Regional accents of English

Regional accents of English speakers describes the many identifiable variations pronunciation of the English language in various populations.

Among native English speakers, many different accents exist. Some regional accents are easily identified by certain characteristics. It should be noted that further variations are to be found within the regions identified below; for example, towns located less than 10 miles from the city of Manchester such as Bolton, Salford and Oldham, each have distinct accents, all of them a form of the Lancashire accent, yet in extreme cases different enough to be noticed by a non-local listener.

Non-native speakers of the English language tend to carry the intonation, accent or pronunciation from their mother tongue into their English speech. For more details see Non-native pronunciations of English. This page now looks only at variations in the speech of native English speakers.

Countries and Regions (in alphabetical order)

Australia

(See also Australian English)

The Australian accent varies between social classes and is sometimes claimed to vary from state to state, though this is disputed. Accents tend to be strongest in the more remote areas. (Note that while there are many similarities between Australian accents and New Zealand ones, there are also a number of differences.) The following are some Australian characteristics:

The Australian vowel system is quite different from that of other dialects. Other standard dialects have tense vowels, lax vowels, and diphthongs. Australian English on the other hand has turned most of the tense vowels into diphthongs, and turned some of what are diphthongs in Received Pronunciation into long vowels, thus replacing the tense-lax distinction (one of quality) with a long-short distinction (one of quantity). The table below shows these.

Vowels are changed in pronunciation as follows:

Australian Vowel Pronunciation in SAMPA
Australian	Received Pronunciation	Examples
@i/Ii	i:	see
{I	eI	day
AI	aI	my
VU	@U	no
{U	aU	now
1}	u:	soon,through
e:	e@	there
a	V	but
a:	A:	fast, car

Additionally, the vowels are generally pronounced higher up in the mouth than their English counterparts; [I@] (beard) is often pronounced as [I:] when followed by a consonant; /3:/ (bird) takes on a fronter, more rounded quality; /{/ (bat) has split into two distinct phonemes, so that whereas dad, can (I can do it), bat have a short vowel, bad, can (tin can), pal have a long one.
'gone' takes on a peculiar quality: whereas all other /O:/ (born, saw) became [o:], and all /Q/ (hot) became [O], gone stayed as [O:].
In Victoria, a short e before l is pronounced as a short a, so that celery and salary are homonyms.
The /l/ sound in "Australia" may be elided; it becomes "Austray-yah".
In eastern mainland Australian states, "pool" and "school" are sometimes pronounced "schoo-el" and "poo-el" whereas in other states the sound is more akin to "pull".
See regional accents in Australia for more information.

Reference: Listen to various Australian actors, singers and native speakers. Internationally known actors Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman speak in their natural Australian accents when not acting in roles as non-Australians.

Canada

Canadian accents vary widely across the country, and the accent of a particular region is often closer to neighbouring parts of the United States. Nevertheless, there are some characteristics that exist across the country, in varying degrees, such as Canadian raising. Canadian actors and announcers used to speak with a Mid-Atlantic accent, similar to that formerly used by actors and announcers in the United States. An example of this is the actor Christopher Plummer.

Regional variations include:

British Columbia

/aI/ diphthong pronounced /^I/

Cape Breton Island

Cape Breton Island has a distinct dialect due to settlement by speakers of Acadian French and Scottish Gaelic

Maritimes

loss of non-prevocalic r
faster speech tempo
use of "Eh?" interrogative

Newfoundland

Newfoundland English is a distinct dialect of the language with its own pronunciation and vocabulary. Please reference that article for more information.

