Word Pronunciation Proof That Many True Idahoans do Have a Distinct Accent

When I think of accents from around the United States, I think of the Southern drawl of Texas, the Cajun, and deep south accents, or the drawn-out hard vowels in Boston. There are many more than that, but I don't usually think of Idaho as having an accent. Especially when compared to the mentioned locations, we're about as neutral as possible. Or are we?

Do Idahoans Have An Accent?

Since we live here, we may not recognize or think about how we talk. Believe it or not, but there is an Idaho accent. Some here have thicker accents than others, but pretty much everyone in Idaho does have an accent. Think about how you say the following words, and you're guaranteed to say a few of them differently than the rest of the United States:

• Mountain
• For
• Shoshone
• Castleford
• Hundred
• Boise
• Roof

A few of those are obvious for this reason: if you have to explain to everyone who visits here how to say a word or name, then you say it differently than most people. Call it an accent or call it dialect. We constantly have to tell people the correct way to say Boise and that Castleford ends with a 'ferd' and not 'ford'. Ask anyone not from Idaho how to say Shoshone and they'll probably say it the right/proper way, even if we don't agree. The word 'for' doesn't have an 'E' in it and mountain does indeed have a 'T' you're supposed to pronounce. I'm not sure why hundred comes out as 'hunnerd' from some of our mouths.

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It isn't just how we pronounce words either. Our word usage is interesting sometimes. When many of us talk about distance we might say 'that house is about 20 foot from here' when we should say the word feet.

Our accent in Idaho is minimal, but it is definitely there, and noticeable to those who aren't from here.