Accent acquisition in young children

[argyllherewecome]

I'm a teacher but have been off work sick so I've had loads of time to think (for a change!). Anyway, this is something that has fascinated me for ages and I'm sure there are posters here who know about this.
My school is fairly diverse. Most children with ESL parents come into school either with no English or basic words that have a distinct mother tongue accent. They lose this within several years usually, and by then they have a local accent.

I've noticed though some children do not adopt a local accent.
Irish Travellers: despite being born and raised here they nearly exclusively all have a very thick Irish accent, and this doesn't change over time. There are a few other children that have parents or a mother at least from different parts of the country, and they keep a very strong regional accent from them, which doesn't change much over time. This is an exception rather than a rule though.

Any language experts that can explain how this happens? I'm the embarrassing sort of person that goes somewhere for a few days and I pick up accents!

I've not lived anywhere to use the conversational Welsh I do know, and whenever I'm in Wales I avoid it because I feel the Welsh accent required for some pronunciation makes me sound like I'm taking the mick a bit!

My daughter has got the broadest north Cumbrian accent going; partly thanks to my partner, and partly due to some of the nursery staff. My partner doesn't really hear it because she just sounds like him, but I notice it daily 😂 I'm a touch jealous, I think accents help place you and wish I had a more obvious one!

Ha! As I mentioned, I grew up in the East Midlands. My DH in Yorkshire. We both moved down here at 18/21years old. When we had our children and they started to talk, it weirded us out that they said bahth and grahss, despite spending most of their time with us! Clearly even at pre-school level, they picked up more from their peers, playgroup leaders and childminder!

My children spent their baby,
toddler and pre school years in Texas, went to a Texan nursery. They developed quite long dipthongs in their speech.
These disappeared almost instantly upon return to the UK when they started a London Primary school.
Shame really - it was really cute!

I've lived through it and agree with @ExcessiveNumberOfNinjas. I can also usually tell if someone on radio is either British-Pakistani/Bangladeshi / of Jamaican heritage / British-Nigerian or even British-East Asian sometimes, and it's mostly from their voice or tiny inflections in their accent, how they speak or words and phrases they use.

'I guess it's because English is probably not spoken much at home, so they grow up speaking English as a second language even if they were born here and they never really lose that twang.'

I completely agree. It's to do with how much someone is involved in (and identifies with) their parents' culture and many children of immigrants go about it in different ways: some fully immerse themselves and only socialise with others from their own ethnicity or culture; others completely avoid it and assimilate into mainstream culture. Each to their own.

I don't doubt it's easier for an English-speaking adult to learn an East-Asian language like Chinese than Xhosa due to the clicks and throat muscles required, but I think the idea that it's formed in the womb very hard to believe.

I get upset when people say I have a thick Devon accent, but that is because I'm from Dorset, and my accent is Dorset.

I mean, I don’t find thick in any way offensive as a proud Yorkshire woman…… however ‘sigh’ is a whole other matter you condescending offended person 🫣😂.

@EBearhug , don't get upset, they probably don't know where Dorset is. Their loss. Both counties are lovely.

I watched a video recently about public speaking. The accent comes from the way your mouth forms the words/sounds. They form the sounds in the style of their first language so therefore the accent is there. I'll see if I can find a link

I had certain word emphasising from my Dad, he's from the North and I grew up in the South. People used to tease me for it.

I also think TV plays a part - someone once asked me if I was Australian - no just watched a lot of neighbours growing up!

This isn't the one I was thinking of (can't find it) but explains somewhat

My dad grew up in London and his siblings all spoke with very London accents, but he has a very generic BBC English accent. He was the only member of his family to go to university so I suspect that's where he picked it up and there's a strong aspirational class element at play. I grew up in Wales and most of my peers had Welsh accents but me and my siblings all inherited our parents' generic BBC accents. I suspect our dad corrected us any time a bit of accent slipped in, e.g. bath with a short 'a' instead of barth!

One of my DD's has my fairly generic se England accent, the other a has a posher midlands accent, like her dad, go figure!

There is definitely a thick south coast / Sussex accent. Some of the children at my senior school could broaden their accents to the point of being very difficult to understand.

When I think of a “thick” accent, I think of one that may be difficult to understand by someone from elsewhere in the UK (not necessarily in the south east or London).

