A Seattle Accent?
2012 ж. 3 Қаз.
413 652 Рет қаралды
When we think of accents, we often think of the South or the East Coast or places like Minnesota. But researchers think even Seattle might have an accent. Can you hear it?
When we think of accents, we often think of the South or the East Coast or places like Minnesota. But researchers think even Seattle might have an accent. Can you hear it?
The way I describe Seattle accents to others is “if a surfer dude and Canadian had a baby”
And an Indigenous person in there too. That's exactly what I hear in my sister in law's accent, surfer dude + Canadian + native.
@@Ephesians5-14 Ya I can kind of hear that a little
That's a great analogy! I can dig it, and I was born and bred here. 😊
girl stop you're not wrong
DEFINITELY. I hear all the time on the east coast when people come to visit, my thought… “ They’re from the PNW”
I grew up in Seattle, I've always said agge instead of egg I never noticed until now.
+lionel wraithwood Baggle!
same
Some of us say warsh instead of wash
I live across the strait in Victoria BC. I sometimes say ehg and sometimes say ayg.
i was going to comment the exact same thing lol warsh the car haha
I live in seattle myself. A friend of mine from michigan said that we tend to mumble a lot.
My friend said that too!
Really? Hm.. well I do that.. a lot
That's true at the start of the video. ★ ☆ ★
wearemumblersyeah
danlyfe doesn’t everyone?
Because in Seattle we are modest talkers. Kind of not really tryna pronounce the words thoroughly but we get to the point
Red Divinity Uhhh when in November? Because still hasn’t happened
Omg so true
You sound just like people from Vancouver
I use a lot of slang in my everyday life, such as, but not limited to, “kinna” (kind of), “duh” ”tuh” (to), “uh” (of), “wanna”, (want to), and “cod” (caught). A lot of times, I will replace T sounds with D sounds, or P’s with B’s, to lighten up my speech and allow it to flow easier. I seem to cut out the maximum amount of letters and syllables in my sentences, so they are recognisable, but have many less consonants. I figure that might be a Seattle thing, but maybe just a me thing.
I’ve said we’re very “efficient” speakers.
Honestly, as someone from the east coast, I can definitely hear an accent.
Especially from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan theres definitely an accent.
Yes i can hear your accent
My dad who's from the Northeast gets mad at me when I say "crayon" in one syllable.
Same from jersey and my accent is like flat and average I guess. I only noticed that t sounds sound like d sounds when my family talks.
Really?? I feel like I talk flat boring American English in Seattle 😭
everybody has an accent
What they probably mean is their own accent. Not the general American accent.
That,s true.Just depends on what part of the US you,re from,and perhaps even partially on your ancestry,friends.
Where you spent your first few years of schooling is the most important factor.
Jason Pegram not all have the same
Everybody has an accent! The only people with a "general American accent" are radio and TV announcers, and they train themselves to talk that way.
I NEVER used to think people from Seattle had an accent (I was born and raised in Washington state) until I’d lived in NYC for over a decade. Now I can always tell when someone is from Washington. It’s a very familiar way of speaking, and I would say I probably now pronounce some of the words in the above video the “Seattle” way about 40% of the time and the more standard way the other about 60% of the time. You can’t hear the difference of the “Seattle accent” until you have been immersed for a substantive period of time among people who don’t have it.
It's debatable as to whether Seattle has one yet or not. It's a much newer city and has much more turnover than you'd see in most other parts of the country. It's not unusual for people born here to retain accents that aren't at all from here. I personally speak more or less the same way that my cousins do in the midwest with the biggest differences being the specific words that we use here. I've never once heard somebody here refer to a couch as a davenport for example. Rick Steves is from near Seattle, but he speaks with what is essentially a Minnesotan accent. And I've got friends that were also born just outside the city limits that can't hear all the vowels properly because he's got a different accent.
What annoys me about ppl on the East coast is that they add the vowel I to their glottal t's. People call it dropping the t. But it's actually adding in an i. So,.written on the west coast is pronounced something like wri'en- with dropping intonation. But ppl on the eastern seaboard pronounced it wr'in. With an emphasis on the i.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade I'm originally from Washington State and we always called a couch a davenport or a daveno.
The lady in the tree is swaggin over everyone else.
holy shit lol
How did she get up there?
Shhhwaggin***
smh people aren't supposed to climb on those trees on campus.. I mean, this video was 7 years ago. but the last couple years, they've put up signs telling visitors not to climb the trees.
*On the tree
I went to Seattle a couple of months ago. Didn't notice a accent. Bit I will say this. Seattle is all that and a beg of chips.
