American pop culture LOVES these 10 accents 

So after reading a ton of your comments the consensus seems to be that these accents deserve to be included in the canon: 🗣 Mid-Atlantic Accent: kind of similar to the Preppy Accent, but associated mainly with midcentury Hollywood actors and other elites who were consciously trying to sound proper and sophisticated. I feel like these days you mostly see it employed in the context of parodying old-timey actors and their unnatural, affected, very clipped and fast-talking ways. You see this a lot in parodies of “Film Noir” movies in particular. I feel like Kate McKinnon on SNL does this accent a lot when playing some sort of tough, old fashioned woman, which probably comes from its association with Katherine Hepburn. 🗣 Cajun Accent: Arguably just another sub-tier of the broad “Southern Accent” coalition, but the Cajun accent, from Louisiana, is noticeably a bit more French-influenced and theatrical. Even though I feel like it is most often used in the context of a character who is very explicitly supposed to be from Louisiana, it’s also come to be commonly associated with a certain idea of Cajuns as some of the most extreme and flamboyant southerners, who are the most over-the-top in their stagey manners and usually somewhat creepy and unhinged as well. Bill’s cousin in King of the Hill was often mentioned as a very stereotypical Cajun character, along with some of the characters in the Princess and the Frog. I would say “Big Daddy” (as distinct from regular daddy) in that one episode of the Simpsons as well. 🗣 The “Gay” Accent: this one is fast falling out of fashion but is the lispy, feminine, theatrical way of talking once associated with gay men. In pop culture, it is not always used to imply that a character is literally gay, just that they’re kind of weak and feminine and odd. So Jack in Will and Grace or Big Gay Al in South Park would be a classic gay example, but then you would also have characters like the Mad Hatter in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland or the Lion in the Wizard of Oz as sort of retro examples where a character is sort of “gay coded” through his accent. I feel like the Big Cheese in Samurai Pizza Cats is very much this as well.

If you're gonna mention the British accent, you might as well mention how the Australian accent is often associated with park ranger/nature enthusiast type characters (probably largely thanks to Steve Irwin). And the German accent is often associated with fictional doctors and scientists, and basically intelligence in general

The so-called "Trans-Atlantic" accent is also worth mentioning, aka "that accent 30s-50s actors all had that no one had in real life." Which is literally true, it was an invented accent that supposedly combined the best aspects of American and British accents. And it lives on as the 'old time movies' accent.

I get that JJ couldn't cover all the nuances, but I appreciated the delineation between the uses of southern accents. The big difference is that Appalachian accents are the ones used to convey "stupid", while more deep south plantation or "syrupy" accents are used to convey "flirty" "fake" or "snooty" This goes back to ethnicity differences since most Appalachians are decedents poor of Scotch and Irish immigrants, while the plantation accents are associated with wealthy British landowners. As JJ pointed out... the use of the accents in media continues very problematic classist stereotypes. As an Appalachian, it can be painful to think that your accent and culture are shorthand for dumb and uneducated.

I would say that we also use Spanish accents for certain characters as well. Usually confident, sassy, flirty, and sometimes outright sexual. Like Puss in Boots is a great example, so is the pool boy in legally blonde.

I can think of two other major examples: one is the stereotypical "gay accent" which, besides being used to suggest a character is gay, also brings to mind an effeminate, materialistic and sassy man concerned primarily with his own status. It's almost like a male version of the valley girl accent. Then there's also the "nerd" accent which, obviously, signals someone who is very smart. There's two main variations on it: the wimpy nerd (like Dexter from Dexter's Laboratory), who sounds like they're speaking with braces on, and the annoyingly self-important nerd (like the Polar Express glasses kid), which sounds more nasal.

I'm fascinated by how Scottish accents are used to signify characters who are gruff, masculine, and slightly foreign: the Dwarves in World of Warcraft, the Vikings in How to Train Your Dragon, Leonidas in 300, etc.

As a Japanese-American fluent in both languages, I just have to pitch in that Japan does the same with accents acting at times as a characteristic shorthand in addition to the multitude of first/second/third-person pronouns, which gives the character an instantly recognizable trait, especially in anime that take place in a non-Japanese environment (although some pronouns and dialects/accents do tend to go hand-in-hand). Kansai dialect is probably the most distinct, with various other regional non-Tokyo dialects reflecting various shades of rural-ness.

