Is there really an Asian American accent?
TikTok users are claiming that Asian Americans have an accent—we did the research to find out if it truly exists
Words by Teresa Tran
“Did you know that Asian Americans who are born in the United States all have a very specific accent?” claims Jimmy Maio, an Asian American content creator, in a TikTok that’s been viewed 1.3 million times. And he’s not the only person who believes native-born Asian Americans share a common “accent.”
“I’ve had a lot of Asian American friends tell me they can hear one,” says Adam Aleksic, a 23-year-old white, male linguist and content creator best known for creating educational linguistics videos, in a TikTok that’s amassed 690,400 views. “There is substantial evidence that listeners can identify ‘Asian-sounding’ voices at a rate higher than chance.”
Since posting their videos earlier this year, Maio’s and Aleksic’s videos together have received thousands of responses from Asian Americans and non-Asian Americans alike, in the form of comments and video stitches. The majority of these responders agree as well: they can hear a detectable Asian American accent.
What are people hearing?
The idea of the “Asian American accent” stems from observing the distinct qualities surrounding the ways certain Asian Americans speak English. These folks are typically first-, second-, or third-generation Asian Americans, either born in the United States or having grown up in the States, who received a predominantly American English education. They speak perfect English, yet have specific enunciations and tonal inflections that distinguish their English from other dialects, such as Southern American English, New England English, Midwestern American English, and African American Vernacular English.
What’s interesting is no one seems to be able to quite identify or agree on what exactly makes someone sound “Asian American.” In his original video, Maio argues the Asian American accent is characterized by its monotone, flat-sounding tone. “Other features included increased pauses between words, as well as a jerkier speech overall,” he says. “And some people have even noticed that when we pronounce our K’s, it tends to be a lot more softer.”
One user who commented on Maio’s video said there was a “seemingly effortless perfection to [Asian Americans’] speech…very smooth, clear, and grammatical.”
Last year, Asian American TikToker @saffyla raised the same question surrounding the existence of the Asian American accent. She could tell if one of her friends was Filipino American or Chinese American by listening to them speak, based on what she recognized and knew about Filipino and Chinese dialects. However, she couldn’t articulate what it was exactly from the way they spoke that made them stand out as Asian American.
Many TikTok users argue the Asian American accent is defined by its clear, over-enunciation and hyperarticulation. Some describe it as corporate English. Others believe it has a West Coast or Californian flair, almost Valley-like—which can be easily traced to the many Asians who settled there during the first waves of immigration. Some claim it’s specific to East Asian Americans, those of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean descent. Common examples of people who possess the Asian American accent, according to online users’ claims, tend to be mainstream East Asian American celebrities, such as comedian Randall Park and some of the cast of Crazy Rich Asians (2018), as well as Asian American content creators and YouTubers Ryan Higa and the guys from Wong Fu Productions. While these stars have contributed to the mainstream representation of contemporary Asian Americans, they’re not the only ones to have done so and they don’t represent all of Asian America.
Korean American TikToker @deepsouthkorean grew up in the Deep South, in states such as West Virginia and South Carolina, and argues there are more Asian Americans with diverse linguistic backgrounds than none. In her video, she tells the story of how people are often shocked by her very strong Southern accent, which is often associated with white Americans—yet she grew up in an environment where she felt singled out for being very visibly and culturally Asian American. She’s not the only one to experience this.
In another example, a user asked under Maio’s video if this Asian American accent applied to those of South Asian descent. This question further raises suspicions of whether Southeast Asian Americans and South Asian Americans are represented within online users’ perception of “Asian American,” as it seems as though the linguistic patterns people are sharing mainly apply to East Asian Americans who live in California and areas along the West Coast.
Various linguists who have conducted phonetic research also struggle to identify common linguistic markers for the Asian American accent. Aleksic cites in his TikTok that one study claims Asian American voices tend to have a higher pitch contour, while “other studies found that Asian Americans have breathier articulation or don’t constrict the /ɹ/ sound as much.”
It’s evident these descriptions all stem from personal experiences and theories, with no uniform, evidence-based explanation of where the Asian American accent might originate from and if it applies to all Asian Americans.
Has mainstream media influenced our perceptions?
Media representation has played a significant role in our perception of what an Asian American “sounds like.” To try to understand a little bit about why so many online users have this rigid perception of what the “Asian American accent” is and label it as such, one must understand sociolinguistics.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, sociolinguistics, a subfield of linguistics, is “the analysis of language or its structure.” It’s an attempt to understand how language is informed by aspects of our society around us, such as home life, education, religion, and of course, media.