Ontario and Quebec

subtle Canadian raising, although in Ontario it is often quite strong
in southwestern Ontario (especially rural areas), some speakers also have aspects of the Midwestern US accent, e.g. "not" sounds like "naht" (/nOt/ --> [nat]), combined with Canadian raising (see USA below).
accent is slightly modified to signify sarcasm: "not" becomes a heavily stressed "nat", for example.
in Ontario, widespread use of Eh? interrogative.
more frequent voicing of intervocalic s – in resource, for example
short a in words like drama; in common with most Canadians, Ontarians and Quebeckers pronounce words of foreign origin (Datsun, Mazda, etc.) as if the vowels are French.
in Central Ontario (that is, the region around Toronto) in particular, voiced th and d are often not distinguished, the two pronunciations frequently appearing together (Do you want this one or dis one?, for example)

Prairies

strong Canadian raising, "about" becomes "a boat", but not always, as about sounds like "a bout" to most ears.

The main distinction between Canadian (Prairie) pronunciation of this diphthong is in its resolution. Namely, an American pronunciation resolves the 'a-'sound [\&\] (or, alternatively, the schwa-sound; please see external source http://www.m-w.com/pronsymbols.htm for explanation of this notation) resolves with an 'oo'-sound [\u\], as such: 'a bah oo t'; whereas the Canadian pronunciation resolves with an 'oh'-sound [\O\], as such: 'a bah oh t'.

"sing-songy" intonation
use of "Eh?" interrogative is found more often in the east of Canada.

England

(See also British English)

English accents and dialects vary more widely within the U.K. itself than they do in other parts of the world owing to the longer history of the language within the countries of the U.K. Here are some of the distinctions to be found:

Southern English

Generally use a broad A, so "cast" is pronounced kAst rather than the k{st pronunciation of most northern accents. There are other peculiarities in specific Southern Regions.

Home Counties

Estuary English (see below) is extremely prevalent in the Home Counties, but where an individual does not adopt this accent:
Southern and Western Home Counties (i.e. Surrey, Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Buckinghamshire) tend to adopt a slightly "posh" (RP) accent.
Essex in general uses Estuary English; this is in fact where it originated.
Northern Home Counties (e.g. Herts) is more akin to the West Country rural accent, but with dropped 'h's being common.

Cockney

Initial h sounds are dropped; e.g. "house" becomes "ouse"; "help" becomes "elp"
T sounds in the middle of words are replaced with a glottal stop; e.g. "water" becomes "wa><er"
Diphthongs shift tongue positioning distinctively, similarly to Australian English

Jamaican-influenced London accent

Used by Jamaicans, or children of Jamaican parents, in the United Kingdom.

Jamaican sounding i, which sounds almost like the a in sat but shorter, followed by a very short ee sound: so might: ma'ee><
Adopted from the "host nation," Britain, T sounds in the middle of words are replaced with a glottal stop; e.g. "water" becomes "wa><er" - you may even hear "fauw'een" (fourteen) , "de'aiw" (detail).
Total loss of rhoticness. Dancer becomes daahnsaah.
Jamaican style vowels, so day becomes "dey" or "deh-ee" (deh has the e sound in get)

Estuary English

A broadly spread extension of Cockney, with less emphasis on the dropping of initial 'h's and a more profound presence of the glottal stop.

Southeastern English

Terminal "r" is smashed; e.g. "doorway" becomes "doe-way", "forever" becomes "forevuh"
Unstressed vowels are also smashed

London

The tongue is more forward in the mouth
Words can be overpronounced
th becomes f or v, depending on whether or not it is voiced. "Fo'i fouzand fevvers on a frush's froat."
In south London, the place is called "saaf London"
h replaced by glottal catch, as in the last example

West Country Accent

Vowel sounds are usually lengthened.
Among other things, inital "s" is pronounced as "z"; "r"s are pronounced.
In the Bristol area a terminal "a" is often followed by an intrusive "l". Hence the old joke about the three Bristolian sisters Evil, Idle and Normal (written Eva, Ida and Norma).

East Anglian English

Iotisation is dropped from diphthongs: "beautiful" pronounced as "bootiful", "huge" as "hooj", and so on; often Ts are downgraded to glottal stops, so "beautiful" would become /bu:><.I.fUl/ (boo'-i-ful)
Some diphthongs are moved further forward: "eye" and "I" are pronounced "oy", "right" is "royt", and so on
High intonation throughout most of a sentence

Northern and Midlands English

Generally use a flat a, so "cast" is pronounced k{st rather than the kAst pronunciation of most southern accents. This applies everywhere north of (though not including) Birmingham. There are other peculiarities in specific northern Regions.

