Is there such a thing as a Californian accent?

[aircooled]

Yes. My LA niece sounds as much "so cal" as my NC daughter sounds "carolina".

 

[desy]

Lived in Cali for about 3 months
Some 'not all before people have a cow' have the Spicolli - Fast times thang , I actually started doing it a bit cause its an adaptation of humans to pick up on dialects to more quickly fit in. . .

My buddy who came back from Japan after teaching English for a couple yrs was totally hilarious.
Helloooooo can you talk any slooooowwwwwer!!!

 

[notfred]

If we do, it's indistinguishable from a Nevada accent, or an Arizona accent, or a Florida accent, or any of the other regions of this country that don't have specific accents.

 

[DealMonkey]

<---- From SoCal

I used to argue with my friend against the concept that Californians have accents and eventually I gave in. Mostly due to his most excellent (see there I go ) point: That Californians tend to "uptalk." Basically what that means is that you end your sentence in a slightly "up" manner as if asking a question, even though you aren't actually asking a question. Listen for it, you'll notice it all the time...

There are other little small things as well. The extensive use of "all" and "like" as in "She was all like up in my face and stuff..." comes to mind. Surprisingly, there are remnants of valley talk still inherent in the accent...

What ... EVER!

 

[psiu]

I grew up in California (San Diego), but my parents were from Michigan and Ohio. I remember someone (teacher or doctor or something) was able to pick out the slight midwest accents in my speech.

However, overall I would say California is such an immigrnat sort of state (from other states) that the accent ends up fairly neutral...midwest states (Michigan, Indiana, northern OH, Illinois, Wisconsin) all have a fairly neutral accent too.

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: warcrow
No, because we sound like the people on TV

(I live in So Cal)

My point exactly