If you have a different accent to your children

[doadeer]

My son is a toddler so just starting to build words. I'm from NE but live in an area of London with a "neutral accent" - DH has more of a London accent (not neutral)

I say BOOK rather than BUCK, GRASS rather than GRARSE etc.

His nursery when he goes back has lots of different accents including nationalities and regional accents.

Just curious how your children's accents developed if you live somewhere different to where you grew up.

I am kiwi but my son once he started at school has developed the local accent and does not sound kiwi at all.

I grew up in Manchester and North Yorkshire and still have a slight northern accent even though I've lived in the south longer. DS1 was born in a London borough, he initially spoke like me - Grass instead of Graaass, Bath instead of Barth etc. We moved to Hampshire when he was young and he now speaks like a southerner . Oh very posh!

@yippie DD1 is 11 this year and going in to her final year of primary after the summer. Dd2 is 7. It is odd. It's funny hearing them try to use scottish slang as it sounds so put on. I don't have a regional slang accent but it's very clearly scottish

SIL is Scottish and my brother has a NE accent. They live in Kent. Their son had the same accent as his mum (Scottish) who stayed at home with him, until he started school at which point he quickly picked up the local accent.

I have 4 dc's. I'm from up North and live in London, dad is from Africa.
One has a mix of north, African and Irish
One very "posh" with a tinge from Lancashire (not from there) and African
One seems to have picked up a bit of everything from around the world.
And one sounds more northern and African

Accents are also based on how the brain interprets the sound. For a word to be formed it has to be listened to thousands of times, and if it's always said in a specific way, they will mimic the sound as they say it.

Think about words that are mispronounced. There are often other members within the family or close social circles, that also mispronounce the word. Then of course, whatever is also in the brain when born.

Mine had my accent at first but by 7 or 8 definitely had the local accent. Now they laugh at mine

DCousin has an interesting one. Her DM was from California, her DF from the Midlands and they lived in Cornwall. She had a lovely mix of the 3 until she'd been in school for a couple of years.

My parents were from Hampshire and Sunderland..and I grew up in Wolverhampton.. somehow they all cancelled each other out and I have a fairly neutral accent with the odd midlands word thrown in.

I married a man from Somerset, and his was quite broad (to me) but as he was RAF the children were born in Wales where they picked up a welsh lilt, then moved to Oxfordshire where we have been ever since. The girls sound quite posh, but DS1 sounds like a local yokel.. he's just emigrated to Oz to be with his Australian Fiance so heaven only knows what he's going to sound like in a few years!
Youngest sounds like Stephen Fry!

Accents fascinate me, and I love how for such a tiny island we have such a huge variation. Some I love, and some I find abrasive but they are all equally fab!

I am foreign so have an accent, DH from NI but fairly neutral accent, we live in London and have two DC, the oldest sound like some sort of try hard drill rapper and the younger sounds quite posh

There was a study a year or so ago - I'll try and find the link, where you could select certain phrases and it would tell you where you're from. It was ridiculously accurate. I got something like 80% north wales (where I was bought up) with a smattering of the wirral (where i work), and Midlands (where my mother is from). It was fascinating!

We're Londoners and our daughter has the same south London/RP accent. I'm trying really hard to work out who says book as 'buck', but I can't? That's categorically not a London accent. Where are you referring to op?
😂

DD doesn't speak in local dialect as neither DH nor I am from South Yorkshire. When she went to secondary school other pupils said she had a posh accent as she just sounds like she is from "oop north" and not local.

DH and I are both Surrey born and bred but our kids were born and are growing up deep in Expat Land in the Middle East. I would say they have pretty generic English accents but their choice of word seems very American to me.

Lots of fire truck, candy, diaper, trunk etc! I don’t really notice it but my mum always comments on it when she visits!

I'm a scouser, my DH was brought up in South Africa and has a job that moves around a lot. DD has a southern, slightly Bristolian accent, and DS sounds southern with a scouse twang.

