Accent

Wheeere eeess the Malteeese Faalcon?

Some Transformers speak the same language as their fellow warriors, but their words sound slightly different. Maybe they pronounce their vowels a little differently, maybe they put more stress on certain consonants, and maybe they pepper their sentences with strange expressions—whatever the case, that Transformer is said to have an accent. Sometimes possessing an accent can affect a Transformer's relationship with those around them in odd ways, though most often they're simply someone who just doesn't speak the same, and its something that goes unremarked upon.

Fiction

Cybertron

The residents of Nebulon had an accent closely resembling that of Australia. Jetfire spent some time there, and picked up the local accent, retaining it when he returned to fight alongside the other Autobots. Jetfire's Cyber Key Code text

Bot Shots

Bot Shots such as Skyquake who lived on the far side of the Sea of Rust spoke with a slightly different accent. As a result, Skyquake sometimes mistakenly thought his comrades were making fun of him. Skyquake's online bio

2005 IDW continuity

Transformers from Tarn have an identifiable accent. Because Megatron came from there, anyone with a Tarnian accent was seen as suspicious during the Clampdown. Shadowplay, Part 1: Post Hoc

Cyclonus has a thick Tetrahexian accent. Singing in Old Cybertronian with a thick Tetrahexian accent sounds like screaming to non-Tetrahexians. Cybertronian Homesick Blues

Brainstorm pronounced the word “Necrotitan” as NEE-crotitan, and is unable to distinguish between the pronunciation of the words “MAABs” and “MARBs”, implying he has a British accent.

Rescue Bots cartoon

At one point Cody Burns and Doc Greene asked Quickshadow, a bot with a British accent, a British car for a vehicle mode, and who is voiced by a British actress, to open her trunk. She was very confused until she realized they meant her boot. Plus One

The Last Knight film

Hot Rod had a French accent. To his chagrin, he was unable to remove it. The Last Knight

Notes

• Typically in Transformers fiction involving voice work, the vast majority of characters speak with what could be described as a generic American accent, however there are a plethora of examples across different continuities of Transformers who speak with strong accents that are similar or identical to other human accents. There are several reasons this is done.
  • In a show where thirty different robot characters have speaking lines, a memorable accent or vocal quirk helps distinguish between "the red jet guy", "the blue jet guy", and "the grey jet guy".
  • For better or worse, these stereotypical presentations help give audiences a "mental image" of the character—the guy who talks like a beatnik is probably laid-back, relaxed, and totally cool. The guy with the slow drawl is a rough and tumble cowboy who doesn't particularly cotton to all that fancy business, pardner. Accents, in this context, provide a sort of "cultural shorthand," which is not even limited to Western audiences—Japanese audiences have their own cliched stereotypes as well.
  • Some voice actors play multiple characters within the same series, and adding various accents helps distinguish between them. Having two characters who sound essentially similar, save that one is "Australian" and one is "American" allows a VA to play multiple roles discreetly.
  • Occasionally a voice actor will simply bring their own accent to a role.
• Most continuities do not explicitly point out how or when the Transformers learned to speak the dominant native language upon coming to Earth, and indeed will often have scenes—particularly flashbacks—which depict them speaking Earthly languages with their individual accents while still on Cybertron, before encountering humans. If one takes these scenes somewhat literally, it would indicate that these accents or some kind of approximations (although probably not the language itself) are somehow native to Cybertron—after all, lots of planets have a "north".
• As placing a particular accent can often vary depending on the ear of the listener and other factors, we have opted not to detail every instance of a Transformer sporting anything other than a generic American accent, unless it is story-relevant or otherwise called out by the fiction.