Midlands English

Among other things, "bus" pronounced as "buzz", and flat "a" is used, as in the northern accents (below). In a Birmingham accent, a broad (rounded) A is used so "cast" is pronounced kAst. A Black Country accent uses the more northern approach.
Dialect verbs are used, e.g. am for are, ay for is not (related to ain't), bay for are not, bin for am or, emphatically, for are. Hence the following joke dialogue about bay windows: "What sort of windas am them?" "They'm bay windas." "Well if they bay windas wot bin them?". There is also humour to be derived from the shop-owner's sign of Mr. "E. A. Wright" (i.e. "He ay [isn't] right", a phrase implying someone is saft [soft] in the jed [head]).
The Midlands accent is often described as having a pronounced nasal quality, though this varies considerably within the region, being much stronger to the west and less to the east. For example the Birmingham and Coventry accents are quite distinct, even though the cities are not very far apart and to the untrained ear the accents sound very similar.

Northern English/Liverpool (Scouse)

The tongue is swallowed, cutting off nasal passages and making speech sound as if the speaker has a cold.
"th" is often pronounced as "d", for example "there" becomes "dere" usage "oarite dere la!" ("all right there, lad!")
distinctive rolling "ck" sound from the Welsh influence, sounds like the speaker is clearing their throat! usage:"gerr off me backk will yer!"
"arr, ey!" distinctive sound of a disappointed Scouser,

Northern English/Yorkshire

The "u" sound is pronounced like the standard English "oo", so "luck" is pronounced (in SAMPA) lUk. The difference between the Yorkshire Pronunciation of "look" and "luck" is difficult to hear, the "look" vowel being slightly longer in duration and tending towards the SAMPA lyk pronunciation.
Shortening of "the" to "t", as in "I'm going down 't pub".
Many dialect words, for example "owt" and "nowt" for "anything" or "nothing", "bevvy" for drink etc.
Sing-song intonation, as in Swedish, Welsh, and the US accent from the film Fargo.
Use of the singular second-person pronoun "thou" and "thee".
In all cases of the past tense of "to be" is "were": "I were wearing t'red coat, but he were wearing t'green one".
In the South-East of Yorkshire vowel shifts so "i" becomes "ee", and "ee" becomes "i", so "Where have you been last night" becomes "wherst tha bin last neet".
The letter "y" on the end of words is pronounced like the "i" in "city" or "pity" and is thus shorter than in Standard English [e.g. "It's a piti 'at ah didn't get sum spogs"].
In West Yorkshire, words like "blue" and "you" have an exaggerated "euw" sound in "bleuw" and "yeuw". This is best heard in the West Yorkshire town "Deuws-bri" [Dewsbury].
An "h" at the start of the world is usually dropped, but not if there is a "hu" sound ["human", "herd", "hook" or "Huddersfield"].
A consonant at the end of the word can sometimes become merged with the next word [if the next word begins with a vowel], as occurs in a French accent. e.g. "Pack it in!" becomes "Pa-ki-tin!"
Where Standard English would have a long vowel syllable, Yorkshire often splits it into two syllables. e.g. "school" becomes "skeu-il", "there" becomes "they-yer" and "door" becomes "deu-er".
Someone from the US commented that a broad Yorkshire accent does not even sound like English!

Northern English/Lancashire

The "u" sound is pronounced like the standard English "oo", so "luck" is pronounced (in SAMPA) lUk. The "oo" in look is pronounced like the "oo" in "boom", so look is look is the SAMPA luk.
"o" pronounced "oi", so "hole" is pronounced (in SAMPA) "hOIl".
Many dialect words.

