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lellololes t1_j4vxncp wrote

Reply to comment by OldEcho in New Hampsha by bubbynee

People in the US that are that difficult to understand are pretty rare. Not very many people are going to be confused by a Boston / NYC accent.

This, however...

https://youtu.be/nJ7QB3om-QY

Probably the most unusual accents in the US are the ocracoke islands and what you find in deep Appalachian areas, but Ireland and Scotland easily take the cake.

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Nellisir t1_j4wc4y3 wrote

When I was living in Montgomery AL I had to go to a junkyard way out in the country. My cousin's fiance insisted on going with me; I said it'll be fine; he said "no, I'll need to translate."

Yes. So much yes. I had no idea what was said at any point.

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sheila9165milo t1_j4wiko5 wrote

Same with rural parts of Florida. I met someone from northern rural FL one time and could not understand what in the world he was talking about.

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Rixtertech t1_j4yspji wrote

This. I was born in KY, mostly raised in the south and southwest as a child and thought I could at least basically understand any cracker I ran across until I met old Uncle Calvin from the panhandle who might as well have been speaking Etruscan. Then we came up here to NH which was a whole 'nother story. Hiwaiya! HafaBeeyah! Itzindacah,opendado-wa, itzondaflo-wa. AndthenCameeeYah! JeeeezumCrow! This was a rural lakes-region accent of the 60's, like the Boston cant but infantilized and opened up so consonants were almost impossible. Not everyone spoke like that but a lot of my neighbors did and were almost imposible to understand.

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sheila9165milo t1_j51igli wrote

Lol, yup, New Hampshire and New England in general, has a wide variety of accents, just like the South.

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zetterbeauty t1_j51fmnf wrote

I think a Downeaster accent from Maine would throw people not from New England for a loop too, to be fair.

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lellololes t1_j51l82q wrote

Eh - the defining thing of a new England accent is that they are non-rhotic. The Maine drawl isn't really out there. Other aspects of the accent - a few words are pronounced differently, but everyone has heard "aunt" versus "ant".

"There" might be "theh" in Boston and "theyeah" in Maine.

If you have an example of a ridiculously strong Maine accent id be curious. The strongest ones I've heard in person mostly sound like a combination of a slowly spoken Boston accent with a rural southern twang (more like Georgia than, say, Texas or Mississippi).

There's always some regional slang, of course. Nobody around here would ever be found whipping shitties, but tonic and bubblers might take some context for someone not from the region to figure out.

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