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The automated English announcements that are broadcast at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 have a very interesting, presumably European, accent. I can't quite place it.

Is it a geographic accent? Or perhaps a composite?

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  • It's been theorised on various forums that I can find that it's a Dutch person. This would fit the accent, to my ears at least on the low-quality audio I was able to find on youtube (eg youtube.com/watch?v=VqD78aMfyl8 ).
    – Muzer
    Oct 24, 2017 at 14:54
  • The accent in the announcement Muzer linked to on youtube sounds a lot to me like a Northern South African (Johannesburg/Pretoria) accent to me (a Cape Town boy). But it's entirely possible that I'm just picking up on the familiar bits. I've been mistaken for Dutch by Americans so ...
    – brhans
    Oct 24, 2017 at 16:55

1 Answer 1

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According to the internet, it appears to be the Aviavox system (their website on which you can hear samples). Some on forums have theorised that the person originally behind the voice has a Dutch accent, but I'm not sure if there's any evidence for that besides Aviavox being a Dutch company.

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  • Interesting! If it's computer-generated it's very good. You may want to link to aviavox.com
    – Joe
    Oct 24, 2017 at 15:04

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