In a study about the sociolinguistic analysis of contemporary Asian American comedians such as Ali Wong and Margaret Cho, academics Jin Jo and Jeanne Bohannon argue that the media we consume and the public figures who dominate it have a huge influence on the general public’s view of Asian Americans and the way they speak. They cite the work of other Asian American academics, including Kent A. Ono and Vincent N. Pham’s book Asian Americans and the Media, in which they further argue that people’s perception and understanding of what’s true is often directly tied to the media representation they’re exposed to.
It wasn’t until the early 2010s that we finally started to move away from Asian American media that stereotyped Asian immigrant parents’ accents. But the online TikTok discourse has brought on a new form of stereotyping. Yet, as we all (should) know, Asian Americans are not all the same and we all don’t speak the same way.
This new online generalization of the Asian American accent speaks to a larger issue that’s been occurring for a while in the Asian American community—which is that the East Asian American experience has long dominated Asian American media representation and anything that falls outside of that tends to be invisible. This is why many of these online users’ descriptions of the Asian American accent often cite characteristics of an East Asian American person, whose way of speaking has influenced their definition of who counts as “Asian American.” Many people’s perceptions of the Asian American accent are directly tied to the media we grew up on, and are now being shaped by the contemporary wave of Asian American media like Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) and Didi (2024), and watching Asian American influencers on TikTok like lifestyle vlogger Evelyn Ha and her sisters and interior design content creator Eric Wang.
Although South Asian and Southeast Asian Americans share stories of immigration and experience the challenges of the model minority myth, many experiences separate us from East Asian Americans. Groups who are lighter skinned are more closely identified with the term Asian American, while those of us with darker skin tones struggle to be recognized. Similarly, Asian Americans who speak in a different accent from the “Asian American accent,” as defined by the media, aren’t always considered and can be forgotten altogether as being part of the community. Does this not then disrupt the idea of a uniform Asian American accent that people can reliably identify us by?
What do linguists say?
Maio, Aleksic, and other online users aren’t the first people to take note of the possibility of an Asian American accent. Academics and linguists have raised these questions and written papers about this topic since the Asian American movement and the development of Asian American studies first took root in the late 1960s.
Angela Wu, a linguist from the City University of New York, who co-wrote a study on the Asian American accent in 2011, notes that although there are some studies whose results suggest there are certain speech patterns that signify if an individual has Asian American heritage, it would be a stretch to call it an “accent.” Due to the range of different Asian ethnicities in the country, as well as the various influences on speech, such as where an individual has lived and the media representation they consumed growing up, Asian Americans can come from an enormous range of linguistic backgrounds.
Andrew Cheng, a Taiwanese American professor of linguistics from the University of Hawaii, whose work primarily focuses on researching this very question of the existence of the Asian American accent, argues for a less definitive and limiting definition of Asian American linguistics. When it comes to attempts to define and nail down the characteristics of the Asian American accent, Cheng warns about how humans are quick to create stereotypes and form potentially harmful judgments about others based on limited information or theories.
“As a linguist, I want to understand where the idea of an Asian American accent comes from and how it is shaped by different (linguistic and social) forces, but it is equally important for me to continue to help everyone understand that no accent completely defines a person, and no socially constructed category of accent will ever apply equally to everyone, across the board,” Cheng tells me in an email. “What we look for as linguists are the patterns in language, not strict rules and definitions.”
So, what can we take away from this TikTok debate?
Whether there is such a thing as a uniform, widespread Asian American accent continues to be studied. Whether one can determine if someone is Asian American just from listening to their voice continues to be questioned and tested. Regardless, one fact remains true: Asian Americans are not a monolith. Cultural specificity is important, even and perhaps especially, when it involves accents.
Just as it’s dangerous to stereotype Asian Americans as broken-English-speaking perpetual foreigners, it’s just as harmful and simply untrue to box in Asian Americans as West Coast-lite, corporate-fluent English speakers.
Just as it’s dangerous to stereotype Asian Americans as broken-English-speaking perpetual foreigners, it’s just as harmful and simply untrue to box in Asian Americans as West Coast-lite, corporate-fluent English speakers. The Asian American community and identity are unique in that one can’t define us in simple terms, or create a straightforward list of characteristics about us and the way we speak that’s easy for online consumption.
Published on November 5, 2024
Words by Teresa Tran
Teresa Tran (she/her) is an American-born Vietnamese writer and filmmaker based in Atlanta, Georgia, with a background in theater and community organizing. She has a B.A. in English and Women’s Studies and a B.S.Ed in English Education from the University of Georgia and studied British Literature at the University of Oxford. She is currently writing and directing her own short films and working on her debut novel. You can find her on Twitter at @teresatran__.
Art by Ryan Quan
Ryan Quan is the Social Media Editor for JoySauce. This queer, half-Chinese, half-Filipino writer and graphic designer loves everything related to music, creative nonfiction, and art. Based in Brooklyn, he spends most of his time dancing to hyperpop and accidentally falling asleep on the subway. Follow him on Instagram at @ryanquans.