Northern English/Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the northeast

The Newcastle dialect is known as Geordie and the accent is described in the article of that name. The accent of the neighbouring areas is broadly similar.

Reference: For London accents, listen to old recordings by Petula Clark, Julie Andrews, The Rolling Stones, and The Who. Ozzy Osbourne has a Midlands accent. For Liverpool accents, recordings by The Beatles (George Harrison's accent was the thickest of the four of them), Gerry and the Pacemakers, Herman's Hermits, Echo and the Bunnymen. A Yorkshire (Leeds) accent can be detected in interviews with Melanie Brown of The Spice Girls.

Indian Subcontinent

A number of distinct dialects of English are spoken on the Indian subcontinent (see Indian English). Accents originating in this part of the world tend to display two distinctive features:

syllable-based speech timing, in which a roughly equal time is allocated to each syllable (elsewhere, English speech timing is based predominantly on stress);
"sing-song" pitch changes (somewhat akin to those of English speakers in Wales - see below).

Ireland

(See also Hiberno-English and British English)

Most of the pronunciations below differ in various areas of Ireland. Those who are native will often be able to distinguish which county of Ireland the speaker hails from. There is a marked difference between accents in the North of the country and those the South. Notable variations in the Republic are the accents of County Cork, Cork City, County Kerry, Limerick City, Dublin, the West of Ireland, County Cavan and County Donegal. As with many English speaking countries, speakers from outside urban areas tend to have a softer accent.

Republic of Ireland

Pronounces "r" whenever it occurs in a word.
"l" is clear wherever it occurs in a word, as in French
'Pure' vowels: "boat", in a traditional accent, is pronounced (in SAMPA) "bo:t", and cane is pronunced "ke:n"
Aspiration: "what" may be pronounced "hwat".
The "i" in "night" may be pronounced "oy"
The "u" in Dublin may be pronounced like the "oo" in "book"
In many areas, including Dublin, the "th" sound is replaced with a dental stop (Irish "three" and Spanish "tres" start with same consonant cluster, while "there" becomes "dere")
In County Cork, some vowel sounds are often altered. An "e" sound becomes an "i" ("well" becomes "will"). Also "Cork" is locally pronounced as "cark".
An accent unique to Dublin known as the Dublin 4 intonation (referring to a postal code therein) is an urban/suburban middle class feature. This is an oft derided posh dialect that renders words such as 'car' as 'core' and 'far' as 'fore'. Dublin 4 speakers often end a sentence with the rising question 'Do you know what I mean?' contracted and pronounced rapidly as 'Dja kneww whad I min?'
Similarly the working-class Dublin accent is a unique urban feature resembling the blue-collar accents of Manchester and Liverpool in England. This dialect includes phrases such as 'What's the story, Bud?' meaning 'How are you, friend?' pronounced 'Wats de stary bud?' and 'Mad out of it!' pronounced 'Mad ou vih!' meaning drunk or high.

Northern Ireland

The "oo" sound is brought forward, so "too" is pronounced "tooy" (in SAMPA) "b}t"
The "ou" or "ou" in "sound" is pronounced as "uy" or "oy" ("soynd")
The "ay" sound becomes "ia" or with "day" pronounced as "dia" (also "deh")
The "i" in "time" is pronounced as "ay" ("tame")
The sound "ere" in "there" is pronounced as "urr" ("thurr")
The letter t has a dental stop.

New Zealand

The New Zealand accent is distinguished from the Australian one by the presence of short or "clipped" vowels, also encountered in South African English. New Zealanders, according to Australians, pronounce "fish and chips" as "fush and chups", "yes" as "yiss" and "milk" as "muwk". This is attributable to the influence of Scottish English speech patterns.

Scottish influence is particularly strong in Southland in the South Island, where people speak with a trilled "r"- the city of Invercargill is pronounced as "Unverr-carr-guw". This is also encountered among Maori, especially native Maori speakers.

