History Main / WhatTheHellIsThatAccent

* Played for laughs both in-universe and out in ''Fanfic/CulturalArtifacts'': when [[spoiler:Vladimir]] Blueblood puts on his 'Igor' persona, he speaks in the trademark voice - but when Trixie demands that he speak normally, he responds in a Vanhoover accent so thick that even he can't make out most of what he says.

* ''Fanfic/ChildrenOfRemnant'': Roman Torchwick taunts Adam Taurus with what Adam claims to be a purposely exaggerated Valean accent designed to sound terrible and mock him - based on the spelling, Remnant's Valean is apparently the equivalent to Earth's French.

* The Qunari of ''Franchise/DragonAge''. While most others have an identifiable accent due to being a FantasyCounterpartCulture (Ferelden is British, Orlais is French, Antiva is Spanish, etc.), they don't; their accent seems to be as much a ''nonaccent'' as anything, and certainly doesn't fit their cultural comparison of the Middle East or their geographical comparison of DarkestAfrica. Even the Developer's Toolset is unhelpful: while Leliana's (Orlesian) accent is listed as "hint of French", Zevran's (Antivan) accent is "slightly Spanish", and Wynne's (Ferelden) accent is "possibly British-sounding", Sten's accent is just "Qunari" with absolutely no explanation of what a Qunari might sound like. This may be intentional, as Qunari are extremely picky about displaying complete mastery of any skill they attempt, and so speaking with an identifiable accent would be ''doing it wrong''. For most of them, this makes sense since they speak in a very precise, deliberate manner, but The Iron Bull from Inquisition has the same accent despite having a much more natural speaking style otherwise.[[note]]Well, almost; his informal manner of speaking will occasionally be inflected with [[Creator/FreddiePrinzeJr his voice actor's]] dialect, sometimes even dipping into the Hispanic/Puerto Rican accent Prinze used for [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 Vega]].[[/note]]

* Colonel Tom Parker, the manager of Music/ElvisPresley. He was born Andreas van Kuijk in the Netherlands, then moved to the US as an undocumented immigrant at age 19, inventing the identity of Thomas Andrew Parker from West Virginia. He was in his [=40s=] when he started managing Elvis, and by that point his accent (as heard [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwZ2ld_CAS4 here]]) had become Americanized enough that nobody suspected he wasn't American. The only things that may have given him away were some odd locutions, like saying "yust" instead of "just", or rhyming "book" with "fluke", but likely people would've written them off as some sort of rural dialect. Still, he retained fluency in Dutch throughout his life; in his [=80s=] he spoke the language perfectly when he was interviewed by Dutch television. By contrast, Creator/TomHanks went with a strange, much-criticized vague Mittel European accent when he played Parker in ''Film/Elvis2022''.

* Creator/EddieIzzard {{lampshade|Hanging}}s this a couple of times; namely, in his impressions of a Bond villain and a push-me-pull-you carpet sweeper. The Bond villain's accent is explained as being the result of his losing the instructions to a synthetic voice box, which is consequently stuck in shop demonstration mode. During a joke about Pavlov's dog, he suddenly realized his Pavlov sounded more Welsh than Russian and ran with it.

* Mollymauk in campaign 2 of ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'' is supposed to have a Scottish accent of sorts, except Taliesin Jaffe isn't exactly the best at doing a Scottish accent, and half the time it sounds more like an a strange version of an American accent. The rest of the cast likes to give him a hard time about it.
** In the same campaign there's also Jester who Luara Bailey gives a somewhat strong Eastern-European sounding accent that manages to stay very consistent while also being impossible to place.

Not to be confused with NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent where a character is supposed to be from Country Y but sounds just like the rest of the cast. May overlap with JustAStupidAccent, AsLongAsItSoundsForeign or UnexplainedAccent (if there's no in or out-of-universe reason the character should talk like this). If the accent ''starts'' recognizable but then inexplicably jumps on a cross-country road trip, then it's OohMeAccentsSlipping. If the character denies they have an accent, it's VotOcksent.

* [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas The Courier]] in ''Machinima/CouriersMindRiseOfNewVegas'' speaks in what sounds like a FrenchJerk accent filtered through a persistent head-cold. [[WordOfGod 101Phase]] has since clarified that it's actually his natural speaking voice, a Chinese accent.

-->''"Listen to Mitt Romney speak, and see if you can notice what's missing. This is a man who grew up in UsefulNotes/{{Michigan}}, went to college in UsefulNotes/{{California}}, walked door to door through the streets of southern France as a [[UsefulNotes/{{Mormonism}} missionary]] and was a governor of UsefulNotes/{{Massachusetts}}, the home of perhaps the most instantly recognizable, heavily accented English this side of Edinburgh. Yet not a trace of any of these places is detectable in Romney's diction. None of the people in any of those places bled in and left a mark on the man."''

