Speechreading or Lipreading has been around for awhile, and although its a good tool for deaf people to utilize its not entirely accurate or a perfect way to decipher what one is saying. With experience in Speechreading, it can be very effective method into finding out what one is talking about without actually hearing them or using sign langauage to communicate. There are some hiccups when speechreading, however. Common obstacles include:

--homophones (words that are the same but have different meaning), and in addition to this words that look the same on the persons lips but completely different words.
--The percentage of speech/words that form from the middle of your mouth, and even in your throat.

Statistics show that about 30% of what any person says can be speechread, so thats about 1/3 of what the person says you will be able to understand from their lips.

With this knowledge out on the table, onto your question: Can you speechread accents?

To answer this I will have to take an excerpt, coming from a person that has speechread 50+ years:

---Quote---
In spite of its many limitations, speechreading is an incredible gift to those of us who are hard of hearing. You may be surprised to know that we can sometimes speechread accents and tell where a person comes from without hearing a sound! It sure throws people when a deaf person says, "I can’t hear a sound, but you are speaking with an Australian accent" or whatever.
---End Quote---
Source(s):
http://www.hearinglosshelp.com/articles/speechreading.htm

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