The beg/bag thing is definitely true. I always get shit for that when I'm out of state. Glad you enjoyed Seattle!
@@BlGGESTBROTHER I make people laugh when I say "I drive a weygon!" (wagon)
@@BlGGESTBROTHER I'm from Vancouver Canada, everyone here says it like beg, we probably influence eachother
"up there in the tree" okay then
Kurt Cobain was from 2 hours outside Seattle and he had a strong accent to my Northeastern ears. Similar to what I'd call a West Coast accent. The guitarist from Pearl Jam, Stone Gossard does too.
Yes, exactly! I think we have a West Coast accent as I never notice an accent with my Oregon-California friends.
Portland and Seattle people sound differently than rural NW people do as the linguist alluded to at the end
Kurt grew up in Aberdeen; my family's from all the Penninsula, and I've noticed I can tell when someone is from there when they talk.
I was thinking about one of Kurt Cobain’s interviews and that’s why I came to this video
I live in Seattle but came here from Florida. North Westerners sound Canadian to me.
What Florida and Louisiana got the most illiterate accent In the country even nyc speak proper English compared to the south
@@gabrielmckinney690 Shut your stupid ass up.
@@gabrielmckinney690 What language are you speaking? You should be embarrassed about now. XD
You obviously haven't heard a Canadian accent. haha I'm from Washington State and I can sniff out a Canadian within the first sentence.
@@adamwatson7662 For sure. Pacific Northwest Canadians sound very distinct from folks who hail from Washington and Oregon. I'm "soar-ry" if they can't hear the difference but there is one. ;)
Why is that lady randomly in a tree?
+Ken Benton HAHAHAH!! great question!
it's Seattle, just what we do :P
Alec Pacheco That is true, there are a lot of weird people in seattle..but i've noticed i was weird too. We fit in perfectly
So tempted to make a racist joke out of it... but I won't
What animal do you know of that can walk upright and can be found in trees?
"listen to how people from ohio say it" don DAWN sounds the same she just said it louder
it is because they are the same in your accent. it makes it very difficult to hear. it is like how Spanish speakers think that "ship" and "sheep" sound identical.
I work in a large company here in Seattle (born and raised in Seattle), but most of the people I work with are out of state. When I talk, they tell me I often sound Canadian from their perspective.
Lol I'm a total Seattle native transplanted in New York and every now an then people will be like "where u from u have an accent" lol I never thot so until this-in pretty sure I say aygs not eggs lol
V Lo don’t worry, egg should not rhyme with peg. Middle English (superseding earlier ey, from Old English ǣg ): from Old Norse.
That "ǣg" was not pronounced "ayg." The ǣ there is actually more of the sound of "ah" as in "cat."
Acionna Anassa - hey Chaucer, we don’t speak Middle English anymore bro
I'm from Texas and I say "ayg" along with the rest of my family. Transplant influence, maybe? I've honestly never thought of that as strange until now.
@@seanmcc09 Middle English, pfft. Olde English or GTFO.
Most people who are born in Seattle become a grunge band singer.
and died
elninjalaranja Well that's not true is it.
Louis Caprani Yes, it is.
Trust me.. most people born in Seattle do not become Grunge singers.
elninjalaranja Or did you mean, most grunge singers come from Seattle? That'd be more plausible
i noticed the "bayg" (bag) and "ayg" (egg) right away when i moved there.. and also "warshington" instead of washington.. but that was almost always the old folks. no big deal. im from florida.. and i was just relieved to finally be surrounded by people who could fucking spell, and who had more to talk about other than nascar and pickup trucks. i love seattle. best city in the country..and ive travelled a LOT. cant wait to get back.... and eat all of your ranier cherries.
I used to live in florida and moved to Washington years ago I swear to god I hate it here....I wake every morning depressed
it's not everyone's cup of tea.. that's for sure. most people from seattle would look at me as though i was insane when i tell them i moved there from florida.. im still here in fl.. and im looking forward to this summer for the beaches, but that's really all i enjoy here. the beach gets old after a few months, and im always ready for an overcast day. spring and summer are excellent in washington.. and they go away before i get sick of them.
I just moved from Seattle to Florida and I see the difference
Seattle is the best city in the northwest. Miami is best in southeast. Anyways Finally leaving after being in seattle for 18days. never coming back. Didnt realize it was so lgbt until you see them at all the stores, bars etc. Great public transit though.
Dwayne Pitt yeah... that kind of annoys after a while. but still, they gentrified the shit out of it since i last lived there. i just got back from my seattle vacation, and i have to say... i LOVE gentrification.