* In ''VideoGame/Persona4Arena'', [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Aigis']] [[RobotGirl "sister"]] Labrys occasionally speaks with a KansaiRegionalAccent. In the English release, this was [[TranslationConvention expressed]] by giving her a [[UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents North Jersey[=/=]Bronx accent]]; it's hard to tell which it is. This might have been due to the voice actor having difficulties with the nuances of the accent, but is {{justified|Trope}} in her Story Mode: [[spoiler:it sounds like someone imitating an accent because ''that's exactly what it is.''All early Anti-Shadow Weapons up to Labrys were created using AIs that were based on the mind of an IllGirl that the Kirijo Group somehow brain-mapped; their "mother", if you will, and Labrys was unconsciously trying to copy the way the girl spoke]].

** In ''Series/TheWalkingDead'', while series regulars Andrew Lincoln and Lennie James are native Brits playing American Southerners, ironically it is the American-born-and-partially-bred Cohan whose attempted Southern accent occasionally slips into British.

* In-universe in ''Film/InglouriousBasterds''. Lt. Hicox is an undercover British agent pretending to be a German, but an SS officer notes his unusual accent and becomes suspicious. Hicox deflects his questions by claiming he's from an obscure village, which doesn't completely convince the SS officer who thus sticks around waiting for Hicox to make a more obvious mistake.[[note]]To clarify a little for non-German speakers: German is an intensely regional language (and was even more so at the time the movie is set, just look at Film/DasBoot for a German production that milks the accent diversity of 1940s Germany for all it can), perhaps even moreso than UK English. That Hicox speaks perfect High German (the equivalent of BBC newscaster English) with no dialectal variations at all is a bit fishy, if perhaps not enough to comment on. However, he also has an accent which, while not strong enough to be immediately identifiable as English, is still not a commonly heard German one. Together, these things become highly suspicious.[[/note]]

* Creator/EdwardJamesOlmos is well known for his gravelly BadassBaritone, but he forgoes that completely as Gaff in ''Film/BladeRunner'' in favor of a weird, hissing bark of a voice that sounds like he's simultaneously shouting and whispering every other word. Given that Gaff's first language seems to be [[{{Conlang}} Cityspeak]], the unholy creole offspring of Spanish, French, Japanese, Hungarian, Chinese, and German, (and which Olmos also created himself) this is most likely [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools intentional.]] [[spoiler: It's even more confusing when he uses his normal voice for TheCameo he has in the second movie.]]
* ''Film/BladeRunner2049'': Creator/JaredLeto plays Niander Wallace with a really weird mix of flat tones and [[AcCENTUponTheWrongSylLABle weird, musical pitch shifts]]. Again, definitely intentional, and it has the effect of making Wallace seem more [[UncannyValley inhuman and robotic]] than any of the actual [[ArtificialHuman Replicants]].

* ''Film/{{Elysium}}'': In a probably intentional attempt at this trope, Creator/JodieFoster's character speaks in an odd accent that at times sounds French, at times British and at times American, yet at the same time not really any of them. Which might be FridgeBrilliance considering any accent on a space station in the 22nd century would almost certainly not resemble any modern day Earth ones.

* As part of the {{kayfabe}} they maintain, some of the ''WebAnimation/{{Hololive}}'' idols affect accents or exaggerations to their accents. This is notably ''not'' the case with Sakura Miko and her extremely distinct lisping speech which, according to Pekora and Mio, is her normal speaking voice. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=253&v=je94xBYiC1k&feature=youtu.be According to Miko herself]], this is probably because she has a rather short tongue in real life.
** Ever since she revealed herself to have been a FarmGirl, Gawr Gura's fans have been trying to place where she is from as nuances in her speech make it difficult to pin down if she's from one or another Mid-Western American state, or even possibly from southern Canada.

** Hakos Baelz has stated she's from Australia's east coast, but her accent wanders through three different continents, with viewers describing her accent as from Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Texas, Brooklyn and even Boston. Seeing she's representing chaos itself, it's only fitting.

* Part of the reason Music/TheMostMysteriousSongOnTheInternet has [[IndecipherableLyrics indecipherable (yet just decipherable enough to be recognized as English) lyrics]] is the singer's accent. The song was reportedly first broadcast on West German radio and has been compared to Music/JoyDivision: If the group was ''from'' West Germany and Ian Curtis was a conscious influence, this would be a German singer trying to sing like a British singer who was trying to sound American.

* Part of the reason Music/TheMostMysteriousSongOnTheInternet has [IndecipherableLyrics indecipherable (yet just decipherable enough to be recognized as English)]] lyrics is the singer's accent. The song was reportedly first broadcast on West German radio and has been compared to Music/JoyDivision: If the group was ''from'' West Germany and Ian Curtis was a conscious influence, this would be a German singer trying to sing like a British singer who was trying to sound American.

