I’m Californian (from the San Francisco Bay Area), and when I’m speaking normally with people I feel like my accent is “default.” I don’t sound valley (dragging out words), and I’ve heard that Californians don’t say “t”, but I can’t find examples of it. What would it sound like to, say, a foreigner?
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Say “Dude” a lot?
I was born in California and have never heard of a “California accent” outside of the stereotypical surfer bro accent in movies and TV shows.
There is an important detail for accents – They are dying… or at least becoming less pronounced. People consume all kinds of non-local media now and all of that impacts how you talk.
It sounds like that SNL skit, The Californians
Do you pronounce the T in Sacramento, or do you say something like “Sacramenno”?
Put a definite article in front of every highway
I don’t know that Californians have a distinct accent. It’s more their diction and vernacular that marks them as Californians.
Obviously this is a wildly exaggerated, reductive response, but the first thing I heard in my head was Crush the sea turtle from Finding Nemo. The TV surfer dude accent.
Ever heard someone trying to say something as a statement but it sounds like they’re asking a question because of the upward inflection?
California native here who lives on the East Coast. People from here can tell I’m not from around here for sure. My husband, who is Canadian, says it’s to do with the broadness of my vowels, but obviously neither of us are experts
I know when I first moved to Missouri after spending my whole life in California (Bay Area, Sac, and then a year in San Diego): everyone said a few different things about my accent.
A lot of people said I sounded like a surfer. Apparently there is a way Californians do exclamations that just becomes sort of ingrained (say out loud: ‘dude’ like you’re angry, ‘dude’ like you’re excited, and then ‘duuuuuude’ like you’re surprised and slightly disappointed).
Californians generally do not enunciate. “I don’t want to” becomes very much “I don wanna” just like “I am trying to” is shortened to “I’m tryna”.
We also speak too slow or too fast depending on the situation, at least according to Missourians.
Also, the words ‘bro,’ ‘dude,’ and ‘hella’ etc.
Vocal fry… that’s a California accent
Aussie here. I spent some time in SF California and met many wonderful helpful friendly people, but unfortunately everyone spoke in a funny accent just to annoy me, or that’s what it felt like! No offence.
Of course I didn’t have an accent at all.
YouTube loudermilk coffee shop scene.
Having lived in Ohio now for 5 years after being born and raised in CA..the biggest simplest response is yes..and the easiest way to hear it is Ohio people say “yeah” EXACTLY as it’s spelled, California people tend to say it like “ya”. We also tend to not pronounce the t in middle of words..Sacrameno..Sana Cruz..
Don/Dawn merger is one of the things I notice most.
“meer” is mirror
Californian speakers exist on a spectrum of General American English to California English to Chicano English etc. White Californians will either sound just generally American or they may have some vowels which sound distinctly Californian (think Shaggy from Scooby Doo). Hispanic Californians speak on a spectrum of General American to Chicano English. Black Californians speak AAE and Asian Californians who speak English natively will sound General American to me at least.
I think not pronouncing t’s is a language shift. I was born and raised in California in the 50s, and everyone I know enuncuiates the t
With how large California is, you might be better off asking certain regions
I have a good friend who is from Southern California, born and raised, and he has a distinct SoCal accent. (I was born in SoCal but only spent the first 10 yrs of my life there; most of my life has been in northern California where the accent isn’t nearly as pronounced)
Where I notice it most is with words that end with an -ay sound; my friend pronounces it more like -eh. “At the end of the deh…”, “which wheh are we going?”, etc.
I’ve been told I have a “California accent”. I’ve noticed that I put an uptick at the end of my sentences? Like everything sounds like a question? And there’s a certain nasal quality to how I speak that I can’t really describe.. I haven’t lived in California since I was 16, and I’m 40 now, and I still have it.
This is what I picture, lol
The Californians
To me, The Beach Boys sound Californian.
Everyone wants to say surfer dude or Valley Girl but I’ve lived here all my 37 years (SoCal born and raised) and I very rarely hear that.
We do prolong words. We do say bro, dude, and like (at least I do). We do drop the “t”.
But all the media stuff is over-overexagerrated.