I'm from New England, I moved to Olympia Washington and I hear the accent when people say bag all the time. At the supermarket it's always like, "Do you need a beg?" Aside from that there isn't much of an accent so it always comes as a surprise to me. But hey, you have a regional accent, embrace it, be proud of your heritage and the things that make your home different from the rest of the country.
This is really interesting! I have to say that as someone from NY, Seattle seems to have a much more subtle accent than other places. It's definitely a lot closer to the proper way to speak, especially compared to new york/new jersey where we say things like "tawk" (talk), "wawk" (walk), "cawfee" (coffee), etc. It's funny because with words like "don" and "dawn", "cot" and "caught" - there's a huge difference between the two in NY. We say "cot" exactly how it is spelled, and "caught" like "cawt".
You want odd accent talk to Boston area people, wow!
Interesting
Sort of, there hasn't been long enough for a real accent to develop the way it has in NY. The city itself is not that old and there's a ton of people coming and going with accents from other parts of the country, and world. I've taught ESL and honestly, the Seattle accent is about as close as you're likely to get to a completely standard accent as you're going to find in the real world. I do think that over time there will be one that develops, but you'd be hard pressed to identify somebody from Seattle versus Oregon, California, Idaho or most of the West Coast based purely on accent. What's more, it does have a ton in common with the standard American English of the midwest as well. The surest ways of knowing have more to do with a checklist of words that are used in one way here, but not necessarily elsewhere. You'll never hear "The 5" spoken by somebody who grew up in Seattle, that's what Californians say. Likewise, davenport is basically not even a recognized word here and I've never heard anybody say "catty corner" here. It's basically always "kitty corner" if you're going the colloquial route.
@@deanfirnatine7814 odd, but beatiful. Both, the Boston and New York areas accents
@@SmallSpoonBrigadewhat’s “the 5”?
This is great! I just spent the last twenty minutes pausing and repeating words and saying them myself. I live in Oregon, and we sound pretty much like that too, from what I can tell. I definitely say "beg." And the "egg" thing had me cracking up! I had no idea we said it weird!! I have to force myself to say "agg" the way she did. I'm going to watch again, this is so entertaining :D "eyg, beg, cot, don!"
Cre_say_wat im in Oregon too and I agree. It’s the same.
Also “let” we tend to pronounce like “layg”
That's what I 'd expect, the "Seattle" accent has only slight differences between what you'd hear up and down the Coast and into the mountain states and midwest. I do think that over time it probably will develop into a proper accent, but there hasn't been enough time without massive flows of people coming and going for one to really develop. Rick Steves grew up just a few miles from Seattle and he has a more or less proper Minnesotan Accent and even though my best friend and I grew up like 4 blocks apart, our accents don't really match that well. My parents are from the midwest and his are from the East Coast. You wouldn't really know it without paying very careful attention to specific words though.
If anyone is wanting an update on this report. We do have more differences with other parts of the US not described here. One of the biggest things we do is we will sometimes drop Ts or 'soften' them into Ds, or we will remove Ds. So for example, you might hear "Seaddle or monidor" instead of "Seattle or monitor". An example but with completely dropping the T or D is "innerstate", instead of "interstate" for example. The reason why this might not have been brought up is because a lot of the western us has a similar accent. Which is attributed to people migrating west and accents mixing and converging to what places have to day. What the western part of the US is linguistically is roughly from Chicago down to western texas and then all the way across to the west coast. Now there are some areas in that huge region that will vary slightly but as whole we all speak very similarly, at least versus the east coast. The biggest difference in our language, just here in and around Seattle, though is our understanding and pronunciation of native american words and towns from this region. Think Yakima, Puyallup, or Spokane. Many people outside of this region will say something drastically different. But, a lot of linguists wont think of this as an accent. Also just one last thing! There's things being researched about there being a generation change in accents around here with a few words (vowels in those words). The key examples are "roof" and "root". I'm 25 and say the "oo" like the vowel sound in "two", but my dad who is 65 will sometimes say the "oo" sound like the vowel in "hut". This is language change and my dad will occasionally use the same pronunciation as me as well, but his pronunciation is dieing around here.
I was exactly looking for a comment like this, thanks!
