the purist French speakers come from the Loire Valley - Tours to Orleans - locals, including my in-laws claim because at one time it was the only place in today's France under French kings' rule - always has been -the rest of France not - around 1900 I think very few folks spoke what you'd call the king's French but many local dialects and tongues.

Here in U.S. we midwesterners say that we 'have no accent' which is of course a bunch of crapola but it has been the 'queens' language' adopted by national network news, etc - California has the same midwest no accent!

Our Army friends back in the day were from Chicago, Michigan, and Portland, OR. I was teased unmercifully for my "southern" accent, which I (from KY) didn't know I had. I, of course, thought THEY had the accents.

Later, a man I worked with was transferred to NYC. I asked him if he got comments on his southern accent. We said we don't talk southern; we talk hillbilly.

<<Here in U.S. we midwesterners say that we 'have no accent' which is of course a bunch of crapola but it has been the 'queens' language' adopted by national network news, etc - California has the same midwest no accent!>>

If you are from Michigan, PalQ, as I believe you are, you are speaking with a distinct accent and not "general" American. And it's different from that of California. It's known as Great Lakes English and is prevalent from upstate New York through Ohio, Michigan, Chicago and up to Milwaukee. Its characterized by what linguistics experts call the "Northern Cities Vowel Shift" and is very noticeable to those of us who live on the Canadian side of the border, especially on the local news programs from places like Buffalo and Detroit.

Interestingly the general Canadian accent is very close to that spoken in California as this article points out. It concludes:

"What we do know is that if you get three people, one from Toronto, one from Buffalo, and one from Los Angeles, to stand next to each other and talk to you, you'll know which one is from Buffalo right away, but you might have trouble telling which one is from Toronto and which one is from L.A."

http://theweek.com/articles/453616/w...om-californian

I'm not really agreeing with above although I am not familiar with Buffalo speech. In a pretty huge area, say Vermont to California and up to Alaska including non-maritime English speaking Canada it's all the same accent except small vowel sound variations like the stressed short nasal A heard just in Chicago or the German O in the Upper Midwest or the Canadian OW sound-- it's just small things. Nothing like the variation a person would hear on Britain. And even in areas of North America with more distinct regional accents this standard accent is still spoken locally by some.

Sitting in a bar in Phuket with three other english people, one french man speaking english and a guy from Newcastle (Geordie). Guess which accent we could not understand?

Also currently having a long standing friendly argument with an american friend from Louisiana on the fact that she speaks american and I speak english...not american english or english english!

We also get what is called the international accent as most of the kids are taught by americans in the international schools so they get this weird mix of almost an upper class english accent with an american twang.