Accents and Dialects

Even among speakers of the same language, regional and cultural differences affect the way we communicate. Every language contains several dialacts, each with its own accent and set of slang words. Within the USA alone, you can hear very pronounced regional differences by traveling short distances. The people in my hometown of D.C. speak a lot faster and use more slang than most of the people I meet in North Carolina, however in N.C. they tend to put more vowels in to words than were originally intended.

Being in a homogenous society like Japan, I expected the regional differences to be less pronounced. Instead I encountered Osaka-ben, which often differs from Kanto-ben (Tokyo talk) and even the dialect of Kyoto. It is interesting to me how native Japanese speakers can just as easily pinpoint where a person grew up based on the way they talk as other English speakers can.

Some interesting links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansai_dialect

http://mcarroll4716.blogspot.com/2005/10/explanation-dc-metro-area-slang.html