I know it's been two years since you posted this comment, but I just tried all these out with my husband (who grew up in CA), and you hit it all spot on, haha. I didn't even realize until now that I say "innerstate" instead of "interstate," but I always do! I also grew up in Sammamish, by Issaquah, Snoqualmie, Snohomish, etc. It's funny to me that most people need to think about how to pronounce those names! The other thing my husband makes fun of me for is the way I say "that." I kinda slam the t-h together (even stronger than a regular "th" sound) and have a very strong vowel pronunciation on the A. I don't know if that's a pacific northwest accent or something I've picked up from the various other places I've lived (CA, AZ, CO, etc.) as I've combined accents from different places. But anyway, thanks for your comment! It was insightful. :)
i never even realized that it’s “interstate” instead of “innerstate” lol. i’m sure on some level i knew, but it just never clicked until i read this comment!
I've noticed a very slight accent in the way people in Washington say the word "and." It's impossible to write out in a KZhead comment, but it's a more drawn out way of saying the word that sounds something like "aehnd"
People from Washington seem to have trouble with the hard A sound
I feel called out lol
Being a person from Washington State, I just noticed that
true, lol I'm going through all the comments and pronouncing everything.
ænd is more like it
Yes, it has been proven that there is indeed a Seattle accent. Just listen to Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, and Chris Cornell for example. Great bands though.
Eddie Vedder wasn't born in Washington, Kurt Cobain was born in Aberdeen, Chris "Vocal BADASS" Cornell however was born in Seattle 👍
@@BigMac-tc9em just about to comment this
Meh Eddie Vedder is from California that’s just how they all sing but yeah Kurt Cobain had an Americanized Irish twang of sorts
Cobain is from the rural NW, they typically do not share some of the linguistic oddities of Seattle and Portland although he lived there long enough to pick it up
That’s just called lack of enunciation due to heroin
I was born in Seattle but mostly raised in texas and I learned very quickly that there is an accent. Even the most neutral southerners here comment on my accent.
Do they make you say *bag*? I live in Texas now, but from Seattle area, and had one guy ask me to say "bag" in my native accent, so he could hear if it was true that we say "baig."
You'd have an accent for the same reason that we in Seattle would consider those who live in Texas to have an accent. I think where there's a substantial amount of disagreement is whether or not Seattle specifically has an accent that differs enough from standard American English or the English spoken on the West Coast to qualify as an actual accent.
Here in Vancouver, people say "VAYNG-coover" and then deny they said it. Also I'd be down for a supercut of rando's saying "ayg"
im from victoria bc canada and I think we speak the same way as people in seattle, vancouver, and other pnw towns
Except for that Canadian thing of calling a house a hoose. I think Canadian accents sound like West coast English in the US, except for a little influence from Scotland.
@ I talked to a l of people in Vancouver B.C. and noticed they speak with an English accent. I'am from Lynnwood Wa.
Tayler Thompson if I could describe your accent if anything it’s probably a bit raspy but nothing else beyond that
From what I've noticed, Canadian English from the Vancouver area is mostly similar, but there are some differences. My friend from up there says pass-ta instead of paw-sta, and sore-y instead of saw-ry.
Mostly, although when I"m in Victoria, I definitely hear more people using that rising o sound that isn't usually used in Washington.
My sister in law is born and raised in Everett and she *for sure* has an accent. It's kinda like PNW hood. I noticed it's similar to how Indigenous people of the PNW and Canada sound. I came here looking for a description of their accent because I heard it on an episode of My 600 Lb Life, someone had a very strong Washington state accent. I would love to know how this accent came to be. As a southerner myself, it's clear how the Appalachian region acquired its distinctive twang. Everyone has an accent, for sure.
why the hell is she in a tree
*on* a tree
I dunno, but based on her speech impediment I don't know if she's the best person to ask about pronunciation.
She's a tree hugger 😁
Seattle natives have been driven from their homes by the real estate price increases
Why wouldn't she be?
"Bayg" is very common in wisconsin
My 90+ year old aunt and I both participated in a UW study on Seattle accents. We are both Seattle born and bred!
OK, So living in Washington since I was born (i'm almost 28 btw), I had never even heard of Warshington until I went to college in the mid-west and I was incredulous! I thought people were messing with me. Apparently its pronounced that way a lot in the mid-west for both Washington State and DC, but I could be wrong and only in the area my college was in. At least on the western side of Washington, I have not heard a native washingtonian use warshington. Also, i say ayg/ehg (like canadian "eh", hard to get this sound across through words) and baag (long "a", like a scared "Ahhh!" sound). Honestly, I feel like our accent is most similar to Hollywood movie generic accents.
My grandmother born and lived all her life in WA, said Warshington and warsh. We don't know where she picked it up. Her parents were from here also I believe. We will never know 🤷🏻♀️
I was born and raised in Seattle. I had a friend decades ago from Tri-Cities (Eastern WA). He said Warshington!