My family think they sound very posh.

I think my accent only comes out when I have had a drink

I’m a southerner with a fairly RP sort of accent. Have lived in Lancs for 35 years now, don’t have Lancs accent but do have kind of hybrid vowels - ie don’t rhyme grass with arse or ass but somewhere in between

DH is Lancs born & bred. Our 4 grown-up kids all have different accents, but with discernible bits of Lancs in - ie people from elsewhere know they’re from up north somewhere - although one who lives in Bath (Baath ) sounds poshest, and one who has always picked up the accents of whoever’s around her, & still lives up north, sounds most northern - unsurprisingly! (She has a baby now; her OH sounds very slightly northern, it will be interesting to see what accent the baby develops)

My DH and I are Scottish, our kids are born and raised in West Yorkshire. My accent has definitely softened a lot, his not so much. If we've visited family then my colleagues always notice my accent is stronger when I return to the office!

DD had a Scottish accent until she started school, despite being full time at nursery from the age of 9 months.

DS (four years younger) has always had a Yorkshire accent.

Both kids can pull off a good Scottish impersonation

DH and I still have some Black Country elements to our speech while DS's accent is very neutral, presumably as a result of where he grew up and went to school.

MiaowMix

I'm trying really hard to work out who says book as 'buck', but I can't? That's categorically not a London accent. Where are you referring to op?

I think OP is just differentiating between the short O sound and the long - long would rhyme with eg fluke. I can’t think of a clear rhyme for short O, but ykwim?

DH, DS1 and, I all have a fairly neutral RP. Youngest has developed a very very pronounced local accent (presumably from nursery) it’s really cute, more cute because he’s the only one that has it.

@GiantKitten but surely no one says boooke. That’s not a thing is it?

Oh, also just remembered that I had a very strong Russian accent as a child so they do change.

When I mentioned “home county” earlier I did realise Essex was one but it has distinct connotations as far as accent goes these days.

I would go as far as to say the regional dialects of my parents (Bucks) are rarely heard these days because of the influx of commuters for over 100 years now. You won’t hear the Oxfordshire dialect so much either. A friend has an Oxfordshire dialect and I can easily pick that up as being distinct from my mother’s Bucks accent. Most people would not have a clue though and would think they were just “country” dialects south of Birmingham.

As a child, I remember my father, who was born in 1900, used words you simply don’t hear now. If you know what a “yo” is or “thrashing” you might come from an old Bucks farming family. But words disappear and the dialect goes. Other areas have retained dialects and the further they are from London, the better chance they have of surviving.

I believe the British Library has recordings of dialects.

Yes they do @Regina. In T'North (TM) lots of people rhyme book with fluke.

I have a generic southern accent, influenced by my early years, but I lost the localised twang of it years ago. I moved to a part of the Midlands with a very strong accent and actively resisted picking that up (although my family has aquired it more over time) and have settled in a part of the Midlands with a vaguely northern twang more than midland (and oh how the locals hate it when I point out it's more northern than midland)

DH has an Irish accent that has neutralised a little over time. It comes out stronger when he's at MiL's.

The DCs have local/ southern fusion accents and I can tell which words they hear more frequently from me or at school. They'll mix it up for example saying "I'm going oop to the barth" But they might use a short northern a in path because they hear path more than a longer ar in bath at home.

We have a broad range of dialect from across the country as my family has lived all over and aquired vocabulary over the years, so my "gullies" are now "jitties". The DCs get confused if DH wants something from the hot press though

@reginabambina

Yes they do, in parts of the UK (England anyway, possibly Wales, probably not Scotland as they have their own oddities )

This thread from The Student Room is on that exact thing

www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2070081

Thanks @GiantKitten
It's just so different to the way I say 'book' that it's completely thrown me.
I would say buck like the sounds in umbrella, or supper. Does that make sense?