the.com/accent
a sonic fingerprint you can't hear on yourself but everyone else clocks instantly
means the distinctive way a person pronounces a language, shaped by where they're from or what their first tongue is; also the stress placed on a particular syllable, or a mark indicating it.
from From Latin accentus, literally a 'singing-to' or 'tone added to speech' — from ad- ('to') plus cantus ('song,' the same root behind chant and cantor). The Romans built it as a calque on the Greek prosoidia, the 'song accompanying' words, since both peoples heard speech as a kind of melody with rises and falls. It reached English in the late 14th century through French accent, at first meaning the pitch and rhythm of speaking before drifting toward the regional flavor we now hear in a voice.
- phantom self
- Nobody believes they have one
- baby radar
- Newborns cry with their parents' accent
- foreign trauma
- Brain injuries can rewrite your accent overnight
- class tattoo
- Strangers judge wealth from one spoken sentence
- prestige market
- British voices sell luxury to Americans
received pronunciation — the prestige accent of southern england, historically taught in british public schools and the bbc
new york city accent — characterized by non-rhotic r and distinctive vowel shifts, spoken by ~8 million people in the tri-state area
scottish english accent — features rolled r's and distinct vowel patterns, spoken across scotland with variations by region
american southern accent — characterized by y'all, drawled vowels, and r-dropping, dominant across the american south and appalachia