(As an Australian) I think the California surfer dude accent seems to carry over to the Australian (male) accent, with the difference being that the characters are often portrayed with more romantic appeal than their California counter-parts. There’s definitely a consistency of “laid back” Australian characters and the attempts at the accents are fascinating to hear.

When I was living in Tennessee, I met a man that was an Orthodox Rabbi and a fluent Yiddish speaker but spoke with a very thick Southern accent, because he grew up in rural Mississippi. It really threw me for a loop when he would speak Yiddish, because my perception of how he "should" sound, with his full beard, black hat, etc., clashed so heavily with how he did sound. Mass media really does kind of train us into believing in stereotypes, sometimes.

I noticed that the American Southern accent is often used to show that somebody is rural/dumb or in the opposite case with the California Valley accent showing somebody who is urban/dumb

golden girls is such a good example! blanche (southern accent) is charming, flirtatious, superficially polite but kind of mean and judgmental underneath. rose (fargo/minnesotan accent) is innocent, simple minded, rural, but very kind. dorothy and her mother sophia (italian new yorker accent, despite sophia being born in sicily) are blunt, rational, 'tells it like it is', etc.

"Coming To America" showed quite the variety of American accents Eddie Murphy could pull off, including ESL (Akeem), several varieties of African American (Clarence the barber, the singer), and elderly Jewish (the old Jewish man at the barbershop).

I think it's really interesting how the narrative of the British accent has changed in America. The number of "Bri'ish 'people'" and "chewsday innit" jokes I hear kinda show that American awareness of British 'lower-class' accents is becoming more common. Make of that what you will.

The only major American accent that wasn’t showcased is the “Mid-Atlantic” accent; a constructed accent used in radio shows and movies in the 1920’s and 1930’s. It gives characters an “old timey” feel in modern media. There’s also the Boston accent, but it’s not something I see as much as the New York accent.

The game "team fortress 2" is a really great example of how accents can develope a character's personality and stereotypes

There's the "Evil German Scientist" accent, the most popular examples would be the Medic from Team Fortress 2, and Principal Scudworth from Clone High. There's also the "Drunk Scottish" accent, a popular example would be the Demoman from Team Fortress 2, he also goes by Tavish DeGroot. There's even a map named after him in the game where you're limited to mostly medieval weapons, as the shield item turns him into a completely new melee based class. I'd also say the Mid-Atlantic/Transatlantic, the Cajun, and the "Gay/Queer" accent but you mentioned those in your pinned comment and I like your analysis better than mines.

The Valley girl accent has to be one of the most infectious accents I've ever heard. So much so that even people who are not from California often adopt it without realizing it, including me and my sister from the central U.S..

There’s also the use of a southern accent to designate someone as overtly religious. Televangelists, traveling preachers, and judgmental nosey neighbors almost always have southern accents.

E.S.L immediately reminds me of Rolf from Ed, Edd & Eddy. Specifically, I think he makes a great example of the kind of vaguely foreign character who mixes a few complicated English words with simple grammar and blunt, unfiltered statements.

15:27 You know, Lois is TECHNICALLY Jewish…

As a modern californian: I can say that without a doubt, the surfer accent is real and present. Growing up around people that spoke like that, it's also an amazingly easy accent to slip into (though I do have my experiences code switching elsewhere due to social context).

A good example of an American accent in British pop culture would be Rocky, voiced by Mel Gibson, in Aardman's 'Chicken Run'. The accent is often used to show a character is brash, (over)confident, loud, flash and a bit of a show off. American characters are often tycoons, investors, directors, actors, rock stars etc. I think this attitude stems back to the Second World War when American servicemen were based in Britain. In fact, the crusty old RAF chicken in 'Chicken Run', Fowler even complains ' Pushy Americans, always showing up late for every war. Overpaid, oversexed, and over here'

As an American, I must say that it’s amazing how these accent shorthands work their way into our subconscious-specifically as it pertains to voiceless characters in literature. For example, I always imagined Mrs. Godfrey from the Big Nate comics as having a British accent. She’s portrayed as the villain of the series, so my mind made that connection even though it makes no sense for a small town American school teacher to have such an accent.

this is really interesting. i remember when watching HBO's "Chernobyl" wondering what the different British accents were trying to tell me about the characters. So i looked it up. ending up they weren't necessarily character choices but just their regular accents. but does seem to support the idea that at least Americans (but maybe all English speakers?) tend to use accents as short hand for character types.