I definitely have the Seattle accent. Another that I've heard we Seattleites do is pluralize words that shouldn't be, like "Let's go to Nordstrom's," or "I'm grabbing lunch at Pike's Place" or "I need to stop into Bartell's real quick." Another is that we have a "creaky" way of speaking, more towards the end of a sentence, which I catch myself doing, especially when talking kind of quiet.
Never noticed that until I read your comment, but it's very true now that I think of it
Ok, so I'm a born and raised Washingtonian, born in Tacoma. I honestly do not know what is wrong with you example sentences! Lmbo. Looks ok to me, enlighten me please!
First off it's mostly not locals saying Pike's Place, but the rest of it is the use of those are places that are named after actual people. I don't think we draw as much of a distinction as to when the actual founder dies or the company is sold that they might in other places. Pike Place is a separate issue as it wasn't named after anybody named Pike, it was named after the street Pike Place. Plus, it's just wrong to put the possessive on Pike anyways as I'm not even sure what a Place Market would be, perhaps some sort of real estate bazaar?
That isn't pluralizing, it is possesive.
so true
Everyone pronounces "both" as "bolth" and ever since an out of state friend mentioned it, I can't unhear it.
milk and melk
I didn't know we have one ...
tung nguyen There's no such thing as not having an accent.
Yah sure yah bet ya!
I found out when I visited the Southwest. I thought people in Albuquerque were just messin around with me, but damn, I didn't know we had certain accents. Ahh so what? At least we have legal pot. That's whats up.
Same
We get off your agge from your beg and ride/write it don.
From an unbiased non-American, I can 100% hear a difference from "general American"
I don't think there's much question about that, all regions are going to vary a bit from the "general American" accent. It's the same as the UK where hardly anybody speaks with a proper received pronunciation unless they're doing it on purpose. The US used to have a Mid-Atlantic accent that was for the same basic use, but it more or less died out quite a few decades ago and mostly only exists in old movies. The more interesting question is whether Seattle has an accent that differs enough from what's spoken along the coast or in the Midwest to justify it being recognized as it's own thing.
the Vancouver accent is very similiar i grew up there
I'm gonna stretch and say the presence of upper-midwest like speech in the PNW dates back to the great depression or perhaps the second world war. The idea being that many people, as my ancestors have, relocated from the Dakotas and Minnesota, to places like Seattle and Portland for work.
Excellent glad I found this I've always noticed a little accent from people from the West Coast this just proves it!
I'm from Olympia but I don't say egg or bag like that. Although I notice when I say "cot" and "caught" and "don" and "dawn" I say it exactly the same. I live in Costa Rica now and a lot of Costa Ricans tell me it's easier to understand my accent than a Southern accent and mine is more neutral although I mumble alot. Whatever it is, I'm happy we don't say "ya'll"
I come from New Orleans originally, and "y'all" (it's one syllable. I hate people who say "Yew All". Why bother contracting it). 26 years away from home, and we still use that word. It's part of your blood, man, and I don't know who started it, but you hear it everywhere from Texas across to Florida, and halfway up the east coast. However, a New Orleans accent really doesn't sound Southern, so forget what you hear in the movies.
As a native who spent most of my life on the East Coast, the one word everyone pointed out I said wrong was "pillow". To this day I pronounce it "pellow". I also say "bagel" wrong, but only because we say it too fast, East Coasters say it a tad slower. NYers often make fun of how I say it, even though I've lived there longer than most.
Everyone has an accent...everyone. It's what makes language and linguistics such wonderful things.
Grew up in washington state, and I noticed myself what sounds like the same word for cot, and caught. Don and dawn. And I also think we don't have a unique accent, but the fact we don't have a unique sounding accent is in its own a unique accent.
I am from the northwest . I travel a lot through the south and south east. People often mistake me for Canadian. If I am away in the south for long enough I can talk to friends in the NW and definitely hear their accents and if course I always accidentally pick up some southern while I am away as well.
I can't describe the accent but I tend to notice when an actor is from there. I can't explain it, kinda like they overpronounce words...a very clear sound though.
I could tell a movie that took place in Washington wasn't filmed there because they called the pronounced the made up town name like "haymish" instead of "hamish" or "hahmish"
I'm Hispanic and I'm moving there to start the "one,Juan" pronunciation.