Southern Californians are more drawl-y than Northerners. But we all have that same way of holding our mouths open and letting the words “fall out.” Lazy accents.
I always think Jerry Garcia had the classic California accent. It sounds mostly like a typical American way of talking except for a few subtleties that are indicative of the West Coast.
I’m a brown guy that is a SoCal native, and in IT.
I have a very white sounding name, and I work with folks all around the country.
The first thing people say to me when they meet me is ‘ man, I thought you were a blonde surfer dude, by the way you talk’.
I let them know I am a surfer dude, just not white or blonde.
For the most part it sounds like the “generic TV American accent”, which makes sense since Hollywood is in Los Angeles Ca.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCer2e0t8r8
General Californian is very similar to General American. However, there’s a raising of vowel sounds (where “ay” and “eh” shift slightly towards “ee”) and a slightly melodious cadence to it.
I always like to use Bella Viva Orchards as an example because his accent is clearly local to the north San Joaquin Valley, his voice is clear, and you get a good explanation of the local “knock the L out” pronunciation of the word “almond.”
(But please ignore the “Why-kipedia” pronunciation. I have no idea where that came from.)
Semi-related, but I’m a Midwest Asian who moved to the Bay Area several years ago and it was my first exposure to the West Coast Asian accent.
I don’t even know how to describe it, but it’s distinct. Something in the way they pronounce vowels I think.
It’s the words we use, a rising tone at the end of statements (not as exaggerated as a valley girl, but listen to yourself for a bit you probably do it more than you think, there is a reason the stereotype grew), and the completion of several mergers (cot/caught, pin/pen) that are still in progress in other parts of the country. Also, the fact that we are more likely to talk about traffic than weather as small talk (again, not as exaggerated as The Californians, but the joke came from somewhere).
I notice that when Californians talk they tend to “raise” the end of sentences. Almost like it’s a question when it isn’t.
I’ve been told I have a specifically Bay Area accent, but I don’t know what the defining qualities are.
My husband’s mom and her sisters were all born and raised in SF and still live in the Bay Area today. They all sound like they’re from Noo Yawk.
I’m from Southern California as is all my family, and we sound normal.
The California accent just sounds like singing the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk commercial in your head over and over
Ifykyk..
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, now living in the Bay Area.
It’s the vocal fry, even if it’s minimal, even if you don’t notice it. It’s noticeable to others outside of CA. I also think we’re mostly more chill in the way we speak. It’s pretty prominent to those outside of California.
For example, last year, I landed in London and this family was returning from their trip to SF. This little girl was wearing her brand new chucks, and was dragging out her words saying, “like, I just got back from Saan Franciscoo??” (think SNL Californian skit). So, we sound like that to people lol
Depends on the demographic. The white people who descend from the families economically displaced by the Dust Bowl have a heavily diluted mid-southern twang. Second (and sometimes third) generation Hispanics have the “Chicano” accent that many Hispanic-Americans of that generation have. Similarly, second generation East Asians have a very specific accent that many second generation Asian-Americans have. Beyond that, most people speak standard American English with some fun words like “hella” and “gnarly” sprinkled in.
I don’t know, but when I was on vacation in New Mexico with my parents as a kid we were frequently asked if we were from California and we’re from Oklahoma. I always thought that was interesting and wasn’t sure if it was my parents hippie vibe or the mass exodus of Oklahomans to California during the dust bowl and depression era influencing California accents.
I ran into a guy at a bar yesterday with one of the thickest California accents I’ve heard. He was probably late 40s so his language was straight out of the 90s. “Rad” “stoked” “smashed” and then every other word was “dude”.
All these Californians claiming they have no accent is hilarious. I’m from the Midwest and thought I have no accent, but my co-worker’s Romanian wife pointed out my twang (which made me feel embarrassed honestly).
A fish doesn’t realize the water it’s swimming in kind of thing.
I don’t know that there’s an accent really. It’s always been flat to me (as compared to say, a New York or Boston accent).
Say this: “I caught my dog sleeping on my cot.”
If you pronounced “caught” and “cot” the same way, you have a California accent.
