[Closed] When do children develop an accent?

As we are now a more transient society than we a couple of generations ago, I do wonder if over time whether the stronger more dominant accents will start to spread out from the current areas, to the extent where we eventually end up with one or two dialects for the whole of the UK?

Out if curiosity why do most people not hear foreign English dialects? For example when talking to an American or Australian why do we only tend to hear an American or Australian accent? Would somebody from Perth have a totally different accent from somebody in Sydney. Would somebody from Florida sound different from somebody in Iowa and why is that difference not that noticeable to us?

I remember Mrs NBT telling me the story of her first visit to Whistler

Oh, well lah de frickin dah. 🙂

[quote=shotsaway ]Would somebody from Florida sound different from somebody in Iowa and why is that difference not that noticeable to us?

You can hear lots of different accents throughout north america - Noo Yoik is very different to LA for instance

I have a middle class Glasgow accent; Mrs RBIT has a Bolton twang.

We were so proud when Miss RBIT started saying odd words in broad Rochdale (aged 2): "Mummeh!"

My mates Mrs is German and they met when we were over there in the army , she couldn't speak English so learnt it from him and despite never having been to Newcastle she spoke with ac really strong geordie accent like his. It was quite comical

I have a colleague from S Asia who spent 12 years in Ireland before moving to the UK. He speaks English with a definite Irish accent.

Andy

Oh, well lah de frickin dah.

Edit - whoops forgot the winky. 😉

I'm from deepest darkest Yorkshire, now living in in Sweden. My 5 year old girl is born and raised in Sweden. She had a very neutral accent to start with, then went proper West Yorkshire and now has this weird middle English accent which I guess she has picked up from watching Peppa Pig and Charlie and Lola.
She also speaks fluent Swedish and Finnish too...

Some on here might be too young to remember Wearside Jack, a bloke who sent a tape to the Police during the Yorkshire Ripper investigation, taunting them for their ineptitude. The Police played it to a phonetics expert who was able to say that the man came from a certain district of Middlesborough and possibly one of three or four streets. Subsequently three or four women rang the Police and said they thought the voice was their husband!!! Frickin' mad, eh?

He was arrested recently when the DNA on the envelope he licked was matched up.

Jan Molby - case closed 😆

I met a German who'd learnt English on a school exchange to East London - fantastic Gockney accent !

(I'm told that I speak French weirldy; I have a bit of a North East English accent and the only place I speak French is alpine ski resorts, where the local accent is supposedly quite marked. My mate's parisian wife laughed quite a lot when I tried my skillz - she promised I didn't say anything rude but suppose I might have)

Out if curiosity why do most people not hear foreign English dialects? For example when talking to an American or Australian why do we only tend to hear an American or Australian accent? Would somebody from Perth have a totally different accent from somebody in Sydney. Would somebody from Florida sound different from somebody in Iowa and why is that difference not that noticeable to us?

On a similar note, most Swedes can't hear the different English accents!

Mrs S and I are from SE England and therefore do not have accents

Yes you do. You have SE of England accents...

My 2 are really confused, I;m from Newcastle, Mrs Lister is from Reading, we live in (non welsh speaking bit) Pembrokeshire but they go to Welsh speaking primary school...

Is that thing at the end of our road Pembroke Castle, Carsel or Castell?

I'm not sure if accents ever stops changing.

Mrs Flying Ox was born in North Shields. Unintelligible Geordie until she moved to St Andrews when she was 6. Now she's got a very posh Scottish accent.

I'm from Sheffield and so never had an accent, but moved up to Edinburgh about 8 years ago. My accent is slowly migrating rather than changing directly to Scottish. Despite the blatant oxymoron, I'd say I'm currently hovering around a posh Middlesbrough. Apparently I was Leeds* about 2 years ago.

*spits

Both myself and SO now live within 6 miles of our respective family homes. In a rather small hamlet near Royal Tunbridge Wells, eldest goes to local primary and now talks like he has swallowed several plums, daughter goes to nursery at the castle and is developing much the same way. SO definatley posh, but not as much as her granny, and my acsent seems to change depending who I am with, posh or very much not.

We have three little Sean Bean's that are developing Scottish pronunciation and phrases (although 'how' is banned...)

I think you mod it to suit where you are.

I was proper kiwi in NZ when i was wee, and I met an expat at Scot in south africa who spoke weegie to us and proper afrikaans to the locals.

With americans I find I speak with a wee twang so they understand.

Why do some english folk and Americans not understand the more regional but not particularly strong accents but we can?

RP is a terrible accent. It sounds like you've got a cucumber up your arse.

But then, being a northerner, I cringe when I hear myself speak, I'm so colloquial. How can people take me seriously when I sound like I should be ****ing a sheep?

But the proper Wigan accent is great. No bugger can understand it, even other Wiganers. They just agree.. aaaaarrrrrr.

Accents are strange. I grew up on North Tyneside and both my parents and sister have Geordie accents whereas mine is reasonably neutral (best way to describe it) but with very slight Geordie inflections. Always been that way. Usually when people find out where I'm from I get "you don't sound like a Geordie".

Children start developing an accent when they start speaking. Not wanting to sound overly patronising, but isn't that bleedin' obvious?

well, no

Mrs_D is from Whitley Bay, where her parents, sister and her husband still live. They all have strong local accents. Mrs_D has been in Bratfud since 1986 and has neither a Bratfud nor a Geordie accent. I have a distinct Leeds/Wakefield accent wi' a hint o' Bratfud. Strange considering I work in Barnsley.