This might turn into a rant, but I want to say how amazing this channel is. Just how much variety in topics, but with basically 1 central idea for each one. I love how you're able to actually word things in a very clear and concise way, without even coming close to being prestigious or condescending. I have a tough time picking up on lots of smaller social cues, and it sometimes takes me a while to fully understand what's being said vs what's being conveyed. Your videos help me feel "normal" in ways I've never gotten to feel. Thank you. Genuinely, thank you JJ for what you do.

I did hear that, not any American accent, but the "Mid-Atlantic" accent held some prestige in Britain because it implied that someone was important enough to fly back and forth between the US and Britain on business trips.

I might have missed it, but I'm surprised that your "New York Accent" wasn't mentioned as being a stereotype of Italian Immigrants - and this is often used in the context of characters inspired by the NY Italian Mob like the Crime Bosses of Gotham (most recently in The Batman) or the robo-Mobsters of Futurama, which you mention in the video.

5:37 As a curious fact, in Spain Cletus was dubbed with an Andalusian accent, a region of southern Spain from which I am from and to which similar stereotypes are associated

You said Lois from family guy isn’t Jewish but you clearly missed the episode where she discovered she was

The main example of an American character (played by an actual American) in British pop culture that comes to mind for me is captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who/Torchwood. He's a good example of trope of writing Americans as a particular mix of extroverted, energetic, and hedonistic. I feel like it's also fairly common to write them as either business men or military men, possibly a folk memory of the American soldiers stationed here during WWII (or simply The War as it's still often referred to here).

As someone who’s been born and raised in nyc- every borough has pretty much the same accent the only variations you’ll see is usually based on ethnicity or class and even those differences are slight and often ignored in pop culture

As a Central Coast Californian, most of us have the General plain and accent-less accent, but I have met people with the stereotypical Surfer Dude accent. The Valley Girl accent has kind of transcended race and time, with almost every teen girl having this accent across the whole state.

Don't forget Doug Dimmadome, owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome. An example of the southern gentleman.

Being British it seems that a lot of American characters in our shows are very extroverted, outlandish and overly confident. This is sometimes presented negatively, being offensive to the more quiet and reserved characteristics many people see as a quintessential aspect of 'Britishness'. It really just plays into the stereotype of Americans as endlessly optimistic and outgoing.

15:58 My mom loved The Nanny! I always thought Fran was so fun and cool, she's like the fun auntie who takes you out to parties as soon as you turn 21, very cool and modern she always seemed, maybe that's why I've always felt extra comfortable around people with NY accents.

I would say the 3 types of southern accent you pointed out should all be considered distinct accents, as they all come from different geographic regions of the United States. The “southern hick” accent comes from Appalachia, the “southern belle” accent is associated with the Deep South, and the “cowboy accent” obviously comes from Texas. They are also very different stereotypes, as you said.

The third example in the “southern” category would actually be more of a texas/old west cowboy tone. Ranchers, not sharecroppers if that makes sense

Southern accents in the military may reflect a reality that a very disproportionate amount of US soldiers and especially officers are from the South.

this is one of the best videos on accents/linguistics ive ever seen. incredible material! i think you should do a part 2 or something to go deeper into this

I’ve always liked how Xenoblade Chronicles 2 handles accents in the English dub. Every different nation speaks English with a different specific accent (IE, Australian, American, an extraordinary large number of varying British accents, American southern, etc.)

Hey J.J, British viewer here. One good example of how we portray Americans in our media is that you are overly extrovert and overly friendly and the best example would be the American tourists in the sketch show "Harry and Paul", they come from the American state of "Badiddlyboing, Odawidaho". I have never seen the film "Greenstreet", but it's a violent football film where Elijah Wood plays the 'clueless Yank' character. I've studied French and Spanish, so I can tell you that this accent division exists a lot in European media. In my native Britain, we have "Gavin and Stacey" a TV series of a love story of a boy from Essex and a girl from Southern Wales co-created by James Corden. Spain has the TV series "Allí Abajo" and the film "Ocho apellidos Vascos" and France has "Chez les Ch'tis", all of them showing a north and south divide of their respective countries.