It’s going to depend on where in California you’re in. I not only live in a coastal city in SoCal, but I’m fairly close to the beach (very small drive). My school growing up was actually a very short walk from one.
We didn’t really have the infamous valley accent (no uptalk), but more of a a surfer one (or what I call a beach accent lol).
I’ve met people who were distinctly able to figure out what city I grew up in, based on my accent alone. And to them, they said I sounded like a surfer. 🤣
There is one. The SoCal accent is mocked in that SNL skit. Here’s an article about it. Also, your best source for questions like this is “ask a linguist” b/c people aren’t great at assessing the more neutral American accents. Also, there is a really good database of ALL English accents, and it has people from every part of the English speaking world, and also highlights differences based on age, race, region, etc. You’ll hear shifts from English speakers across generations. https://www.altaonline.com/dispatches/a63903180/california-accent-regional-dialect-study/
A California accent is really subtle but it’s there. The best way I can think of is to Bill and Ted and dial the way they talk down to about a 3.
Californians don’t have accents, they have affectations.
Wait, this question is coming from an actual Californian?
Because I was going to turn it around on whatever nationality the question was coming from, where we Americans might have one particular stereotype for a country’s accent but a native would be able to pick out something far more specific.
California is freaking huge, there are multiple different accents. The accent that a foreigner would think of as “Californian”, if they’re smart enough to realize that it isn’t the neutral American accent, would probably be the Southern Coastal Californian accent, aka the one that you’d be likely to see in the LA area, for obvious reasons (that’s where the hub of our entertainment industry is, so while the stars of any movie/TV show might have their own accents and/or be skilled enough to convincingly fake an accent, you’re likely to still hear that accent coming from a bit part.)
OP stated that they’re from the Bay Area, so NoCal. That would indeed be a different accent than what a foreigner would think of as “California”. As for thinking your own accent sounds “neutral”, that’s just natural. If you don’t perceive someone as having an accent, it probably just means they have the same accent you do. I’m out on the East Coast, where accents have a much smaller range, similar to what you’d find in England. For example, NYC probably has about 5 different accents–New Yorker (Manhattanite), Bronx (which is also the stereotypical “Joisey” accent, because most people think of all of NJ as being the part that’s closest to NYC), Brooklyn (think Fran Drescher), Long Island (remember, Queens and Brooklyn are actually both on the physical island), and Nuyorican (yes, that is a portmanteau of “New York” and “Puerto Rican”). If you’re wondering why Staten Island doesn’t get its own like the other four, refer back to what I said about the “Joisey” accent also being the Bronx accent–Staten Island may be part of NY politically, but geographically it’s closer to NJ. And New Jersey, you think of it as a small state, but neither the Bronx accent nor the Philly accent sound “neutral” to me, because I’m in the corner far enough removed from both of them. I don’t know enough about California accents to say how many they have, but I included “Coastal” for a reason; I know that north or south, the stereotypes about California don’t apply on the other side of the mountains.
Californians say ‘like’ a lot. I am in college out of state and can usually tell which of my peers are also originally from California. If their likes per minute value is over 1.5, they are Californian. If it’s over 3, they definitely are.
It’s evident in the slang we use and how we pronounce certain vowels. For example are capital is Sacramento but most of us pronounce it as Sacrameno’ w/out the T. We don’t really have a drawl like folks from the South but it’s noticeable. As someone put it earlier how we describe our freeways.
Hey OP, as a fellow Californian, let me tell you this: say “Sacramento” out loud, normally, with no special or specific enunciation, and let me know if you actually hear the “t” at the end.
I think it has to do with the rest of the USA that used to be part of Mexico. I am from New Mexico and a SoCal accent is similar, same with AZ and Tejano accent
We don’t have an accent.
Southern Californians say “the” before a freeway number like they’re Starfire from Teen Titans
I used to live in Santa Rosa (Sonoma County) and I never noticed a particular accent there.
What I DID notice was the (over)use of “hella” and the strange way y’all say “Right on.”
Everywhere else in country, I’ve always heard “Right ON.”
In Northern California, it’s “RIGHT on.”
It’s just unusual.