Scotland

(See also British English)

Scottish English is English spoken with a Scottish accent. Not to be confused with the various dialects of the closely related Scots language. The information below describes how Scottish speakers pronounce standard English.

pronounces "wh" differently from "w" (watt and what, weather and whether, wales and whales do not sound the same).
Does not pronounce technology as if it were spelled teknology.
Pronounces "r" whenever it occurs in a word. And sometimes the "r" is emphasised with a rolled-r.
'Pure' vowels: "boat" is pronounced (in SAMPA) "bo:t", and cane is pronunced "ke:n"
The "oo" sound is brought forward, so "boot" is pronounced (in SAMPA) "b}t"

The Edinburgh accent is exemplified by Sean Connery or the film Trainspotting; the Glasgow accent by Billy Connolly. see http://www.scots-online.org/grammar/sse.htm

EDIT: I should just make it clear that most of this is nonsense. I will try to update it to a serious entry at some point.

South Africa

(See also South African English)

South Africa has 11 official languages, one of which is English. Afrikaners (Boers), descendants of mainly Dutch settlers, tend to pronounce English phonemes with a strong Afrikaans inflection, which is very similar to Dutch.

Native English speakers in South Africa have an accent that generally resembles British Received pronunciation modified with varying degrees of Germanic inflection, due to the Afrikaner influence. Native English speakers in South Africa also insert a number of Afrikaans loanwords into their speech.

In Zimbabwe, native English speakers (mainly the white minority) have a similar speech pattern, hence 'Zimbabwe' is pronounced as zom-baw-bwi, as opposed to the more correct African pronunciation zeem-bah-bwe.

United States of America

The standard American English accent is the neutral dialect spoken by TV network announcers and typical of educated speech in the Upper Midwest, Chicago, Minneapolis/St. Paul and Philadelphia. Standard American makes a good reference dialect because it has crisp consonants and more vowel distinctions than other major dialects, tends to retain distinctions between unstressed vowels, and is considered a "neutral" dialect. However, /O/ and /A/ tend to merge in standard American (which means that "father" and "bother" rhyme). This may help readers accustomed to accents resembling British Received Pronunciation. American actors and announcers used to speak with a Mid-Atlantic accent, which was an affected hybrid of educated American and British accents.

Regional and cultural variations within the USA include the following:

African American

(Sometimes referred to as Ebonics)

This is actually a cluster of dialects with numerous regional variations. The below describes some features found in many (but not necessarily all) varieties, and emphasizes a stereotype that may or may not be true in some areas of the United States. This dialect is not exclusive to African-Americans and might be more appropriately titled Urban.

Use of double negative; in some speakers, multiple negation is used for emphasis: "I ain't never done nuthin' like that."
Use of "ain't" where Standard American English (SAE) uses "isn't".
Auxiliary "be" + verb is used for the habitual aspect of a verb. "It be dat way sometime" = "It's like that, sometimes".
Auxiliary "done" + verb is used for the completive aspect of a verb "He done gone to the store" means that he completed the errand he set out to do. SAE has no direct equivalent to this.
Some speakers may pronounce /D/ as [d] initially and as [v] between vowels; and /T/ as [f].
People who live in the northern USA may perceive the dialect as having a distinct "Southern" quality to it, because of a tendency to monophthongize /ay/ as [a:] (see "USA (Southern)" below).
African American dialects are not only non-rhotic, but in some cases may also delete /r/ between vowels. Thus, "Carol never made drop rate art" may be pronounced "Ca'ol nevah made drop rate aht" [k}.ol nE.v@ med drOp ret a:t]. "Store" is pronounced "stow".

Appalachia

(South Midlands, Tennessee through Texas)

monophthongization of /ay/ as [a:], e.g. most dialects' "I" --> "Ah" in the South.
raising of initial vowel of /au/ to /æu/ (/{u/); the initial vowel is often lengthened and prolonged, yielding /æ:w/.
nasalization of vowels, esp. diphthongs, before /n/.
raising of /æ/ to /e/; can't --> cain't, &c.
South Midlands speech is rhotic. This is diagnostic for Yankees to whom it all sounds "Southern."

