The odd accent of Tangier VA - American Tongues episode #3
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN uses it as the standard audio example of the Tangier accent in discussions of archaic or colonial-era English.
What it is
A clip from the documentary American Tongues about the isolated Tangier Island, Virginia, whose dialect is among the most unusual in the US. It is often said to resemble speech from centuries ago.
Recommended by 1 HN commenters across 1 different months, 2010 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends louhong · 2013-01 · on “When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents?”
This might be an interesting video ( [this video] ) - its a video of Tangier, VA where they still speak English from when the town was settled in 1600s.
Cites wooster · 2010-07 · on “Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?”
Well, there's Tangier, Virginia: [this video] Which has an accent thought to have remained unchanged since Colonial times.
Cites dreeves · 2013-01 · on “When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents?”
Ooh, reminds me of the accent on Tangier Island, Virginia: [this video] (that's a direct link to an example of the Tangier accent, which the article claims is not an uncorrupted version of Shakespearean English, but it does sound a bit similar to what those Shakespeare scholars have pieced together, what they call Original Pronunciation)
Cites gruseom · 2013-08 · on “Founders' Accents”
(Replying to both you and dylangs1030 here) The "18th century" thing stuck in my mind from some media piece, and now that you mention it, does sound rather obviously like a myth. But the place exists—I think it was probably Tangier Island [1], and the accent there is indeed archaic: [this video] Some of that sounds like a Monty Python sketch! It's definitely an example of one native English speaker (me) finding another (them) hard to understand. I also second the commenter who brought up the Glaswegian accent. I love how it sounds but damned if I can make out half of what they're saying. Maybe you're just gifted with dialects :) [1] [LINK]
Cites rhizome · 2018-04 · on “Cripes, a bumbershoot”
the modern English accent would sound completely foreign to the English of the 1700's The accent on Tangier Island in Virginia[1] is said to be the closest living pronunciation to Elizabethan English, and based on that I think some mutual understanding could be wrangled. 1. [this video]
Cites unhammer · 2018-10 · on “The Scots Language”
See [LINK] . Similar things have happened and are happening to many other minority languages (e.g. [LINK] ). ----- Also, regarding Scots not being that different, people do tend to (not always consciously) modify their speech towards mutual intelligibility when talking to people of different languages. My parents recently visited Tangier, VA[1], and had a conversation with some kids on the ferry, noticing "oh, they speak a bit differently", then they turned to speak to each other and my mom couldn't understand a word. [1] [this video]
Cites js2 · 2021-01 · on “Parisian Accent in 1912”
Some interesting U.S. accents: [LINK] The oddest is Tangier Island, VA: [this video] Relevant to this submission, a Cajun accent: [LINK] Relevant to HN, tech talk circa 1985: [LINK]
Cites ethbr1 · 2025-03 · on “The US island that speaks Elizabethan English”
Imho, the Tangier accent is a lot more eclectic: [this video] Barrier islands from Maryland to Georgia are linguistically fascinating. (As someone who spent a lot of time around them as a kid)