climbed into a cab and told the driver where I needed to go. He asked where I was from, where I grew up! I told him that I was from around here, which made him wonder why I apparently had a German accent. I don't know what could have possibly come out of my mouth to make him think that, and as far I as I know there isn't even an ounce of German in me. Just mixes of Scottish, French, and some Russian somewhere far down the line.


So yeah, I've always found this to be sort of interesting how these accents just spontaneously emerge from people, moreso as they get older.


Do any of you guys have any strange accents hiding deep inside of yourselves? What does it resemble? When does it come out and how frequently does it happen?

My accent depends solely on who I'm around.  If I'm around people with a Kentucky accent, it just COMES OUT OF ME.  It's not as bad as theirs usually, but I still tend to speak with more of that kind of accent.  But, if I'm not around people with a Kentucky accent, I don't have one at all (except for maybe dropping a g here and there, but even that isn't very common).

when i go up to yorkshire i used to just pretend to do the accent but now i seem to do it accidentally. its pretty funny because i'm the only one that notices, even though i've got a really 'normal' accent normally.

I don't have a hidden accent per say, but my accent has been directly influenced by where I live. Right now I've got a southern Ontario/southern Michigan thing going, which makes for fun times; people in Michigan think I'm a transplant from Ontario while people in Ontario think I'm a transplant from Michigan (the latter is the truth). If I make the conscious effort, I can go back to the Eminem-style Michigan drawl but I'm not bothered enough to care.

the Irish and Scottish bits go a bit more pronounced I guess but my accent is fairly inexplicable anyway.

I don't think its hereditary, I think you just pick it up from hearing it. Like if you hang around an englishman or german or french dude enough or watch enough movies with them it just rubs off on you.

Look how language works, since we were kids we picked it up audibly from our parents or whoever and depending on where they were from you could even pick up an accent.

And no I've got no strange hidden accents that I know of.

when I'm drunk I become very very coherent and speak extremely slowly, which is markedly different from my normal speaking voice, in which I talk extremely fast, and often slur my words.


but back to the question, when I'm around my moms family I get a bit of an accent, and when I went down to Jamaica (I didn't go to the beaches, I went around the more slummier parts as  humanitarian thing) for a few weeks I started to develop a bit of a Jamaican accent towards the end

I have a couple of accents I tend to play around with occasionally. They're probably not hidden though, but they tend to come in a more mish-mash when I'm tired or drunk and talkative. One is the West Uusimaa local dialect with a lot of repetition and fast talk (my standard accent is West Uusimaa without the repetition and fast talk). Another winner tend to be the Ostrobothnia accent which is heavily faked since it's a mishmash of different Ostrobthnia accents but is usually a bit slower and with a completely different mode of speech. When combining the two it becomes strangeness.

In English I do tend to go toward the hard English when I've warmed up my English skills (first couple of words are usually standard "Bad English from the Nordic Countries"). Always dropping the "th" sounds for a strong "t" (so Third always becomes Turd) as well as strong Rs (so Third not only becomes Turd but TuRRRRd). And after watching som TV I've come to love the strong G in ng (I don't know what English accent it is that does it but I love it. So Boring becomes BorinGG. Or actually BoRRinGG).

And for all the words I don't know how to pronounce I just do with the old Russian accent. Unfortunately I don't speak nearly as much English as I should since if nothing else it's probably jolly good to listen to.

Yeah, every once in a while, I'll bust out a couple of words with a totally Mexican or Vato-ish accent and I'll feel like quite the douche bag afterwards.  I'm not even Mexican.

Must be because I end up around South Central, LA too often.

i've got quite a strong american accent or so i'm told but yeah i'm an asshole everynow and then especially when i'm drunk (it sounds like this is what you're asking)

I talk proper, and I tend to say names totally different from the original meanings. Like, "Dark Falz" I say "Dark Flass", or "Vol Opt" I actually say "Val Optmore" >.> don't ask.

I've only been drunk once in my life because I don't like alcohol, but apparently I talk too fast according to a close friend... and  when I did  it was with a southern accent.

I am starting to subconsciously develop an Australian accent.

A friend of mine had a really bad sort of high pitched southern drawl that only came out under duress. He called me to come pick him up when his car died on him one time and I didn't even recognize his voice at first.

Personally I don't have much of an accent at all, but I tend to slightly adopt the speech patterns of people around me. There are stories from when I drank though, that I'd bust out with Gaelic, Chinese (I was trying to learn both at the time), a brogue, and a New Orleans drawl with some regularity.  Also, from dating a couple Hispanic girls in a row I picked something up where for a while whenever I started to argue with anyone (or when I was annoyed in traffic), it came out in this rapid fire Spanish/Spanglish. (Which is bad in and of itself... having some jerk with a natural skin tone akin to that of , say, Julianne Moore, in the dead of a nuclear winter, yelling in Spanish just seemed incorrect somehow)

Of course, I tend to do silly stuff with fake accents on purpose from time to time. One night a friend and I performed a comical reading of the history of Joseph Smith's final/fatal gunfight... for my friend's Mormon roommate, using a wide variety of accents and dialects before we both somehow got stuck on the Aunt Nelda voice from the Ernest movies. "Back in my day when a man jumped out of a second story window and broke both his legs we didn't call him a prophet, we called him the village idiot, or for short, my son Izzy...."

When I get  drunk I learn to speak Russian (I think)...