# Accents



## MarX

Shalom!

Sorry for sounding so ignorant, but is it true that there's no regional accents in Israel?

My Israeli friend told me that in Israel there's no such thing as regional accents. Everybody has an accent which depends rather on one's ethnic background.

Toda raba!


MarX


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## cfu507

regional accents? No.
People who were born outside of Israel (and sometimes if only theire parents) might have different accent, no matter where they live in Israel.


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## MarX

Thanks!
Other things that he told me:


> Even the ones born in Israel have an accent, yet it doesn't depend on which part of the country you live, but rather on which people you hang out with.
> After spending some time with Brazilians, you easily get a Brazilian touch in your accent.
> There is not really a "standard" pronunciation. Even newscasters have different accents.


Are those true?


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## cfu507

I don't think so. People like to make a generalization. 
I belive that it depends on the person, but maybe someone else thinks differently than me.
I don't have friends who speak French and I don't speak that language, but a lot of people have told me that I had French accent and asked me if I spoke that language.

Very interesting!


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## cfu507

Oh, maybe after spending a long time with Brazilians in Brazil and you spoke Portuguese, you might come back to Israel and speak Hebrew in Portuguese Accent. The same for other places in the word.


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## Nunty

I lived for years in French-speaking monastery. I speak French very badly and with an American accent, but somehow part of the French accent slipped into my Hebrew pronunciation. Very often when I speak to someone in a shop, for example, they will change to French and then be astounded when they hear how badly I speak it!

Israel is a very small country and there are no regional accents, it is true. The accents are ethnic or... I don't the adjective for this: the country the person or their parents come from, as has already been said in this thread.


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## Tamar

There is a standard pronounciation in Hebrew, and all newscasters sound the same (and they sound just like everybody else, unlike 20 years ago).



> Oh, maybe after spending a long time with Brazilians in Brazil and you spoke Portuguese, you might come back to Israel and speak Hebrew in Portuguese Accent. The same for other places in the word.


That is definitely true. I believe that every language we learn starts influencing us at a point without us noticing.


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## jdotjdot89

The accents are definitely ethnic.  Nowadays, there seems to be more of a trend towards nationwide accent homogeneity, but not entirely.  You'll still often find sephardi families who pronounce ח like ح and pronounce ע like ع, among other noticeable differences.

Among the most common "non-standard" accents are those of Russian ancestry (there are large communities of those, especially in certain places in the Negev).

Do the native Israelis here living in Israel agree?


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## Nunty

jdotjdot89 said:


> The accents are definitely ethnic.  Nowadays, there seems to be more of a trend towards nationwide accent homogeneity, but not entirely.  You'll still often find sephardi families who pronounce ח like ح and pronounce ע like ع, among other noticeable differences.
> 
> Among the most common "non-standard" accents are those of Russian ancestry (there are large communities of those, especially in certain places in the Negev).
> 
> Do the native Israelis here living in Israel agree?


I do. See post 6.


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## בעל-חלומות

jdotjdot89 said:


> The accents are definitely ethnic. Nowadays, there seems to be more of a trend towards nationwide accent homogeneity, but not entirely. You'll still often find sephardi families who pronounce ח like ح and pronounce ע like ع, among other noticeable differences.
> 
> Among the most common "non-standard" accents are those of Russian ancestry (there are large communities of those, especially in certain places in the Negev).
> 
> Do the native Israelis here living in Israel agree?


 
I generally agree, but want to add that now that a lot of families from different backgrounds mix and marry with each other, this different is sometimes less apparent with younger generations. I've seen kids who pronounce ע even though they don't "look" like people who would, and kids who don't distinguish between ח and כ, even though their families probably do.

Another thing, Jerusalmis are said to have a different accent, but I personally don't seem to hear it.


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## jdotjdot89

בעל-חלומות said:


> Another thing, Jerusalmis are said to have a different accent, but I personally don't seem to hear it.



I've never heard of Jerusalem people having a different accent, and I agree with you that they don't.


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