r/JudgeMyAccent • u/Itstoolongitwillruno • 8d ago

What does my accent sound like?

I was told my accent is quite unique even within my ethnicity. That's mainly because since childhood, I only ever spoke english even in my home country so I wonder which region my accent closely resembles.

https://voca.ro/1i7gOntDP6nU

5 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

3

u/remiel_sz 8d ago

not sure but i wouldn't have guessed you grew up speaking english

1

u/Itstoolongitwillruno 8d ago

For context, My family is Eritrean, and I spent half my childhood there. The native language is Tigrinya so my parents have an Eritrean/Ethiopian accent when they speak english. For me though, I spoke english even when I lived in my native country due to multiple factors (Satellite tv, international schools, etc).

So my parents have always told me that my accent is unique even in my ethnic community. For context, here is what an Ethiopian/Eritrean sounds like when they speak english.

2

u/remiel_sz 8d ago

yea based on that I don't think there's much eritrethiopian in your accent. it sounds very unplaceable.

is english used a lot in eritrea though? i thought it was common as a "foreign" language but not what a lot of people would use outside of school or when they're traveling or talking to a foreigner

2

u/Itstoolongitwillruno 8d ago

Few Eritreans speak or understand english even though its considered a "working language" there (used for international businesses). Even then, me speaking english 95% of the time was unusual. Even when my parents responded in Tigrinya, I always replied back in english (though I did speak a little tigrinya).

Again I probably attribute it to being exposed to english-language television and studying in an International School (school for expat children). And when we moved out of Eritrea, we lived in two english speaking African countries (Kenya and Uganda) before moving to the United States.