Johanna... Sorry for jumping in so late onto this thread... I hope you do not mind.

I too thought the same as you about Russian accents, so do not feel bad at all.
When I first started out and was going to mention something in my book about them and thankfully I learned from a member that there was no such animal!!! I was as flabbergasted as you. How could there not be ANY accents anywhere when I only need to travel a short distance to find native English speakers with accents different from my own who have grown up in the same state as me?

Quote Originally Posted by bitpicker
...You can compare this situation to the US, where English used to be a second language for the people who first moved there, so that today East Coast and West Coast American English are less distinct from each other than the English spoken in any two British villages 50 miles apart.
Robin
Robin... first off, let me say that you are just a wealth of information about languages. All of your postings about language history and the depth in which you explain (on this thread and others) have been fascinating to read.

Secondly, while the east and west coasts (with the exception of New York, New Jersey and New England areas) may be getting less distinct, it is the speed at which we speak that is still very different. The east still speak at a much faster pace than the west and you will find this even if you call operator assistance. If you call information or weather, the pace at which the recorded information is given, is much faster and the words are clipped on the east coast compared to the west coast. When ever I travel to Los Angeles, I find myself wanting to pull the words out of people's mouths as they take too long to speak!

The southern states and midwest, those states are all together a different animal and you can tell people are from those areas as soon as they open their mouths. It is not only their accents, it is their pace and word choices.