‘Alaskan Bush People’ Accents: What’s With The Brown Family’s Weird Speech?
Anyone who’s watched Alaskan Bush People on The Discovery Channel has noticed that the Brown family have accents that can most charitably be described as “unusual.” Where did those weird accents come from?
To understand the Brown family’s accent, it helps to know a little bit about where the family comes from. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, Alaskan Bush People family patriarchs Billy and Ami seem to speak without any sort of identifiable accent* (more on their purported lack of an accent in a second).
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— Alaskan Bush People (@AlaskanBushPPL) January 4, 2017
Unlike the Alaskan Bush People kids, the Brown family patriarchs spent much of their lives in the so-called “Lower 48,” living for periods in Texas, California, and Washington (state). By the time they got to Alaska, they’d shed any identifiable regional accent (although I can pick up the slightest Texas twang when Billy speaks). The kids, on the other hand, sound almost Elizabethan when they speak.
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— WWE_News (@_WWE__News_) January 1, 2017
So what’s with the accent? Well, there are three main possibilities.
The first explanation for the Alaskan Bush Peoples‘ accents is that they’re simply a big put-on for the cameras. That wouldn’t necessarily be out of character considering what’s known about the show. To put it mildly, Alaskan Bush People has been found to have exaggerated, embellished, and creatively edited, to up the drama and make the show more interesting. Another take on the matter is that the entire show is faked, from top to bottom – a claim levied by Inquisitr writer Toni Matthews in May 2016. Matthews quotes writer Alaska Dispatch News writer Emily Fehrenbacher, who points out that these so-called “reality” TV series filmed in Alaska are all the rage these days.
“Maybe Discovery Channel will buy the BP building and the National Geographic Channel will purchase the downtown Legislative Information Office so the Anchorage skyline will be more reflective of what seems to be Alaska’s largest industry: reality TV.”
A second explanation for the kids’ accents is the fact that they purportedly grew up in near isolation, cut off from the rest of the world, and with little exposure to TV, radio, the internet, and that sort of thing. In that environment, they simply developed their own accent. In fact, it’s linguists say that it’s not unusual for island communities to develop their own, distinctive accents. For example, Virginia’s Tangier Island is famous for its accent, which linguists say developed because of its inhabitants’ isolation from the mainland.
A third possibility is that the kids picked up an accent that’s something of a mishmash between their parents’ twang and the regional accent of Alaska. If you’ve ever heard famous Alaskan Sarah Palin speak, you’ve undoubtedly picked up on her brogue, which is reminiscent of the accent of parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Regardless of the source of (or even veracity) of the Alaskan Bush Peoples’ accents, it bears noting that accents can come and go. I went to college with a married couple from England, who told me that when they went home, their friends and family chided them for their “American” accents, even though to me their English accent never left. Similarly, I grew up in Illinois, and have lived one state south and west (Missouri) for the past three years. My friends and family back in the Land of Lincoln swear up and down I’ve picked up a bit of a twang from living here.
By the way, everybody has an accent, and if you think you don’t have one, you’re wrong. If you live in the U.S., unless you come from an area with a strong regional accent (New England, the Deep South, Baltimore, etc.), you’re speaking what’s known as the “General American Accent.” It’s the basic, “generic” accent used by newscasters, the TV and movie industry (except in cases where they’re obviously going for a specific regional accent), and so on. So even if you think you don’t have an accent, you have the General American Accent. It’s just not obvious.
Do you think the Alaskan Bush People‘s accent is faked for the cameras?
[Featured Image by Ingo70/Shutterstock]