There was a TV show on the BBC years ago called Canny Coppers (it may now be on YouTube) about some police officers working in County Durham. My parents are / were Geordies so I could understand the speech fine but the show had subtitles on for large chunks of it. Rightly or wrongly, if a TV producer chooses to put subtitles on a TV show set in the UK and being shown in the UK, that is a thick accent.

@Cluborange666

Except we never hear of people saying ‘a thick RP accent’ or ‘a thick Surrey accent ‘, do we? Words come with baggage.
Thick kiwi accent or thick Aussie accent. Never feels like an insult in any way. Nor thick Scottish brogue.

I looked up yod-dropping, v interesting. I think she kept her yods firmly in place? I’m Australian and say debut not debjut, suit not sjuit, but I do say pursjuit. Interestingly my older sister who spent more time in England and with RP types in her childhood than I did, says debjut.

I agree with you about “thick” - one’s own accent is never thick.

When I think of a “thick” accent, I think of one that may be difficult to understand by someone from elsewhere in the UK (not necessarily in the south east or London).

When I was 18, I needed someone to interpret between me (Dorset) and a Brummie guy.

I don’t think saying an accent is thick is quite the same as saying it’s strong actually. To me at least, a strong accent means a distinctive one, eg a strong Manchester accent means the accent makes it clear where the speaker’s from.

A thick accent carries the implication that the accent is somewhat impenetrable.
I think there’s a suggestion that there may be a bit of difficulty in understanding the speaker.

I also agree with those that said that certain accents are routinely referred to as thick, while others are rarely so. I have difficulty understanding some very strong New York accents, but I’d never refer to the accent as a thick one. So there can be an inference there when the word thick is used to describe an accent I think, sometimes anyway.

I heard that people with a musical ear are more likely to pick up an accent. For sure it's an individual thing. I have a friend who (embarrassingly) can mimic the accent of the person she is speaking to, without realising. I have another who lives abroad and speaks another language day to day including to her partner but retains her own accent, it's obvious even to me as she speaks another language.

I work with young kids and notice these inconsistencies all the time. The one group for me that stands out is the Indian children i work with (recent migrants, not second generation) who all seem to speak English with a strong Indian accent and don't seem to drop this. I think its because their parents are very fluent and speak to them a lot at home so it's their parents English accent they are adopting.

I suspect there may be a certain peer pressure too, maybe it's frowned upon to develop a more 'local' accent and travellers make a conscious effort to keep the traveller accent as a form of identity. That's just a theory. What's even more surprising in a way is the existence of a 'traveller accent' which seems to be fairly consistent across UK and Ireland (I may be wrong on this).

I have an interesting one!
My teenage daughter's friend is Polish, not sure if born in UK or not but certainly raised here and speaks English indistinguishable from anyone else local. They're doing French as school. When this friend speaks French she has a distinct Polish accent, not an English one. Polish friend says she doesn't know which one is her first language or which language she thinks or dreams in. I wonder if the accent she has in French gives a clue though ????

I grew up quite rurally, my Mother hated the local accent, bit like the Wurzels in Combine Harvester and we were not allowed to speak in the local accent. She corrected us constantly. She had a RP but not over done accent and had been on stage when young. My Dad didn’t speak great English as from overseas and my stepfather had a soft Yorkshire accent. I live up North now with a Southern DH who is very well spoken. Our DS sounds quite Southern with a smattering of flat vowels, teased for being posh at school, more than being mixed race which happened a couple of times. The Mothers at the school gate were very suspicious of my southern accent, been friends with some for nearly 20 years now. Got drunk on a mums night out and impressed them with my dancing skills, was then declared alreet after initial suspicion.

Don't know but my DH has a 'soft' public school accent. You know that accent where it's obvious you went to public school but not all plummy and over done.
He speaks French and German pretty fluently and is complimented on his accents by native speakers but his French sounds a little like a German native speaker who speaks great French rather than an English person

I've heard that about musical people.

Interestingly my DH who is musical and has perfect pitch speaks other languages really well and can do the whole putting on thing.

I can't 🤣 I can't sing at all but I can hear when someone else is flat or sharp and I have a remarkable talent 🙄🤣 for hearing someone with a bizarre accent and am able to break it down and say for example 'French Canadian but spent some of their life in Australia' or 'South African with a hint of Swedish' and be correct.
My DH can't do this and is gob smacked at the weird combinations I have correctly identified.

Pity there isn't a job where this is a desirable skilll 

The accent of the mother tongue is revealed.