I support you bud
I grew up in Seattle and we have our own accents and I'm proud to be part of Seattle accents
I grew up in Seattle too
+GG_wolflover 434 really, what city you grew up in? I grew up on rainier valley.
grew up in tacoma! i thought the "accent" was from my older sister who was Canadian, maybe it is the Seattle accent..
@@meganlandis5361 Seattle and Canadian we have almost about the same accent lol
@@Ilovewhitegirl143 you mean "aboot" the same
California (Valley) is an Okie accent filtered through the 60s. The contemporary Seattle accent is a collision between Valley and Scandinavian English by way of the Midwest.
Seattle has an accent
There is a large population in Seattle that moved here from the Midwest a generation or two, or more?, ago. Ballard is definitely that way. My paternal grandparents moved to Seattle from Minnesota after coming to the world's Fair in the 50s (?). They are from the younger side of the silent generation, so ten to twenty years older than most baby boomers. their kids right now are between 60 and 50
they say 'warshington'. and I definitely say eyg or ayg, lol.
Yes and then in the late '80s and into the '90s there were a bunch of Californians that moved up here. I do think that an accent won't develop unless there's something to stop the constant churn of people immigrating and emigrating from the city. It takes time for people to agree as to what the proper pronunciation of things should be and in the absence of that people will tend to stick to what they know or what they see on the TV.
Simple explanation, it's the proximity to Canada. It's the same here in southeast Michigan.
I grew up with a South Seattle accent..sounds a lot like any other hood accent on the west coast but the N.Seattle Fremont Ballard Queen Anne accent is distinctive..I can hear it and pick it out from anywhere lol
i am from Seattle and sometimes i catch myself saying stuff like that but at the same time some of the things are the same pronunciation as other places.
I never realized I said things like that! Oh my gosh, I DO have a Seattle accent!! Ish.
I moved here 8 years ago, and it's everything with an "ag," they say a long A. "Dray-gon" vs dragon, "look at that dog waig his tail" "salute the flaig" "wear a name taig." It sounds hick, ha ha.
I've lived here my whole life, and almost no one around here speaks that way. Long A sound seems midwestern to me.
@@DeafeningCha same. no one says "dray-gon"
@@kennylee6499 I say it like "drey-gen"
I struggle with the egg thing. Never with the bag/beg situation. I also like how some older Washingtonians put an r in wash, washer, and Washington.
I'm from northern new york and I hear Pacific Northwest accents as having really hard r''s. Where I am, (watertown) from if you turned on secret recorder and listened to and analyzed regular daily conversations you would hear a spectrum of unique sounds to that area...but it varies along class,ethnic and sub-cultural lines.
I live in washington I guess a washington accent is saying "kittin" instead of "kitten" and Mountin instead of "mountain" you would prolly say it like that if you live here
I've lived in central wash my whole life and apparently I have a Seattle accent. It's a PNW accent from what I've seen. It's a lazy way to speak.
Yeah we drop t's in the middle of words XD like kihin instead of kitten mounhin instead of mountain
Does anywhere said kitten? I'm all the way over by PA and we say kittin here.
@@rolyatrocket4294 Only people that over enunciate would. Most of the things that the OP listed are ways of reducing vowels which happens in most, if not all, American English accents.
Anyone here in 2017? Time flies lol
I noticed this and thats why I am here. What I have heard is very clear. Especially the vowels
My family from western Oregon has always had those same pronunciations. It drives my northern Cal relatives crazy, the way we pronounce things without even noticing the difference.
Everybody has an accent! The only people with a "general American accent" are radio and TV announcers, and they train themselves to talk that way.
A lot of Canadian in near Toronto pronounce egg and bag the same way as in Seattle
There was another merger that didn't come up in the video. In British English you often hear the Mary, merry and marry with 3 distinct vowel sounds in the middle. In much of North America you'll only hear one word if you repeat those in sequence you wouldn't know which is which. So, the e sound becoming a long a sound isn't particulalry surprising as e is in the middle of the other two.
Yes that's true. I lived in the Toronto area all my life and heard that. But the trend is changing where the younger generations sounding more like mainstream American.
From SW Washington. Lived a decade in the midwest, university town. People from all over the country came there for school. I have a tendency to pick up the accent of others. At some point, my voice had multiple personalities.
Lol, same except I'm from Seattle itself and I've picked up a bit of a Kenyan accent from staying there for a few years during my high school years.
the only time ive been on the west coast was for a week visit to my aunts, and i say egg like agg too. i didnt even notice a difference, until they pointed out.
