Where did they all come from?

American accents have been evolving for hundreds of years.

While Americans sound very different today, here's where some of those iconic accents got their start.

Let's start with New England, which was one of the first US regions to develop its own American-English accent.

Today, a speaker from New England might say, "Were you gonna plagiarize the whole thing for us?"

"Do you have any thoughts of your own on this matter?"

"Is that your thing?"

"You come into a bar, you read some obscure passage and you pretend, pawn it off as your own?"

For such a geographically small area, New York City certainly has a bunch of distinctive accents.

But in general, its accents evolve from a mixture of its Dutch and English roots, and numerous waves of immigration.

A modern speaker from New York probably won't sound like what you hear in the movies.

"Hey, I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!"

They're more likely to say, Deep Dish Pizza is not only not better than New York Pizza, it's not pizza.

New York's New Jerseyan and Pennsylvanian neighbors sounded quite different.

Nowadays, someone from Philly might say, "We're your regular family."

"We watch the Phillies on TV, we go down to the Jersey shore."

"But when we want great hoagies, discount prices on beer, and a great atmosphere, we go to Lee's Hoagies in Horsham, PA."

Let's take a look at what went on down south.

The southern coast of the United States has a variety of different accents.

One for example, is Southern Coastal White.

"What concerns me about the American Press is this endless, endless attempt to label the guy some kind of kook."

Other southern dialects preserve some of the original remnants to this day.

"They come over here and get the oysters and clam and go fishin' because they right down the road, they right in Brunswick, or Savannah, or Jacksonville."

Much later, a wave of African Americans migrated from the American South to urban centers in the North, mixing their accents together.

"Being a kid from New York City, I mean, from Brooklyn and my aunt, God bless her soul, she used to always take me to the Rockettes."

"You know, the Easter show and the Christmas show."

The Ulster Scots had a significant influence on many American dialects in the South and the West.

Most of the original accent has disappeared, and today, an American from Tennessee might sound like this:

"Now, I am just who I am."

"I'm not always nice."

"I choose to be good."

"I choose to have a good attitude because I want people to know

I am a girl of many colors."

The Midwest has many diverse accents.

As the Appalachian settlers headed west, their accents joined with speech patterns from the North.

Today, a speaker from the Great Lakes might say, "I was born in the middle of the century, in the middle of the country.

A classic baby boomer."

Or more famously, "We got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses."

While another from Wisconsin, Minnesota, the Dakotas might say, "If either of these men draw, I'm gonna be forced to shoot some people and I don't wanna do that."

Down in Texas, a very distinct accent developed.

The famous Texan accent that we all know from the movies, "He shot and killed a state senator named Bibbs in Waco, Texas."

Has started to level out.

Visitors to big cities like Houston might be surprised to hear something more like,

"Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to beautifully capture the profundity of Deep Southern culture."

Last but not least is the West Coast,

which had a very different mix of immigrants compared to the East Coast.

California doesn't come close to having one distinct accent.

A modern day speaker might sound like,

"We woke up the next morning on his actual birthday and I told him I wanted to take him somewhere to lunch for his birthday."

Or, "What's so powerful about this novel is everyone has their own interpretation of these characters."

These are just a handful of American accents.

And they're all still evolving as we speak.

We'll have to check back in a century or so and see what happens next.