Report: Lose the accent in Denmark or else

COPENHAGEN, Denmark, July 25 (UPI) -- A new study has found many Danes respond negatively to anyone speaking Danish with a foreign accent, particularly if has Middle East qualities.

By examining the responses of 230 Danish citizens to the voices of 16 foreigners, University of Copenhagen researchers were able to find that most respondents harshly judged those with accents reminiscent of the Middle East, The Copenhagen Post said Wednesday.

While all of the individuals who offered their voices up for comparison read the same text for the study and had similar levels of education, respondents focused on their accents. Those speakers judged to be from the Middle East were more likely to be deemed irritating, boring or incompetent by the listeners.

Meanwhile, respondents were likely to judge those with British or Nordic accents to be ambitious, reliable and interesting.

Study organizer Marta Kirilova said accents clearly played a role in how Danes perceive foreigners.

"To put it in simple terms, Danes perceive northern Europeans as competent, while people from the Middle East are perceived as unintelligent and incompetent -- based solely on their accent," she said.