I’m from Washington , now living in Florida. I can tell you that people notice that I say things a bit different and point it out to me lol I have a mix of the two accents
So it's like a banjo mixed with the sounds of I-5?
if you come from another state an you move to Minnesota .they say you speak with a hollywood accent and you talk really fast. couse they speak slow in minnesota
That makes sense as there isn't much difference up and down the coast. It's also why people would think that there isn't a specific accent. We speak mostly like they do in the movies and in the news. And there's so many minor disagreements about how exactly words should be pronounced that it would be tough to define it more specifically to the area.
Both my Dad and I grew up in Bellingham and my Dad says Warshington
Born and raised in Seattle. In the fall of '63, I attended CWSC in Ellensburg, Washington. Being a drama student, I tried out for the lead in Antigone and was told I could understudy the part, but that I had too much accent, and was referred to a speech therapist !
I'm noticing people in Seattle saying 'shore' for the word 'sure'
Yes! There is an accent in the Seattle area. I'll hear ppl on the radio & that's when I think I know that person, when its just their accent. Ppl also talk fast here. I grew up in SD by a NY'er, then lived in KC, NJ, & WA. I say a little bit of everything! Husband from NJ. :-)
Really? I talk slow af
I was once in Mexico and some guy asked me if I was from Vancouver B.C. I'm from Seattle but it was shocking to hear that he recognized my Pacific Northwest accent.
I was born and raised in Seattle. I currently live in Arizona. I have never heard anyone say I have an accent. I live with an African American woman. She is the first person, in my 67 years, who has ever said I speak funny. She dies when I say bag! She laughs so hard. I have never heard anyone say that I say any words oddly. She says she has never heard anyone pronounce ‘bag’ the way I do. Now I know!
The whole of the Pacific Northwest has its own accent, for some reason we like to say "would of" instead of "would've".
@daAnder71 Auto correct probably screwed me over and I most likely didn't proofread. This is also a 2 year old comment, are you really that petty?
Wait...is there supposed to be a difference?
@@danicaoslund6083 would've is a contraction of would have. Would of is grammatically incorrect. Idk what his originally comment was about or that response, but there you go.
I hate to admit it but you're right. I'm from Portland and had to beat the "would ofs" and "could ofs" out of me in order to pronounce it properly. It takes all the restraint I have in the world not to correct my family members when we're speaking. I just don't want to be a pronunciation Nazi. ;)
@@danicaoslund6083 When spoken the former is over enunciated and the latter is more or less normally enunciated. Some dialects vary from others mainly in enunciation and word choice which can make it hard to say that it's a different accent rather than full on dialect.
Yes, there are accents throughout Seattle. North End has its own, South End has its own, etc. it’s more of a dialect versus an accent. If you grew up on The Hill, you’re going to sound different than someone who grew up in West Seattle.
Accents are simply the manifestation of a dialect 🙏
Very interesting piece! The "aygg" / "ehgg" thing is hilarious and true
I grew up in Seattle and recently moved to Spokane. People ask me where I’m from all the time because I “sound like I’m from the mid west”
That woman from Ohio at 3:47 pronounced Don and Dawn exactly the same.
I don't get it. To my ears there's no distinction between Don and Dawn. Even the video doesn't make it clear. How the fuck are you supposed to pronounce them?
@@TheKennethECarper They are totally different. Don is like One. Dawn is like Fawn.
@@TheKennethECarper Have you ever been to the New York tri-state area? The native born locals will pronounce them radically different! Don is "daahn" and Dawn is "dooawn" there especially out on Long Island.
The person from Ohio said "don" and "dawn" the same way, just saying "dawn" louder and longer lol.
white seattle accent is minnesota crossed with La surfer, black seattle is hood oakland crossed with valley girl speach.
This is so sad but true. When i moved to Chicago I found myself repeating some words more than once. Especially if I asked customers if they want a bag. They stopped, looked, inquired and remained perplexed as I repeated myself... ugh.. .I found myself pointing way too often. Most, actually everyone, felt I had an accent but myself, so go figures.
Every type of English has an 'accent' - there is no such thing as 'perfect' English. If they gave the linguist they interviewed more than twenty seconds or air-time that would've been explained. Man, science reporting in general is terrible in the media, but linguistics in particular seems to get the feces-smeared end of the media-reporting stick.
Fought Space well there’s spoken English which I guess is perfect
Uh, when asked if Seattle has an accent she said "maybe" and made implications about some words drifting from dictionary pronunciation. If she was going to say what you said she'd just say yes there is... I mean agree with you, but that linguist wasn't saying what you said and wasn't going to
accents aren't exclusive to English
@@rolyatrocket4294 Precisely, that's the question. Is the English spoken in Seattle different enough from a broader standard to justify being split off and it's a common debate in most fields between the splitters and the groupers as to where the line should be.