Boston, Massachusetts

loss of postvocalic <r>, except when the following word begins with a vowel. "Park the car in Harvard Yard" becomes "Pahk the car in Hahvahd Yahd."
"I had no idea" becomes "I had no eye-dee-err"
A linking r, as in, for example, "Chiner and India"
See also Boston accent phonology

Reference: Speeches of John F. Kennedy display Boston Irish speech

Brooklyn, New York

loss of postvocalic <r>.
faster speech tempo
/OI/ pronounced /3r/ and /3r/ pronounced /OI/. When asked if the apartment had heat in the winter the landlord replied "Shua. We got a brand new url boyna." ("Sure. We got [purchased] a brand new oil burner.")

Reference: Old Bugs Bunny cartoons (Bugs has a Brooklyn accent). The accent is often exaggerated, but it still does exist to some degree with many Brooklyn natives. Also, Groucho Marx has a passable Brooklyn accent.

Bronx, New York

Use of a glottal stop in place of a "t" in the middle of a word, e.g. "to><al" rather than "toT-tl", water is pronounced "wa><er".

Maine and Downeast

As in Boston and much of Massachusetts, the accent of long-time residents is distinctively non-rhotic with heavy use of epenthetic rs.
Older native Maine (USA) residents pronounce "yes" or "yeah" as "ayuh", with the stress on the second syllable.
Additionally, word "ayuh" is frequently spoken while inhaling, rather than exhaling. This makes it easy to insert in between sentences while breathing. In such cases, it is often truncated to simply "yuh"
Many Mainers (locally pronounced maine-ahs) use the phrase "right ruthless" (pronounced right roofless). This usually means that something is in good form, e.g. "I'll tell you, it was right ruthless when you flipped your snowmobile back there"

Midwest

(Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Lower Peninsula of Michigan)

/O/ merged with /a/. "not" sounds like "naht" (/nOt/ --> [nat]), "opportunity" like "ahppertunity" (NOTE: This is standard in Connecticut, an eastern state.)
"roof", "book", and "root" all use the same vowel.
preservation of non-prevocalic <r>
perfectly rounded /O/, drawn out a bit for emphasis: "MinnesOHHta", "O yah," "fOHlks at hOHme"

Much of Indiana sounds similar to downstate Illinois.
South Indiana has a distinctive accent, locally known as the "Hoosier Twang" (a well-known speaker is actor Jim Nabors, who played Gomer Pyle on TV and has for many years sung "Back Home In Indiana" before the Indy 500 race).

(Nebraska, Western Iowa)

"Guess is frequently pronounced "giss," and "get" becomes "git."

New England and East Coast

(also South:) loss of non-prevocalic r in some dialects.
faster speech tempo

Old Northwest

(Minnesota (esp. rural), Upper Peninsula of Michigan, North Dakota)

/O/ merged with /a/. ("Father" rhymes with "bother".)
Preservation of non-prevocalic <r>
Canadian raising: see section on Canada.
"roof", "book", and "root" all use the same vowel (SAMPA [U]).
Use of German/Scandinavian "ja" as an affirmative filler or emphatic; Standard US English "yes" is used to answer questions and to start an explanation.
Tendency towards a "sing-songy" intonation (the area's earliest European settlers were primarily Scandinavian, and this has influenced the local dialect). More recently, this has been reinforced by an influx of Asians, most of whom speak tonal languages.
Known as "Yooper" in Upper Pensinsula of Michigan [UP = Yoo-Pee]
For a stereotypical (if somewhat overdone) example of Minnesotan, refer to the movie Fargo. For a more normative example, Garrison Keillor speaks with a typical urban Minnesota accent.
"You" ==> "Youse"
W ==> V, particularly well=>vell and what=>vaht
Perhaps to a greater degree than other parts of the United States, standard American English pronunciation is replacing the regional accent, probably because there is less cultural identity wrapped up in the language than elsewhere

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh accents have a number of distinctive features. Please reference that article for more information.

