What's your accent?

[afleitch]

Apparently, Yonkers is the closest thing to my North London certainly-not-RP-but-probably-not-estuary-either English.

Running my Scottish accent through it I get Worcester and Boston. Probably a vowel thing.

[afleitch]

There's a similar app for Britain/Ireland but you have to download.

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/do-you-say-splinter-spool-spile-or-spell-english-dialects-app-tries-to-guess-your-regional-accenth

Nailed mine.

[afleitch]

I took the British one, and I got Cornwall: Frogpool, Tintagel, and Newlyn. I think this is interesting, since a lot of the early British settlers of the America came from Southwest England, and the isolated communities in Virginia and North Carolina which still speak with very old dialects tend to sound (to us Americans, probably not Brits) a lot like they're from the West Country.

I also think it's interesting since we believe that my first relative to come to the New World (and the one whose last name I share, so my father's father's father's father, and so on) likely came from either Devon or Cornwall. So in a way, it feels kind of cool to know that at least linguistically we have a couple unique pronunciations in common.

That sort of stuff interests me. The UK app is precise enough to know I'm from Lanarkshire not Glasgow despite shifting my accent a little at school. Using it as an American and working 'backwards' might over time, be able to link generic American inflections to certain parts of the UK.

[afleitch]

The NYT test placed me in Glasgow; my accent is effectively West Central Scots. My closest key word; skipping school 'dog it', soft shoes 'gutties' place me closer to Lanarkshire which is accurate. My own accent is a slight hybrid as it's picked up some slight 'higher class' inflection due to going to private school. I'm not proud of it

As in this:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1819020744798983

[afleitch]

West-Flemish, a language even Belgians cannot understand lol

West Flemish (Dutch: West-Vlaams, French: flamand occidental) is a Germanic language closely related to Dutch, and sometimes considered a dialect of Dutch, that is spoken in western Belgium and adjoining parts of the Netherlands and France.[3]

West Flemish is spoken by about a million people in the Belgian province of West Flanders, and a further 120,000 in the neighbouring Dutch coastal district of Zeelandic Flanders and 10,000 in the northern part of the French département of Nord.[1] Some of the main cities where West Flemish is widely spoken are Bruges, Dunkirk, Kortrijk, Ostend, Roeselare, Ypres and Newport.

West Flemish is listed as a "vulnerable" language in UNESCO's online Red Book of Endangered Languages.

This might be the time to reveal a lot of my childhood and adult holidays were in West Flanders; my family had a place in Oostende and I went everywhere along the coast as well as Bruges, Kortrijk etc.

[afleitch]

West-Flemish, a language even Belgians cannot understand lol

West Flemish (Dutch: West-Vlaams, French: flamand occidental) is a Germanic language closely related to Dutch, and sometimes considered a dialect of Dutch, that is spoken in western Belgium and adjoining parts of the Netherlands and France.[3]

West Flemish is spoken by about a million people in the Belgian province of West Flanders, and a further 120,000 in the neighbouring Dutch coastal district of Zeelandic Flanders and 10,000 in the northern part of the French département of Nord.[1] Some of the main cities where West Flemish is widely spoken are Bruges, Dunkirk, Kortrijk, Ostend, Roeselare, Ypres and Newport.

West Flemish is listed as a "vulnerable" language in UNESCO's online Red Book of Endangered Languages.

This might be the time to reveal a lot of my childhood and adult holidays were in West Flanders; my family had a place in Oostende and I went everywhere along the coast as well as Bruges, Kortrijk etc.

I live in Kortrijk and my parents have a place in Middelkerke, neighbouring town of Ostend.

Yes; I've stayed in Middelkerke a few times close to the tram stop near the camping grounds. Kortrijk I've spent some time in as I used to go from the coast to there, to Lille and then on to Paris if I had a lot of travel time.

[afleitch]

Not unexpected