Which city or part of the country has the most profound accent?

IMHO, I think there are several areas where one could say there is a profound accent. Everywhere from the deep south of Alabama, to Brooklyn. I find accents to be quaint and a bit charming ususally. Growing up in Central California, I never really thought I had an accent, as the West Coast tends to have little variation of accents because it is comparitively new in it's development. My East Coast friends would tell me I have a "Media Accent" or a "Non Accent".
It wasn't until I moved to Chicago that I found myself surrounded by a majority of people that spoke what was to me a Midwestern and/or Chicago accent. Now after having lived here for more than 5 years, my Coastal friends tell me I have picked up a hint of the Chicago accent, especially with words like "actually", "park", and "aardvark". (OK, so I was having a phone conversation with a friend in NYC, when I used the word "aardvark" in a sentance of which I can no longer remember the reason for, and my friend just busted up laughing. I couldn't figure out why he was laughing, and after several moments of histerics, he calmly told me the "correct" pronunciation of "aardvark". To this day, he won't let me live it down.) I figure when spending a lot of time in Rome, you will eventually whether you like it or not, do as the Romans.

How did you say "aardvark?"

I've been accused of having an accent, but no one has yet been able to place it. Some called it Wisconsinite (I spent two years in Wisconsin), but people had pointed it out before I moved there. Some say it's Jewish. Some say it's Chicagoan. One person once asked me if I was from another country.

What's interesting is that on the east coast there are several variations of the "east coast" accent, eg. New York has a distinct accent. Even within the city there are local variations, Boston is different, Jersey, and Philly seem to have local variations North Jersey more like New York, south Jersey more like Philly. Not so sure about D.C./Baltimore. Chicagoans have a local accent. South siders in particular. As for the rest of the midwest, their accent seems a little flat (like the land). Southerners to me seem to all have a common accent (outside Texas and maybe Florida). Out west I'm not so sure dude!

Here's a neat map of all the dialect regions of the USA. Each urban area has a unique set of speech patterns, especially in the northeast and midwest...

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/NationalMap/NatMap1.GIF

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/NationalMap/NatMap1.html

Another link for more info:

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/phono_atlas/NationalMap/NationalMap.html

Well Done!

That's a really cool map. What's so special about the Pittsburgh area that they have their own accent? Or St. Louis? Can't think of how they sound.

I think that most people in North America pretty much sound the same, TV accent, but there are some real regional dialects out there, like the Midwest, Southern, and individual Northeastern twangs or whatever you want to call them.

It's funny, I grew up in the US mostly in the upper Midwest, and then in Toronto, and went to school in Ottawa. I'm currently in London right now, and working, I've come across people who I've barely spoken a word to and they've identified me as A) from Chicagoland (specific suburbs too!) and B) from Toronto, C) Ottawa, all cases they were from the area. It's really interesting how regional accents are. I know my "A" prounciation for words like accent or my "R" sounds like har(rrr)d represent the Midwestern accent, and sometimes I thrown in a Southern Ontario "house" pronounciation and words, like "eh". Now living in London, I'm catching some British vocabulary and find I'm pronouncing some words mockney style.

That's a really cool map. What's so special about the Pittsburgh area that they have their own accent? Or St. Louis? Can't think of how they sound.

Yes, all cities-- especially the older, more classic cities-- have unique dialects. Here's how this source describes the two cities you asked about:

...the entire area of Western Pennsylvania, centered round Pittsburgh, shares the merger of /o/ and /oh/ the fronting of /uw/ and /ow/, and the vocalization of /l/. But only Pittsburgh itself shows the characteristic monophthongization of /aw/ in house, mountain, etc. Cincinnati shows a traditional split of /æ/ into tense and lax categories not dissimilar to that of New York City (Strassel and Boberg 1995). Here the pattern appears to be eroding in favor of a more general regional pattern of laxing.

The city of St. Louis is located squarely in the South Midland region, but it has long been recognized as a center of Northern linguistic influence. On most Atlas maps, the St. Louis speakers show features that are held in common with the North, notable particularly in the long high and mid vowels, and there a corridor of northern influence that runs from northern Illinois to St. Louis (see Map 1). However, the specific configuration of St. Louis vowel system is local to the city in several respects. The most remarkable of these is a merger of /ahr/ and /ohr/ in card and cord, usually at the level of the mid vowel. This merger appears to be waning among younger speakers, and the vowel system seems to be shifting even more in the direction of the Inland North.

I grew up in the midwest, but interestingly, I never developed much of a midwestern accent, according to my friends here in DC. DC, I would say, doesn't have much of an accent, but because of its proximity to the south, you will sometimes hear the southern accent. When I lived in Philly, I definitely identified a generic east coast accent, but now I have noticed differences between the NYC/Brooklyn and the south Jersey/Philly accents. Boston definitely has its own accent--it is plain and clear! California? I don't think there is a California accent, mostly because Cali grew up in the media age, thus they never had provincial accents (I could be wrong)

BTW, there are variations of the southern accent as well. The Tennessee, Kentucky accent is quite different from the Georgia southern drawl (the sexiest one, if you ask me), as opposed to the G.W. Bush-like Texas accent

I think accents are most prevelant in the older well established cities. They formed with european imagration in the 19th century. The West is just too recently settled with regard to large groups of people in big cities. Also, a majority of the europeans which are in the West moved there from the East mixing together and diluting accents down to what it is today.
When I was in Pittsburg a couple of years ago, I did notice a distinct accent. I would guess it is left over from the heavy concentration of working class peoples of the past, isolated from other parts of Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Oh, and my pronuncation of "aardvark" was very nasily on the "a" sound. You would have to hear it to get it. (obviously :wink2: )

The South can be divided in to several different accents, and a lot of it has to do with how choppy the syllables are. The appalachian accents are very cut and dry with a drawl at the same time (think Zell Miller). It's the southern accent you find spoken where I live. The coastal plain accents are a little more drawled out and smooth. Georgia and Alabama accents are almost indistinguishable, and the panhandle of Florida shares that accent. The Carolinas up to central Virginia along with coastal Georgia have this non-rhotic accent that has a drawl, but not that much twang.