Perhaps a one word title for this could have been “Dialects” because that word includes the social group identity and not necessarily the regionalism of the word “accent”. Still the word is still not right for all the groups we are going to mention and I choose to have fun with the regionalism.
My first example of pseudo accents is a huge group, those pseudo accents or patters used for cartoon characters. Mel Blanc, the Warner Bros. Cartoons genius is the biggest master of this field. His Tweetie Pie or Daffy Duck or Sylvester the Cat are all classics. For all of these he created a different way of talking that was self consistent for each character. These are some of the pseudo accents I wish to discuss.
There were other great inventions in speech for other cartoon characters like Donald Duck. I’ve never been able to master that style of speech but imagine it’s quite hard on the throat. Mickey Mouse wouldn’t count as a pseudo accent just because his voice is only raised in pitch.
If we were to say where these accents are spoken we’d have to say they take up whole continents since the field of animation is so rich in pseudo accents. Maybe there would be a continent of Blancia and Vox Animatia.
Then there is the deaf accent or pseudo accent. I’m not certain it is the same amongst all speakers, but the talented Marlee Matlin and the one deaf male I know seem to share the same pseudo accent. I am generalizing from these two lone examples that all deaf people who choose to speak, speak with roughly the same accent. If you know better, please correct me.
This is an amazing talent, to use a sensory output they have no governor for. That they are quite easily intelligible to non deaf people is quite remarkable. I think they could have come from a land called Skilya.
Then there are those with Down Syndrome. Different physical characteristics, mean a different mouth with a different way of talking or a pseudo accent. To my untrained ear, I think the deaf and the Down Syndrome people sound something alike. That might be something like both Japanese and Germans seeming to talk forcefully but with no real relation between the two ethnic groups. So the land of Downsie might be far away from Skilya.
Finally we come to the gay accent or pseudo accent. Most people have a large enough circle of people they know to know this accent. It’s important to remember that not all gays have this accent. The evolutionary purpose of this accent might have been to alert other gays that they are not alone. Or maybe some gays deliberately talk this way to increase their visibility. Regardless, every redneck can launch into his gay pseudo accent when around his “known to be straight” friends.
I know of no similar pseudo accent amongst lesbians. So perhaps we could say that people with a gay accent come from Gaia. But wouldn’t it be more fun if we said they were from rural Ontario? Or how about rural Colorado or rural Texas? I don’t have any biases, I just like to pepper my posts with the word rural and sometimes redneck.