* Colonel Tom Parker, the manager of Music/ElvisPresley. He was born Andreas van Kuijk in the Netherlands, then moved to the US as an undocumented immigrant at age 19, taking on the identity of Thomas Andrew Parker from West Virginia. He was in his [=40s=] when he started managing Elvis, and by that point his accent (as heard [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwZ2ld_CAS4 here]]) had become Americanized enough that nobody suspected he wasn't American. The only things that may have given him away were some odd locutions, like saying "yust" instead of "just", or rhyming "book" with "fluke", but likely people would've written them off as some sort of rural dialect. Still, he retained fluency in Dutch throughout his life; in his [=80s=] he spoke the language perfectly when he was interviewed by Dutch television. By contrast, Creator/TomHanks went with a strange, much-criticized vague Mittel European accent when he played Parker in ''Film/Elvis2022''.

* [[VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas The Courier]] in ''Machinima/CouriersMindRiseOfNewVegas'' speaks in what sounds like a FrenchJerk accent filtered through a persistent head-cold. [[WordOfGod 101Phase]] has since clarified that it's actually his natural speaking voice, a Chinese accent.

* ''WebAnimation/TrueTail'' has a character named Viktor whose voice sounds like a mixture of Russian, Latin, and British.

* ''WebAnimation/TF2Analysis'' has [=AnY=] Pony create this as he tries to play the Scottish Demoman but his natural German accent gets in the way. Occasionally crops up with other analysts trying to mimic the accent of the character they're playing, but his stands out the most.

* Coach Z from ''WebAnimation/HomestarRunner''. His accent started out as an exaggerated Midwestern drawl[[note]]The Brothers Chaps claim it is based off a "midwestern-Canadian" accent, specifically.[[/note]] and eventually evolved into something the other characters describe as its own language.
* ''WebAnimation/TheMostEpicStoryEverToldInAllOfHumanHistory'': The [[{{Narrator}} Epic Narrator]] speaks with some sort of undefined European-sounding accent.
* Creator/BenCroshaw of ''WebAnimation/ZeroPunctuation'' once described his originally-Australian accent as "taking a walking tour of the British Isles".

* Adrianna Niles from ''Film/{{Werewolf}},'' who sounds like Tommy Wiseau. She's Czech.

* Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' adopts a weird sort of mid-Atlantic accent that sounds sort of like it wants to be British but can't quite make it -- which stands out, given that practically everybody in the movie speaks with one [[UsefulNotes/BritishAccents British Regional Accent]] or another. And occasionally he says random lines in a hammy Irish accent. This was very probably done ''on purpose'', though, as he's the only Dunedain from Arnor that we see (not its southern sister-kingdom Gondor), he was raised by Elves, and he's traveled a lot - it makes sense that he'd have a unique accent.

* In the ''VideoGame/CapcomVs'' games, [[Characters/XMen90sMembers Gambit]] has an "accent" that sounds absolutely nothing like a New Orleans Cajun accent and more like harsh whispering in a neutral American accent.

* Adrianna Niles from ''Film/{{Werewolf}},'' who sounds like Tommy Wiseau. She's Polish.

* There's no indication Quint from ''Film/{{Jaws}}'' is from anywhere but Amity Island, but he has an accent somewhere between Irish and rural Maine, completely unlike anyone else in the film, or anyone else on Earth.

** ComicBook/HarleyQuinn seems to have her typical [[BrooklynRage heavy Brooklyn accent]], but it comes across as more of an affectation, and John can lovingly point out that it wavers in and out, particularly when she gets angry.
** [[Characters/BatmanRoguesGalleryPart2 The Riddler]] is given an accent that wavers between generic American and [[EvilBrit nondescript British]].

** Another confusing accent is that of ''VideoGame/MechWarrior Online'' streamer [=TheB33F=], whose combination of deep, almost booming voice and French-Canadian origins [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_MkO4dYRds occasionally renders him indecipherable]] to even native English speakers.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheGreatNorth'': When Honeybee tries to create her own podcast voice by using a foreign accent, Wolf thought she was trying to do an Australian accent, but she tells him she was doing a British accent.

* Walter Wolf in ''WesternAnimation/TheAnimaniacs'' speaks in a strange accent that sounds Appalachian, but pronounced many words in a New York fashion, on top of pronouncing is ‘s’s as ‘sh’ and dropping ‘meshugennah’ once in a while, which only confuses his accents origin.
* Every time ''WesternAnimation/Gargoyles'' attempted Scottish accents, it was terrible. Hilariously, the one time they hired a Scottish actress (Music/SheenaEaston), they cast her as an '' Irish'' character!