"deutsch ist gut (Y)" wtf, where did that suddenly come out from? xD
Born in Aberdeen, grew up in Olympia, and now in Seattle. I totally talk like this. Beg (bayg), jet leg (layg), laser tag (tayg), the cot thing. Macklemore is from Seattle, and In his song Thrift shop, he says "poppin tags" (taygs). It sounds the same as I would say it. 😊😊😊
I've also heard a lot of WA natives, specifically older people, pronounce Washington as "warshington".
I live in seattle for all of my life until the past year and then about a year ago I moved to the south and they automatically knew I was from the Washington area and then a year later im in WI and I notice most "seattle accents" sound like WI accents now that I have a southern accent (according to friends)
grace shakespear southern accent don't exist
I never new that saying "ayg" was an accent. That's just how I've always pronounced it.
I'm from Portland and we all pronounced it ayg there are well. If anything "eg" sounds alien and weird to me. We definitely don't pronounce bag as "beg." I also never make my "pins" and my "pens" sound the same. My mother would pronounce the name of Washington states as "Worshington" but I never did. Ironically it would annoy her when some bonehead would pronounce Oregon as Or-e-gone. It's Or-e-gun you moron! ;)
I'm from Montana, but I've traveled a lot and lived in several states, including Oregon (Portland). The NW states (Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon) have a lot of linguistic similarities to each other but also a few differences that vary even within a state. For instance, so many Californians have moved to Montana, it's changing the sound here. Overall, Montana is like cowboy meets West Coast meets Canadian. But the west side of the state is different from the east side (West Coast vs Midwestern).
I do think that there is a linguistic block out west where it's kind of tough to suggest that there are specific accents to the regions as most of it seems to be more on what words are used in what fashion more than the actual accent itself. Plus, there's a ton of people who retain accents that aren't regional to this region as well, making the whole thing mostly of academic interest. I do think that it's likely that something more solid will develop, but right now it's kind of splitting hairs to say that Seattle has one when it doesn't differ that much from surrounding states.
If you look up the migration patterns of Washington in particular it's not surprising at all that there would be a Midwest pronounciation coming through. The first wave was caucasians from the Midwest--after that came blacks in the 1930s/1940s, and of course Asians. I suppose the real question is how it will change in future, but the Scandinavian/German/Mid-West character of early Washington is pretty well known.
Fascinating! Yes I hear a lot of overlap with the accent of Wisconsin
I don't think there is a distinct Seattle accent and if anyone does pronounce something in a 'Seattle way', no one will really notice, because it will get drowned out by the sea of *transplants* that live here.
+zeppelin0110 Makes sense
I grew up there and my friends make fun of my e's
You have my thanks for the video. Residing in New York, I have recently met a woman from Seattle. Our accents are very different. Our differential in accent brought about a whole new topic of conversation. This is most interesting. I thank you again for the video.
Saying bAg sounds weird to me. I say beg
I just noticed it hard to say "Bag"... I said to my mom to pronounce Bag, she said "Beg", or "Bag" like I said wrong... (I was born, and grew up on Seattle)
Being third generation born and raised, I have to say if there was an accent, I stress *was*, it's probably mostly gone now since it seems half the people who live in area moved here in the last three decades. Whatever local accent we might have in common with Minnesota is likely from the shared Scandihoovian background. Uff da, bitches. My own great grandfather was from Norway, worked as a logger in a time when there were people around who remembered when Washington wasn't a state yet.
03:48 they sound the same...?
im from bc and people from washington sound just like us, but more often than not americans have flatter vowel sounds and ours are more round
I'm from near Seattle, and I can only barely tell the difference, I've caught myself using both pronunciation, I usually suppress the Seattle-style(My father who's from rural Idaho pronounces it Seattle-style, oddly enough), and I only recently learned that "cot" and "caught" have a difference in other accents.
HOMETOWN❤️❤️
12!💪
A "Seattle" accent? How can that be? Nearly everyone in Greater Seattle is from somewhere else.
True, my maternal grandpa is originally from Iowa and my dad is a foreigner. The only one in my family besides my mom's generation and mine that's from Washington originally is my grandma, and even then her grandparents came from Canada
Yep, and it will take a few generations for those minor differences to get sanded off.
It isn't just confined to Seattle. The low back vowel merge pronounciation is in Portland and the rest of the Willamette Valley too.
how did i never notice that i say bag and egg differently until now-