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Is common for Aspies to have a regional accent?

Hurting89

Hurting89

Well-Known Member
This is something I'm been wondering about for years and was one of the many things that made me question my diagnosis (as silly as that sounds). I speak with a Canadian accent with pretty obvious Canadian Raising (it's okay if you don't know what that is lol) but I have met many accentless and dead voiced aspies. I met two self admitted aspies on Sunday at a dollar store (likely some type of disability work program) and both spoke the same- dull, monotone and flat. Nearly stereotypical.

What do you think?
 
I don't know if it's common, but if it is, I'm probably an exception, lol.

I'm from a province in The Netherlands which has a quite distinct accent in general, yet even when I studied in another province, people assumed I was from that area; the only thing that might've given it away was that I wasn't, were the colloquialisms from that area.

I'm the same with foreign languages; I can't say much about my English, but my German is accent free up to the degree where natives have asked for my ID to proof I'm not a native German.
 
I speak with a strong southern backwoods hillbilly US accent but my aspie step dad has a New Jersey accent. Many people think I am from French Cajun country for some reason. I lived my first four years in the backwoods then lived in the city during my school years so I always talked funny to everybody else at school
 
Born and raised in the South, but mostly I pick up whatever accent the person has that I'm talking with. On my own, I don't have much of an accent. It can get pretty redneck if that's the kind of person I'm talking with, but completely disappears when the other person has a different or negligible accent. I went to Minnesota one time to speak at a conference, and the people couldn't believe I was Southern--they said they detected no accent at all.
 
I don't have a regional accent. Someone told me once that I sound "posh". I come from a region of the UK where there's a very strong regional accent, but my parents never had it, and I went to a school where many of the kids were from other areas of the country and so the accent wasn't very strong.
 
I am an aspie and have a very expressive voice; lol if I tried to say I have a monotonous voice because I felt is what makes an aspie, I would fail, because it is just not me to sound bland.

I sense very strongly that the higher an aspie is, on the spectrum, sort of verging into classic autism, the more "stereotypical" they become.

The only accent I have is a British one, but I come from an area of England, where we do not have a regional accent.
 
My dad worked down the shipyards and had a very broad Geordie accent (North East of England), and so do my brothers whereas I don't. I live in a poor area and people say that I sound quite posh, but I'm not, at all. I just talk quite clearly. I also have quite a flat sounding voice and try to hide this by making it sound more expressive but it sometimes sounds all over the place when I do.
 
I took the American test and it said I was from the Northeast, but I grew up in Colorado and at 18 moved to Virginia... so who knows, really.

Like DogwoodTree, though, my voice tends toward crypticity--it imitates the dialect of the person with whom I am speaking. When I spent a summer in England, people kept asking why I had a British accent if I was American. It drove the Brits really batty, I felt like I was talking to a lot of Henry Higginses, but it wasn't intentional on my part--it is too hard to understand words if my brain has to filter for dialect, so I suppose it just latches on to certain patterns of pronunciation and follows them. Sometimes people think I am mocking them, though.
 
CaveDweller said:
My dad worked down the shipyards and had a very broad Geordie accent (North East of England), and so do my brothers whereas I don't. I live in a poor area and people say that I sound quite posh, but I'm not, at all. I just talk quite clearly. I also have quite a flat sounding voice and try to hide this by making it sound more expressive but it sometimes sounds all over the place when I do.
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I have the same type of thing with accents - I don't really talk with an accent that strongly reflects the region I grew up in and I used to get bullied at school a lot for apparently sounding posh as a result.
 
Naturalist said:
, my voice tends toward crypticity--it imitates the dialect of the person with whom I am speaking.
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When I'm in a formal environment I tend to talk with more technical language, which comes quite easily. If I did this with people where I live (rough area) I would probably get chinned.
 
Interesting question! My thing is that I've lived from one half of the globe to the other....so I'm apt to think geography probably had more to do with my accents than neurology. But then yes, I do have kind of a flat monotone voice that tends to stick no matter what accent I speak with...whether West Coast or Tidewater (VA). :p

And if I really get caught up in whatever I'm trying to say, it probably comes out more as an Aspie-Ramble. :eek:

Guess I'm better in print...:confused:
 
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Looking at the test, it turns out I have a Philadelphia accent. Never considered that to be a thing even, lol
 
King_Oni said:
Looking at the test, it turns out I have a Philadelphia accent. Never considered that to be a thing even, lol
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Youze guys from Limburg all tawk the same. :p

But what area? Central City, South Street....be specific! ;)

Seriously though I'd love to hear you say one word- "home" in English. Generally a word that reflects east coast regionality depending on how you pronounce it. (Long "O's" in particular.)
 
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Judge said:
Youze guys from Limburg all tawk the same. :p

But what area? Central City, South Street....be specific! ;)

Seriously though I'd love to hear you say one word- "home" in English. Generally a word that reflects east coast regionality depending on how you pronounce it. (Long "O's" in particular.)
Click to expand...

Hah... the test wasn't that specific ;)

I'll try to remind myself about this and I might record it someday when I have a mic hooked up ;)

Also; no we don't all talk the same :p there's a significant difference between folks from Maastricht, Kerkrade or Roermond... pretty much every city has a distinct dialect and thus a pretty specific accent. Well, except for Heerlen, a city which has a bastardized version of all local dialects... heck, their accent to me sounds one of the more thrashy Limburg accents.

I'm still wondering what shibolleths there are for all these cities in my area. (for those clueless about that odd looking word, it's hebrew; Shibboleth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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