St. Louis and vicinity

Some St. Louisans (probably born earlier than 1960) tend to merge the /Or/ sound as in for with the /Ar/ sound of far. This accent is otherwise a typical Midwestern General American-like accent.
Some younger speakers are picking up the Northern cities vowel shift heard in Chicago, eastern Wisconsin, and much of Michigan. This vowel shift causes words like cat /k&t/ to become more like /kEt/ and talent /'t&l,nt/ to be more like /'tj&l,nt/ or /'tEl,nt/. Younger generations also tend to pronounce not more like /nAt/ (naht), as do older generations in this area. This does not necessarily mean a complete merger between /A/ and /O/, however.
Some speakers, usually older generations, pronounce words like measure as /"meIZ.@r/, and wash as /wOrS/, e.g. /"wOrS.IN.t@n/ for Washington.

South

(Coastal Virginia, North Carolina through Louisiana)) (See also Southern American English)

monopthongization of /aI/ as [a:], e.g. most dialects' "I" --> "Ah" in the South.
(also some East Coast:) loss of non-prevocalic r.
slower speech tempo
putting two modals together as if the second were an infinitive: "I might could do that."
Coastal Southern speech is non-rhotic.
-ing suffix is pronounced [@n]
/e/ and /i/ merged before [nasal_consonant|nasal consonants], e.g. "Wendy" becomes "Windy," "pen" becomes "pin," and so forth.
In the deep south, vowels tend to take the hard sound more often e.g. on and own similar, can't and ain't also might rhyme.
Verbs can have various meanings. e.g. 'Cut' the light off, or 'mash' the buttons

New Orleans

While including such characteristics of the Southern US English as using "y'all" for second person plural and dropping the "g" from words ending in "ing", the New Orleans, Louisiana accent is so unlike the rest of the South that New Orleanians traveling from other parts of the USA commonly get the remark "You don't sound like you're from the South".

Many pronunciations are surprisingly similar to that found in northern New Jersey, presumably arrising from a similar mix of immigrants.

The ending "ed" is commonly deleted from words. Some common phrases use anglisized versions of old French sentence structure, for example to go shopping for groceries is "making grocieries".

Perhaps the most distinctive New Orleans accent is locally nicknamed "yat", from a traditional greeting "Where y'at" ("Where are you at?", meaning "How are you?"). One of the most detailed phonetic depictions of an extreme "yat" accent of the early 20th century is found in the speech of the character Krazy Kat in the comic strip of the same name by George Herriman. While such extreme "yat" accents are no longer so common in the city, they can still be found in parts of Mid-City and the 9th ward.

The novel A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole is generally considered the best depiction of New Orleans accents in literature.

Southern New Jersey

some southern New Jersey residents have a tendency to drop the letter T in speech, or pronounce it like the letter D. "Atlantic" becomes "Alanic", "Antarctica" becomes "Anardica"
"Water" is sometimes pronounced "Wooder"
"Orange" and "horrible" often pronounced as "ahrange" and "hahrible" (also Central New Jersey)
Not technically a feature of accent, South Jersey and Philadelphia natives tend to say "yous guys" where others would say "you guys" or "ya'll"

Utah

diphthongization of /E/ as /EI/: "egg" and "leg" pronounced "ayg" and "layg", "leisure" and "pleasure" pronounced "layzhur" and "playzhur".
in some cases, "ar" and "or" are reversed: "I was barn in a born" (I was born in a barn).

Wales

(See also British English)

Distinctive pitch differences giving a "sing-song" effect
Overpronunciation of vowels is common in strong "valleys" accents
Light rolling of r's

Welsh accents can be heard from the actors Richard Burton and (to a lesser extent) Anthony Hopkins, or on recordings of Dylan Thomas or in the music of Catatonia, Tom Jones or Shirley Bassey.

External link

The Speech Accent Archive, over 300 audio samples of people with various accents reading the same paragraph.