I love that in basically every Barbie movie where Barbie plays a princess, she has a General American accent but her posh parents and other older relatives have RP English accents. The power of characterization shorthand trumps all practicality, it seems.

Throw in my insights 1. The Basic Southern Accent- The South and Texas both have a both a lot of military bases and traditionally more soldiers enlisted from these regions per capita. So the stereotype is really soldier = Southerner. 2. African American Accent- This is about Jazz from Transfomers. This might been a mild shout out to original (G1) cartoon's voice actor, the late Scatman Carruthers. The G1 cartoon also had tough guy veteran Ironhide with a Southern accent (done by French Canadian Peter Cullen who more well known for being Optimus Prime) and the small bully Rumble with a New Yorker accent (done by Frank Weller who done everyone from Megatron, robotic voiced Soundwave, Fred from Scooby Doo, and many, many others). 3. New York Jewish accent - This is more older than the Nanny. I usually think Mel Brooks when I hear this accent. 4. British- A lot of peoples' first exposure to British TV in the pre-internet days was PBS. So the first exposure many a Yank got to British TV was either educational TV or John Cleese from Monty Python or maybe Fawlty Towers.

i just found your channel and ive been obsessed w it! its incredibly interesting to learn about the culture i live in from an outside perspective. i dont think its truly possible to understand a culture without knowing it inside and out. its things i never wouldve even thought about being uniquely american that really interest me.

I think you can include the Australian accent as well. American pop culture loves to use it when its a character that is supposed to be a kind of frontiersman. This no doubt comes from characters like crocodile dundee and the much beloved Steve Irwin.

I think you forgot one important one! The Native American accent! It's always used to make someone sound mystical/spiritual and doesn't really fit well in the ESL category. As if the person exists in some other ethereal plane of existence separate from the general society the main characters are in. It isn't really used much anymore, but in a lot of 20th century film and TV anyone with that accent was always portrayed as this stern, powerful, serious, spiritual figure. John Redcorn from King of the Hill has it and every time he speaks they make it seem like it's coming from some deep 2387425837234 year old wisdom. There is actually an old stand-up sketch of Jim Carrey doing it and he goes right into the stereotype.

I love that you do this. Makes me not feel bad about the things I wanted for myself in my youth... My interests were something I was told wouldn't be lucrative or useful. But you dove deep into what could have been my future with the political commentary, international and cultural proficiency... Kudos, my kindred spirit.

J.J., It's incredible how you can make me so interested in very niche subjects every video. Great job!

in the same vein as the African American accent, I would definitely say there is a native American accent in media. sorta the John redcorn way if speaking which is usually pretty deep and mellow, and gives off some form of wisdom

I would say the Cajun accent used to have a pretty strong showing, and typically was used either as a stand in for the southern rural accent especially when the show takes place somewhere with more typically Southern people (see Bill and his family from King of the Hill), but the more interesting example is that they often are portrayed as con-men or gamblers, and weirdly often more vicious. In X-men Gambit famously speaks with that Cajun charm, while in the Green Mile Eduard Delacroix is a rather sinister murderer.

I had always heard the anecdote that the use of British accents specifically for villains was mostly popularized by Star Wars, which used predominantly British actors for the Imperial characters because simply because that was where the set was and it was much cheaper to hire local actors. I'm not sure if this was the driving force of this trope or merely a factor, though.

I had no idea that Michigan had a distinct accent until after I came home from my first enlistment in the US Navy. During my first few years, I ended up adopting an amalgamated accent that was largely based on the "General American Accent" that is really common in professions where everyone comes from different places. Now, living in Wisconsin, I can't *not* notice the variety of dialects.

In UK media the American accent also tends to be associated with another stereotype of a sort of dopey innocence/ignorance or otherworldliness maybe associated with young American gap year tourists or just baseball capped tourists in general. Nancy in Peep Show - who is actually Canadian actress Rachel Blanchard but we don't really distinguish the accents - is a good example. Or Rich in cult comedy snuff box, or Lorna Wynne in Toast of London.

I feel like a big part of the ESL Accent can often involve having a character say the phrase “How you say?” as a way of showing they are so foreign that their knowledge of the English language is very cursory or novice. It often seems like a good way to show that not only is the person foreign in their manner of speaking, but they are also new to America in general. Better Call Saul has a German excavating contractor who will ask “How you say” in most exchanges with Mike (a native English speaker) because the German cannot think of an English equivalent for a word or phrase.

