Surprisingly, the Scottish, Irish and Welsh accents are considered more soothing than the English accent, according to the results of MattressNextDay's study.
The Northeastern accent topped the category of smartest sounding accents. Prebly noted that there are more than 7,100 languages spoken around the world and more than 30 dialects in the United States alone.
For one thing, if you're not used to it, it's simply harder to understand someone who is speaking with a foreign accent. The utterances are about 30% longer, they contain many pauses, the individual sounds may differ from ones we're used to, and where stress is located in the word and in the sentence also differs.
Of foreign accents, the British accent is the #1 most liked, chosen by 69% of respondents. In addition to being the general favorite, it also ranked among the sexiest and most intelligent.
The results indicated that speech rate has an effect on perceived extraversion, conscientiousness, persuasiveness, and communication skills, and that accent has an effect on perceptions of agreeableness, intelligence, and communication skills.
The appeal has to do with seeming exotic or worldly, she says, and she likes the way the words sound. "It's inherently sexy to have someone say sentences in your native tongue in a slightly different and more poetic way than you would say them." So what's it like to have an attractive accent?
Generally speaking, the way we pronounce words can be molded by regular interaction with people in our environment. So a family that has moved from one part of the world to another may seem to have a family-specific accent, but that trait is a result of the family's shared environment—not their shared genetics.
The results revealed that women and men find different accents attractive, and the only common accents on both lists were Australian and Southern. While men desired Israeli and Colombian accents the most, this was not mirrored amongst the women who were surveyed, who ultimately preferred British and Spanish accents.
Some people believe that RP (Received Pronunciation) is the most standard or general accent in British English. Many EFL (English as a Foreign Language) schools teach it because it is supposed to be the most “polished” pronunciation. It is typically referred to as “Queen's English” or “BBC English”.
Linguistic research finds that accents considered sexy usually suggest more than a pleasing sound. For example, the British accent may indicate intelligence and high social status, specifically attractive to Americans. However, Italian accents suggest intense romance and a laidback attitude that Europeusens find sexy.
The Great British accent proved to be the most difficult of all the accents to imitate - along with the regional Yorkshire and Cockney pronunciations, in particular.
The French accent, previously considered the sexiest in the world, has been dethroned by the British accent, aka the Queen's English, in a global study carried out by Time Out in over 30 countries.
Among American accents, the Northeastern accent, comprising the dialects of the New England, Greater New York, and Greater Philadelphia areas, wins out as the smartest, while the British accent again tops the foreign accent list.
Australian English can be described as a new dialect that developed as a result of contact between people who spoke different, mutually intelligible, varieties of English. The very early form of Australian English would have been first spoken by the children of the colonists born into the early colony in Sydney.
Generally speaking though, it can be said that the Welsh accent is probably closest to an Australian one. This is due to their similarities in terms of pronunciation and vocabulary choices – both Welsh and Australians tend to end words on a 'v' sound rather than an 'r' sound like other English speakers do.
There are different variations of the Australian accent. Dr Gawne describes one variation as the "broad accent... [which is] your good, Aussie, ocker accents." Another variation is the "general accent, which is actually the majority of Australian English speakers."
Three main varieties of Australian English are spoken according to linguists: broad, general and cultivated. They are part of a continuum, reflecting variations in accent. They can, but do not always, reflect the social class, education and urban or rural background of the speaker.
Article Talk. Strine, also spelled Stryne /ˈstraɪn/, describes a broad accent of Australian English.
The most widely accepted theory to why Australians have the accent they do is that the first Australian born children (of the colonizers, not the natives obviously) simply created the first trace of the recognizable accent amongst themselves naturally.
Research has shown that accents become permanent around the age of 12 years old. That being said, it is possible for accents to change over time or for adults to develop a subtle accent after living in a foreign country for an extended period of time.
Comparing the two results, it is estimated that children start to recognize different accents at the age of 5 and start to develop their own accents. For that reason, it is recommended to increase children's exposure to different accents between age 5 to 7 for them to develop an unique accent that fits themselves.
Linguistic researchers like us suggest the answer is complicated — no one becomes truly “accentless,” but accents can and do change over time. To us, what's more interesting is why so many people believe they can lose their accent – and why there are such differing opinions about why this may be a good or bad thing.