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It's quite impressive that most English speakers across the world understand each other, despite variations in accents/dialects (lemmy.world)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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Additional context:

Native speakers of my mother tongue do not all understand each other due to some pretty extreme dialects. Now that I'm in Europe, I've noticed multiple instances of people sometimes not understand the dialect of someone from a village 10-20 km away...

In contrast, for example most American, British, and Australian people can just... understand each other like that?? I never thought much about it before but it's pretty incredible

Edit: thanks everyone, and clearly I didn't think of certain parts of the UK when I was in the shower and thought of this...

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[–] 12 points 11 months ago (13 children)

Midwest is classic "broadcast English". It's considered an almost neutral accent without a strong sense of place associated with it.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago

    "Broadcast English"

    Interesting term

    I've always noticed that In movies and TV shows, North American accents mostly sound "normal". But when I talk to Americans/Canadians in person or online over voice chat, I cannot pinpoint the accents, it just sounds "American" to me.

    I almost never hear the

    "I'm walkin here"

    "Folks won't take kindly to you around these parts"

    "I pahked my cah at the Hahvahd yahd"

    "I'm sorey aboot that"

    I'm totally down, I just need to, like, check my schedule?

    etc.

    kinds of exaggerated accents

    everyone sounds like someone from CNN to me and then they say they're from Arkansas or something

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    I thought that was the Mid-Atlantic Accent?

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (6 children)

    Not for about 80 years...

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    Never really. Mid-Atlantic was taught in elocution lessons but didn't really exist outside film and theatre.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago (3 children)

    I thought it was native to wealthy families from Jersey/Virginia/Maryland. People that grew up in Martha's vineyard.

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  • [–] 1 point 10 months ago* (1 child)

    I've always preferred calling it "trans-atlantic" to avoid confusion with that "Mid-Atlantic Region" of the US which is on the East Coast roughly from New Jersey down to Virginia, maybe even the very northern Coastal parts of North Carolina. Some people include New York/NYC but I can't agree. Ok, maybe parts of New York bordering Pennsylvania.

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