I can't get enough of this topic. If you're interested, please please please do more!

very interestinggg i could have watched a 3hr video going over all sorts of accents. top quality

It is my understanding that when American movies are dubbed into German, to imply a southern accent or hickish person, the Germans will use a recognizably Bavarian 'country' accent to convey the same instantly recognizable feature of the German language. I may be totally wrong.

3 more I would add: The occasionally used Cajun or New Orleans accent when you want the southerner to be a little more exotic, there's a kind of Chicago accent that is used with old-timey gangsters, and there is a pretty distinctive, urban Mexican-American accent as well, as popularized by Cheech & Chong

The British accent is used a great deal in period pieces in foreign places, especially Ancient Rome and Greece as it tells American audiences the characters are foreign but without having to construct what people would sound like speaking English in an Ancient Roman accent. Up until the 60s, American accents were used but now they’re rare (like in “Amadeus”).

13:37 The Fargo accent is so cool! My dad was born and raised his first 5 years in Michigan and lived 5 or 6 years in Wisconsin as a teen, as well, before his family finally settled in Texas where my mom and dad met, so my dad had that Fargo accent and I have some of it come through ny Texas drawl cause a coworker one time aske me I'd ever lived in the Great Lakes area and thought it was real cool that he had identified my secondhand accent from my dad. Really cool to learn the name of one of my regional accents!

To me, as a second language English speaker, American accents have always been fascinating because for the most part, they are not seen that backwards as they may be sometimes seen in my country of Poland. Of course, it depends on who you ask, but there are probably many people who subconsciously associate having an accent with being uneducated. After WW2, when people were forced to move, they started speaking a form of Polish that is more standard, in order to understand each other. But my personal opinion is that they are NOT a signifier of the lack of education. Even I speak with a little accent, despite being a Gen Z person, however my vocabulary is even more obviously "local". My parents, who grew up in the 80s (we all live in a rural area) have a somewhat stronger accent, however I am not ashamed of it at all. We have two accents that I can say are iconic - the Podhale one (a mountain region in the south) and the Silesian accent, usually when speaking Polish because Silesian on its own is considered by many as a proper language (it is used by quite a lot of people) or at the very least a dialect, since it doesn't have a unified orthography or alphabet. However, these can be recognized by basically any Pole. This is my take on the accents, but from a different perspective and in a different place. Have a nice day :D

Trying to think of an example of each of these from My Little Pony was a fun exercise. Most ponies speak with General American, and the whole Apple family speaks with a Southern Accent. Rarity's parents have the Fargo Accent, Jet Set and Upper Crust have the Preppy Accent, Sandbar has the Surfer Accent, Babs Seed has the New York accent and Fancy Pants has a British Accent. The other three were harder. The ESL accent is a bit nebulous, but Zekora and/or the Yaks could probably be considered examples (although Zekora might be more specifically African). The African American Accent and Jewish New York accent were the only ones I couldn't think of any examples of.

Good job JJ. I grew up in the southeast and now live in CA. You nailed the southern accents.

26:19 i love the implication that Pierce Brosnan is a job title

The “Valley Girl” accent was popularized by the 1982 hit single of the same name by Frank Zappa and his daughter Moon. Moon, a teenager living in the San Fernando valley, spoke in the accent to make fun of how her peers talked, and the song’s success turned “Val-speak” into a cultural phenomenon. I think it’s interesting how the stereotype continues on, even if the song itself has been more-or-less forgotten.

As a British person, British shows generally don't really use American accents as Britain itself as distinct enough accents along with their stereotypes, for example the British accent used in America is still the main aristocratic old money esc accent here, Scottish accents tend to give off a aggressive and more outward speaking, generic London accents tend to give off to a docile frame of speech, a lower class accent like the one shown in the video would be associated with a pub(similar to a bar) goer or a middle/northern English region which itself as a quite brute and limited vocabulary stereotype, then there are Irish stereotypes which mainland Irish would be seen as happy or friendly, as northern similar however also more aggressive. Welsh accent which has similar contentions to the 'lower class' accent however more friendly and rural. then there are city accents one mentioned being London, another one being Liverpool being not the most intelligent and assertive however not aggressive and urbanised. There are far more but you get the point, American accents aren't really used here because we have are alternatives however due to dominance of American media nearly every British person with an internet connection know and can distinguish these accents, however by far the most common is the general American here as it generally as a stereotype of friendly and some degree of blissful ignorance

Love these longer videos!

