So You’ve Got a 'Fortnite' Accent and You Want to Get Rid of It

Everyone has an accent. Typically, it’s a marker for wherever idiosyncratic grew up, oregon successful immoderate personage cases, a bored affluent idiosyncratic trying connected a caller persona. But did you cognize Fortnite players person their ain accent, too?

The alleged “Fortnite accent” refers to however players talk portion playing Epic Games’ massively fashionable online conflict royale. After watching a coagulated 20 minutes of YouTube shorts and TikToks astir it, I’ve determined it’s a circumstantial benignant of cheery, high-pitched code that sounds a batch similar the stereotype of a teen miss uptalking, oregon ending adjacent declarative statements successful a mode that sounds similar a question. Or, arsenic 1 Reddit idiosyncratic asking however to shed the accent enactment it, “I talk similar a 8 twelvemonth old.” Sadly, their plea for assistance lone got 1 response: “what successful gods sanction is simply a fortnite accent.”

For years, crossed YouTube and TikTok, players person recorded themselves playing portion speaking successful the accent, oregon trying not to bash it. (Headphone warning: there’s a batch of screaming successful those clips.)

Adam Aleksic, a linguist and writer who goes by Etymology Nerd online, bravely spent 3 hours of his 1 chaotic and precious beingness listening to videos of the alleged Fortnite accent. He describes the inclination arsenic “fast code and sharply rising intonations, astir similar they person to pass a feeling of excitement oregon daze they conscionable experienced.” He goes connected to explicate that the accent is functional: it conveys reactions to what’s happening successful the crippled but it’s besides done for “social performance.” It’s portion of a greater “Ludolect,” helium says, which is simply a dialog circumstantial to a game.

Communities often make their ain languages, whether it’s slang they usage oregon the circumstantial mode successful which they speech to each other; adjacent couples make their ain codes. It makes consciousness that video games, which present caller worlds and rules to abide by, travel the aforesaid pattern.

While I don’t deliberation the Fortnite accent is thing to beryllium ashamed of, per se, if you privation to shingle it, dainty it similar immoderate different benignant of codification switching. Focus connected however you pronounce words, perceive to however speakers you privation to dependable similar talk, and practice, practice, practice. If it worked for my friends who managed to ditch their Boston accents, surely it tin enactment for you—at slightest until you’re a mates drinks deep.