Do your dc have your accent?

[Whatsthepoint1234]

I was having this conversation with a colleague earlier about our regional accents and it made me think about whether children take more of their parents accent or their peers accent. My area has a fairly distinctive accent, lots of the people from where we live have never lived anywhere else! Pretty much all the local older generation I meet at work have quite a ‘broad’ version of this accent however both my sons sets of friends have standard southern accents. My husband is from the same region and grew up about 1.5 hours away and both his parents are Asian but he grew up in a very mc white area and mainly socialised with white British people, he sounds RP to me with a slight Asian tint. I grew up abroad have the accent of my native country (came for university). Both my dc get asked where they are from as they pronounce some words ‘funny’ but sound mostly British. What accent do your dc have, is it more regional or more like yours?

I'm from the midlands but have a pretty neutral accent. My 4 year old is picking up quite a strong Leeds accent from her nursery teachers despite spending less time with them than me. I'm not trying to change it but it does amuse me sometimes.
Often hear something like 'Mummeh! Ahv lost muh baybeh!'

Christ. This, exactly.😱

Though we lived in England until he was seven (DH and I are Irish and have largely kept our original accents), and DS had neither our accents nor the regional accent of the place we lived, which all his peers had — he sounded like the Queen, though when he wanted to annoy me he threw in a glottal stop.

When we moved countries, he immediately codeswitched to sound like his new best friend, who had parents from two different places with strong regional accents, so had a weird hybrid accent.

I have a North American accent, my kids sound British. Which I’m grateful for due to the prejudice many people have. Seen very clearly on this thread. I wonder when @mnhq will crack down on it?

What prejudice do you mean that you want MNHQ to crack down on?

Technically I don't know because I'm not English so can't care.

I have Southern parents but was born and lived oop North and also have a selection of words that I pronounce "northern", probably words and phrases I learned at nursery?

My mum's family are all East end/Essex and I have been observed 'flipping' into an entirely different accent when talking to them. I am aware that I do this but it's not within my control.

Otherwise I'm pretty much RP like my dad's family. I must sound like a right loon...

What prejudice do you mean that you want MNHQ to crack down on?

Presumably the rampantly anti-American posts on MN. They are very frequent. And I don't mean comments about actual bad things in America, but constant sneery posts about harmless Americanisms and supposed influences on our precious culture. It's very snide and unpleasant.

Scottish - from north of Scotland but have lived in few areas in central belt since and picked up bits of accents as well as my mum being English (& 3 grandparents were) so I pronounce some words differently apparently (according to boyfriend) my kids all sound like they are from where we live now, with the odd orcadian phrase from eldest dad and they pronounce words similarly to me.

I have a funny mix of northern, southern Scotland so people don’t often know where in Scotland I am from. I find it so interesting reading about others kids accents. My youngest has an American twang, some words too not sure if that’s to do with his asd or just lots of Disney jr as a small child

Yes, thank you. Not to mention a whole thread on how awful the accent is. If anyone posted the same thing about any other accent, it would get zapped instantly.
Lots of hypocrisy in enforcing the @mnhq talk guidelines

No. Very definitely not. I was born and grew up in South London. DD was born in Barnsley and went to school locally. Fellow pupils with broad Barnsley accents used to say that she had a posh accent because neither DH nor I grew up round here. So DD has a South Yorkshire accent but doesn't speak with a broad local dialect.

Mine is a Mockney mix of East Midlands and Sarf London. Her Dad is strong Sarf London.

Despite being brought up in South London, DD has a neutral, even slightly posh accent.

It's the friendship groups she chosen, I think.

I love the diversity of landscapes and people in the UK. My home country is admittedly smaller but our landscape is very boring and culturally it is fairly similar across the nation
apart from one area. I feel like the diverse landscape is definitely one reason why the accents are so diverse in the UK I’m such a linguistics geek.

I’m pretty London/Essex in how I speak. I have one that speaks like me and the other has quite a cut glass accent for some reason. I suspect it’s coming from their peer group.

When you say "non specific" I'm assuming you mean London. So entirely regional 😂

Oh I see. Thank you. I don't remember seeing anything like that, but probably didn't read the whole thread.

I have a generic ‘British’ army brat accent
My family are from Orkney, and I speak to my mother in an Orcadian accent.

I cannot deliberately speak with the accent, and if there is a conversation among multiple people including my mother I automatically switch between Orcadian and English depending on if I am speaking to my mother or someone else.
Some friends are used to this, others not so

When travelling up I tend to need a steady transfer along the way to pick up broad accents. That’s fine if I drive and stop along the way, but a flight can make it hard work for me to catch accents

I'm half scouse half italian. People in Liverpool think I'm posh and cannot hear the scouse at all. People from elsewhere spot the scouse a mile away. My children sound like Jamie carragher 🤣
When I speak Italian, I have the local accent from my area having spent summers there and my parents having done OPOL with us. I am very blonde and scouse looking lol so raises eyebrows when I go over

I'm English and live in a non-English speaking country and my kids are bilingual. Because I'm their main source of English they have my accent exactly - generic southern. They can do English with a hilariously broad Icelandic accent when speaking to other Icelanders, though - it's like their third language 🤣

Same. I recently had a ten minute argument with my 6 year-old about the correct pronunciation of “drawer” (he started it by telling me that I was saying it wrong…)

Yes. I have an RP accent. DS and I now live in Wales. He hasn't picked any accent up.

My DS (4) switches between our accents. I've got an RPish accent, DH's is south London. DS's accent sounds more like DH's when it's just the three of us, he switches to my accent when he's with my family and closer to cockney when he's with my in-laws as both MIL and FIL have cockney accents. He switches between accents when everyone's together depending on who he's talking to.

Do you know what fascinates me? All these accents. How do they start? Why do they deve.

please, if there’s any expert ms out there, do explain!

I am from the northwest and had a very broad accent when I was younger. I left at 18 and moved to the USA 10 years later, so my accent is "mildly" northern but still unmistakably English. My kids' accents are as American as apple pie (like my DH and everyone else here) but local friends and acquaintances tell me they can hear a British twang in them. I don't hear it at all.

We were recently back in the UK and had some funny looks in my home town when my kids were talking - not many Americans there! - and I responded like a local 😂

A friend (like me) is from Yorkshire and still has a broad accent despite living down south for years. Her kids both have a local to here / Dad's accent except when they were tiny they both said certain words, notably bath, toast and no, in a broad Yorkshire accent. They were very funny to listen to

Nope! Dd and ds have a local accent. Dh has a different regional accent, and mine is largely RP, with a teeny tiny bit of a Scottish accent on some of my vowels and roll my 'r's on some words (mum was from Inverness).