I love the southern accent. It’s so warm, comforting, and charming. ❤️

Those characters with southern accents who were being stereotyped as “hicks” seemed to all have more of an Appalachian accent. While the ones stereotyped as southern bell had what I would consider a more “standard” southern accent like from South Carolina or Georgia. While the ones who were brash and violent seemed to have more of a Texas accent. Not sure if I’m right about those but just what it sounded like to me as someone from the south.

An interesting thing is that a little bit of the “type 3” southern accent is pretty widespread in the actual military even in people not from the South. When groups of people serve with people from all over the country for extended periods of time their accents sort of mix, and Southern inflections tend to be easier to pick out

When you brought up ESL my first thought was Fez, but I have been binging That 70's Show

Make part 2!

British media tends to portray Americans as very vain and full of themselves, and also as very well off. Id say this comes from 2 places. One would be the reverse of the Brits in America, in that Americans in Britain tend to be very skilled businessmen or professionals, often mingling with very powerful people. The other is more specific. During the Second World War, before the invasion of France, millions of American soldiers were stationed in Britain for the invasion. For many British people, these were the first Americans they had ever seen. The American soldiers were seen as very wild people, known fur excessive drinking and engaging with prostitutes. Theg were also better paid than British soldiers, and bringing new things like Coca cola and chewing gum, which gave the idea that they were very well off. This lead to some level of resentment to the Americans, particularly by British soldiers who coined the term "overpaid, oversexed and over here". A good example of the second would be Rocky the Rooster from the Aardman film Chicken Run.

Fun fact, the Vally Girl accent was popularized by Frank Zappa. His daughter, Moon Unit, would parody some girls at her school and he decided to record Valley Girl with Moon using her mocking voice as a joke song and it became a top 40 single. Giving the Valley Girl accent a national spotlight.

One of my favorite examples of accents informing characters is in the original yugioh duel monsters localization, where despite all being from the same region, many characters have very different accents, which was a choice they made to replace exactly the different versions of I and me in Japanese that you mention at the beginning.

In Britain, American characters are often portraid as loud, over-bearing and excited or dumb and nieve. But there's of course positives, if they aren't shown to be stupid they're normally shown to be Gung-ho, headstrong or assertive. As a brit with a fascination for America, I find the way Americans depict us to be hilarious regardless if they're making fun of us or admiring.

Some good examples of an educated character with a southern accent would be The Engineer from Team Fortress two, Ray Gillette from Archer, T-Bone Grady from Watch_Dogs and Augustus Sinclair from Bioshock 2. Another accent in pop culture not mentioned is the one usually on nerdy characters. Usually a stuffy nasally sounding voice or a lisp. Sometimes a condescending tone like Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons.

I'd like to add that Sandy, even though somewhat embodying the southern stereotype, is also somewhat a flip on it when it comes to the ignoramus part. Despite her accent, she shows to be very intelligent and having a high technical prowess in spite of other characters' perceptions of her.

22:07 Funnily enough, when I was in high school, I once had a substitute teacher who had a New York accent. While she was teaching us, she told our class (I grew up in Kansas, where most people have a General American accent) that we were so lucky to have such a "neutral" accent, while her accent made it hard for her to be taken seriously.

18:44 I find the Preppy accent very interesting, as it sounds to me similar to a southern drawl except the vowels are drawn down at the end instead of up as say a Northern Texan like I originally hail as, cause we tend to drawl our vowels up at the end, and in my opinion it gives my sccent a more positive, cheerful sound, whereas the Preppy accent drawing all the vowels down in tone makes their accent sound more negative and thus snobbish

I remember in Azumanga Daioh, the English dub of the anime comedically has a character referred by her classmates as 'Osaka,' after the province of Japan she lives in. Her English VA performs the character in a typical Southern American accent to emphasize how much she stands out from her inner city classmates, being a transfer student and all. I felt it was a pretty fun way the localizers helped American viewers piece together the relation between inner city Japanese students and those from Osaka while still staying faithful to the source material in a way. Osakans generally have this "rural and rough" image in all Japanese media, by the by.

