> In a message dated 98-02-05 22:22:19 EST, nexus@king.cts.com writes:
>
> << Arnold Schwarzenegger, strangely, could very well be an American from
> Pennsylvania, >>
>
>
> I doubt it, Nex. As one born and bred in Pennsylvania, I don't think anyone
> would mistake my voice for that of Schwarzenegger. At least I hope not. :-)
>
> Joyce
>
Not you, Joyce - and I certainly hope you don't *walk* like him either :)
I did once come across a fellow either from Penn, or somewhere in the
rural mid-west, who spoke with such a marked German accent that I for a
time refused to believe he'd never spent even an afternoon in either
Germany, Austria, or Switzerland. Nope, he'd never left the US. His
vocabulary was good, his speech fluent, but his accent was very thick.
Another time, I met someone with a heavy Dutch accent. He knew very little
about Holland, spoke no Dutch, but admitted his family was Dutch from way
back. Again, a rural type.. I ran some Dutch words by him - he recognized a
few, or said he did. I didn't want to push it, as these things can be
touchy, especially when you don't know the person. They apparently spoke
English at home, and had done so for several generations.
Purely anecdotal of course. But in my travels I've encountered quite a
few instances of heavily-accented speech where the speaker had few ties to
the language which originally created their accent. They were nearly
always from small towns. Nex