7yo Geordie niece has no discernible accent whatsoever; she certainly sounds nothing like her parents or grandparents

I'm born and raised in Leeds but live in Wakey(cas for 20 years).but everyone knows i'm from Leeds by my accent.and everyone from Leeds can hear I live in Castleford by my accent(2 miles apart btw).GLY

Some on here have said that Americans can't distinguish your various British accents. As an American, I'd have to say that this is basically true.

But the flip side is that there is no such thing as "an American accent." Americans in different parts of the country (as well as Canadia) have very different dialects. People from the south(east) have a drawl and talk reeeeaaallll ssssslllllloooowwww. I assume that you're talking about American newscasters and such. The way that they speak is the most generic and inoffensive version of American english possible. Nobody really talks like that over here.

I'm from near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We have a distinct dialect called Pittsburghese. Its so distinct that universities like [url= http://pittsburghspeech.pitt.edu/PittsburghSpeech_PgheseOverview.html ]Pitt[/url] and [url= http://www.cit.cmu.edu/current_students/services/pittsburghese.html ]CMU[/url] need to provide info to students that aren't from the area. [url= http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pittsburghese ]Urban Dictionary[/url] even has an entry.

There is a [url= http://www.pittsburghese.com/translator.shtml ]translator[/url] that you can use if you wanna sahnd like a yinzer anat...

But the proper Wigan accent is great. No bugger can understand it, even other Wiganers. They just agree.. aaaaarrrrrr.

Very true, it took some getting used to when I lived there.

Moved from Lancashire to Wigan and at the time worked for a company based up in Co Durham! No wonder I'm going deaf young....

I still remember seeing Ian Brown in the Jamaican takeaway the other week and shuddering at his accent. If hora jnr has that I'm oot/giving him up.

West Yorkshire accent is the best lad. Fact.

My four year old girl speaks English with a southern accent and Spanish with an andaluz accent.

I'm from Bolton mrsj is from Blackburn we live in Perthshire.
Our Scottish born eldest (8) turns the accents on and off to either fit in or take the piss for comedy effect!

I am slightly (seriously) concerned at the promotion of 'scots' as a language in school though.
If I wanted my kids to speak like thick Glaswegians, I would let them watch Scottish 'comedy' programmes on the TV thank you very much!

And no, the irony isn't lost 😳

hora - Member

I still remember seeing Ian Brown in the Jamaican takeaway the other week and shuddering at his accent. If hora jnr has that I'm oot/giving him up.

West Yorkshire accent is the best lad. Fact.

It's an odd one - the central Manchester/Salford accent became much, much harsher in a generation:
Compare someone like Les Dawson (about as central as you can get, Collyhurst) to someone like Mani (born a couple of miles up the road). Massive difference.
The modern Manchester accent is much more nasal and incorporates similar elements to Estuary.

Ian Brown (Warrington) and most of the other 'Madchester' muppets (apart from Mani) adopted the accents of their fans, NOT the other way around.
It's just an affectation.

I'm from the Moston/Blackley area. Despite my dad having what would be classed as a quite posh, ex army accent, I grew up in the 70's with a typical 'Madchester' type accent.
Everyone in my area sounded like that.
The accent was then copied by people like Brown to make them sound more street and disguise the fact that they're as authentically Mancunian as Arthur Smith.

And as someone who's lived in West Yorkshire for 20 years, the locals basically sound like a generic BBC 'northener' who's had a mild stroke. 🙂

And as someone who's lived in West Yorkshire for 20 years, the locals basically sound like a generic BBC 'northener' who's had a mild stroke.

😆

(although 'how' is banned...)

Along with [i]the now[/i]

I remember a thread on that Scots language bullshit.

It's just english spoken unintelligibly.

[quote=[url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/when-do-children-develop-an-accent#post-4557216 ]torsoinalake[/url]]I remember reading somewhere that speech is formed in different parts of the brain in children and adults, which is why you can't learn a different language without having an accent as an adult.

Not sure when the switchover is, but you better get cracking.

Nine years old. More or less. And kids brought up bilingual/polyglot will have pretty fluid accents and can normally switch at will depending on company (mirroring). Or do some "code switching", where two (or more) languages will be used in the same sentence when speaking to someone also conversant in said languages!

So, being born out in ye olde Crown Colony (Hong Kong), going to the International (UK curriculum) schools... ended up with the "International Hong Kong English" accent... which is like Received Pronunciantion, Candian, American, Aussie & Kiwi accents... all at the same time.

Then there's the "Local Hong Kong English" accent...

our eldest has always pronounced Garden as Gaahrden -- my wife is convinced it came from Nursery but actually it is an exaggeration of how she says it ... i haven;t the heart to tell her.

I thought this was quite good too... 8)

My parents live in the canaries. After they'd been there a while I started Spanish lessons so that I can communicate better when I'm out there. My (catalan) Spanish teacher commented that I'd managed to pick up a broad Canarian accent which was noticeable even through my broken Spanish.

The parents are from Sunderland, but in general they sound fairly RP.

I've lived in Yorkshire all my life, but it is only in the last five years that I've noticed that I've developed a bit of a Yorkshire accent.