I live in Columbus Ohio which is known for our almost weirdly “general” accent. A lot of news casters actually come here to try to get there “general American” accent right. It kinda makes me wonder where do other people go to get accents that aren’t just associated with a city or a state to practice.

I have a fun example of this from Sweden. The Sharks in the English version of Finding Nemo speak with an Australian bogan accent. In the Swedish language one the sharks speak with a Scanian (southern most province of Sweden) accent. Both accents are associated with rural people.

A funny example i think jj would appreciate is found in the multi part episodes "the hunting of the lathe worm" by the great horror podcast Wrong Station. The setting of the story is medieval esq and the main antagonist has a canadian accent that gives off a hockey bully vibe that tracks very well.

I have on occasion seen Japan's Kansai dialect portrayed in translation as an exaggerated Brooklyn/Bronx/New Jersey 'HEY, I'M WALKIN' HERE' 🤌 kind of thing. The Kansai dialect is celebrated, but it is undeniably considered more low-brow, crude and comical by those not from the Kansai region. Kanto Japanese is 'standard' and Kansai Japanese sounds like delinquents and comedians, so the somewhat snobbish Tokyoite thinking goes. I don't necessarily find the choice of New York/New Jersey to portray Kansai dialect unfitting, and I am curious about other potential examples of a work in translation trying to approximate the feel of a distinct way of speaking from the original language into one that a reader/viewer of the translated version would be familiar with in their own language.

Hello, you commented on one of my videos and I responded about my "southern" accent. Love this video and I subbed!!!

I'm Oregonian. I have had multiple people ask me if I am from Canada. It's kinda interesting. I was pretty isolated as a kid as in I had no friends or anyone to influence my accent. My parents where often busy working so I was alone a lot.

Something I find funny/interesting is when American accents get applied to non-American shows. For example, in a lot of dubbed anime, if a character is supposed to be from rural Japan, they'll give them some kind of Southern Accent, even though this accent doesn't exist in Japan. I get what the dubbing studios are trying to do, but it's funny hearing someone who's supposed to be from Kanto sound like they just moved in from Texas.

I kept waiting for you to mention The Critic. In that classic animated series from the 90's, there are many different examples of the accents you mentioned. Jay and his sister have the standard accent, while their parents have the preppy accent. Being set in New York, you get examples of the various Bronx and Jewish accents, including Jay's makeup artist and plenty of rabbi jokes. Jay's boss who happens to be the owner of the network is example of the southern aristocrat while Jay's girlfriend Alice is more the poor southern belle. The restaurant owner has the ESL accent, and one of Jay's friends has an Australian accent, which has it's own connotations. That show took a lot of it's humor from making fun of Hollywood and playing into stereotypes, so it's not surprising to see this in hindsight.

25:30 so surprised you didn’t jump to a clip of James Corden here!

I'm not amazing at identifying accents so I don't know if I'm right about this, but if I am, Orel from Moral Orel is a good example of a southern accent being used to potray someone as dimwitted but well meaning. This aspect of his character is basically the point that drives most of the plot in the show

Another good example of the more southern gentleman accent would be Gideon and Bud Gleeful from Gravity Falls. Both of them have a sort of cheery, gentleman-like facade but are actually a lot more sinister than initially made out to be.

an E.S.L accent that is close to my heart is Rolf from Ed Edd n' Eddy, who was explicitly designed as a character who is "Foreign" but from a totally fictional land called "The Old Country" who has completely bespoke and ad hoc culture customs purely to confuse and confound the residents of the Cul-De-Sac. Rolf is also my favorite character... but really the whole cast of Ed Edd n' Eddy are just dynamite.

I need another video like this. Maybe focusing on Canada or the UK?

amazing work.

I'd love to hear more about how accents are used in other cultures. For example I read somewhere that in German, the Austrian accent carries a lot of the same connotations as the American Southern accent, being somewhat dim or hickish Your cultural videos lately have been fantastic. Absolutely killing it J.J.

Off the top of my head, Silence of the Lambs makes a lot of use of accents. Hannibal is sort of generically villainous European accent, and Clarice's repressed Southern accent shows the awkward position that she's in in life: halfway between where she grew up and where she wants to be.

One of the most interesting parts of consuming media from other languages is getting to hear what accents they use to portray stereotypes and character traits. K-dramas especially have so many cliches that often have specific accents.

I love it that you used an Austin Lounge Lizzards song!!!!