Life

Woman Does Regional Accents From All Over The US

by Lara Rutherford-Morrison

When people find out that I’m from Texas, the first response I get is often, “But you don’t have an accent!”, as if I’m trying to dupe them or something. And I always think, “Of course I have an accent. It’s just doesn’t fulfill the stereotype of ‘Texan’ that you have in your head.” So I appreciate that in this video about regional American accents, actress, singer, and accent-chameleon Amy Walker points out that the U.S. is a huge, diverse place where everyone speaks differently. She explains, “No two accents sound the same, even if they’re from the same city.” Walker made waves on the Internet back in 2008, when a video of her performing 21 different world accents went viral. In this video, she sticks to the U.S., demonstrating regional accents from areas across the country, from New York City, to the Midwest, to the Deep South.

One thing that’s fun about this video is that Walker associates different accents with the geography and lifestyles of different regions. For example, she suggests that the New York accent hinges on people’s need to “announce [their] space” in crowded areas, and that in the Midwest, the “wide, flat” tone of many people’s accents echoes the “wide, flat” landscape. Her body language also shifts dramatically as she takes on different accents, as if the accent carries with it a whole personality. Can you guess where she's "from" in this clip?

Check out Walker’s YouTube channel to see her other accent-related videos, including tutorials about how to do different accents on your own. (Because you never know when you’ll need to adopt a new identity, right?)

Images: YouTube (2)