To ask what accent your kids have?

[BackDownSouth]

Just curious to hear from other families where the children are exposed to a range of different accents from birth. I’m from Manchester (have a very strong Manchester accent, like a female Liam Gallagher), my partner is from Eastern Europe, and we’ll be raising our baby in Liverpool.

Is the baby likely to pick up a mixture of me and my partner’s accent, or will they pick up the Scouse accent from nursery/school and their friends? I’d rather they picked up the local accent just for the sake of fitting in. Me and my partner both find the “Oooh, you’re not from ‘round ‘ere, are ya?” exhausting 😂

Maternity leave has me bored so I’m thinking about this a lot!

You don’t have a ‘neutral accent’ though @CruCru and @KnickerFolder. You have accents which you believe are more socially acceptable than other people’s accents.

Mine is Liverpool based and I'm desperate for her not to have a full on Scouse accent. It'll be my inner Hyacinth Bucket coming out but I think a strong Scouse accent could hold her back; there was a recent survey saying that people hearing the Scouse or Geordie accent instinctively thought of criminals.

In reality what will be will be, I ensure he annunciates her words correctly etc. She's nearly 10 and has a general Northern accent in terms of pronunciation etc without a strong accent as such. She does a 'great' thick Scouse accent when she's winding me up though, so it is in her!

Southern accent here. Her Dad has a Portuguese accent. I suppose her accent is similar to mine but a bit posher which is weird because she is surrounded by Londoners who aren’t posh.

From my limited experience kids pick up the accents of their peers.

My parents were both from Norfolk and we moved to Yorkshire when I was 4. I have a Yorkshire accent with a Norfolk twang on some words.

My friend is from Yorkshire, her partner is Irish and they live in America, their children sound American.

An old school friend has Scottish parents but lived in Yorkshire from young, she could switch effortlessly between Scottish and Yorkshire accents depending on who she was speaking to. Was fascinating to hear if they ever phoned her and she’d just switch.

I’m a manc too OP but moved to Oldham with DH where he is from. My kids sound like Sarah Lancashire 🤣 no bad thing! But definitely broad Oldham accents like DH and his family.

My DS is proper Essex and I love his accent .
DD has less of an Essex accent .

I do gently rile him when he says "wa'er" "bu'er" and "fins" (things) but I love his voice .
We chose to have our DC here , they pick up the accent .

School will be the main factor in the accent, if your child stays in the area when joining.

DS spent all his preschool years FT at home, and when he finally joined nursery (in the NW) at 4yo the staff wanted to know where he got his "posh accent" from so would literally come out to examine meet me. I'm not posh, but I was born and raised abroad so still have the odd, shifting, international accent. DP has a rapidly disappearing Boltonian accent - which never rubbed off on either DS or me, to his dismay.
DS quickly lost his original accent during primary school (not a very diverse one) and now has a general Greater Mcr accent - nothing strong enough to be 'arrrrraight arrr kid' Manc, but definitely northern! I don't even hear it until he's side by side with my relatives from elsewhere in the UK.

My favourite accent - though there are differences I know depending on where someone is from.

Someone like Shaun Evans (Endeavour) his natural accent (when he isn't being Morse ) is lovely .

Barry Grant from Brookside , maybe not so much

I get what you mean about the instant Scouse=Criminal , unfortunately anyone with an Essex accent seems to make people think "Joey Essex / TOWIE lot"

I'm from South London, DH is from Northumberland and DD was born and grew up in South Yorkshire. She has what her schoolfriends call a "posh Yorkshire accent" as she doesn't speak with a broad local accent.

Nope, It’s not me that thinks my accent is “neutral”, @BRL2. Neutral RP or neutral British English or contemporary RP is a specific accent that is different from conservative RP, the clipped, cut glass, upper class old fashioned “BBC” accent.

But in what sense is your contemporary RP accent neutral @KnickerFolder?

It’s a very marked accent, very easily identifiable.

I say this as someone who doesn’t have an English accent, so your type of accent seems very pronounced and very obviously English to me.

There are a lot of people on this thread who are misusing or mistaking what RP is.

RP is not a synonym for South East England accent .

Just because your kids are in the South or go to good schools, doesn’t mean they will have RP.

There’s a defined accent which has appeared in the last 20 years which is kind of aspirational, over enunciated clear speaking, but not RP in accent - you can still hear the ghosts of glottal stops etc.

Kind of “Project manager just moved to Tring” sort of accent. Everything spoken in a Southern accent but with a professional clarity, over pronunciation of words as if you’re constantly doing a Teams call.

The voice tends to go up at the end of every sentence as well, a kind of “you will acknowledge me?” tick.

Please tell me your DC is the one who went viral a few years back for pronouncing “moo” totally differently in English and in Welsh? I loved that so much!

It will probably depend who he hears at nursery/preschool and what there accents are as well as who reads with him at home.

My husband has what I call a lazy west London accent. He can speak properly when he wants to but if he's around other people that drop their 'aitches' he will too! And though his accent isn't very accenty (for want of a better word) he will occasionally say things like 'we was going' or 'I like them plants'. But he is more than capable of saying 'were' or 'those'. But anyway, I taught our children to read and they picked it up from a very young age so their accent is like mine. Not quite RP but not very distinguishable as an accent. Also they watched a lot of (too much) Peppa Pig when younger so they probably sound a bit like her! 🤪🤣 Read that as annoying if you like.

Hmm, not sure if that was partly directed at me, but just because someone outside the UK describes an English accent as ‘marked‘ or ‘pronounced’ doesn’t mean that it can’t be RP (or the modern equivalent)@JacquesHarlow 😉

It’s actually one of the most easily recognised English accents.

I have an RP accent, DH has a very strong south London accent. 5-year-old DS speaks with my accent when he's just with me (or my parents/sister, who have the same accent as me) and DH's accent when it's just them together or his side of the family. If we're all together, he'll switch between accents depending on who he's talking to. There are some words/phrases that he associates with one of us in particular and therefore always says in our accent. He's always done it since he started talking, I find it quite fascinating that he acquired two accents- I vaguely assumed that he might develop a sort of hybrid accent.

It is easily recognised, but it’s also massively over claimed @Mapandthermos .

I would wager a bet that over half the folk who claim they have RP accents, don’t. They have a professional enunciation version of a Southern Estuary accent.

here’s a question for you.. does Michelle Dockery have an RP accent , or not?

Mine definitely speaks Yorkshire sometimes now.
'owt'
'nooooo' 'hooooome' (if you get my meaning!)
Amongst some other words

While you can tell I'm from the north I don't speak with a Yorkshire accent like this. I grew up in Yorkshire but in a place that didn't speak with a Yorkshire accent. People definitely speak more Yorkshire here!

I’ve never heard her speak out of character so I haven’t a clue what accent she has, I’m afraid.

Few people have an RP accent nowadays I believe. SSBE may be what people mean? At least, I think that’s what pp meant by ‘contemporary RP’.

Neither accent is ‘neutral’ imho. Maybe standard is what’s meant, but too many people seem to think they’ve no accent when they very clearly have.

I didn’t coin the term, @Mapandthermos 😂

I guess it’s called neutral because it is not a regional accent and it isn’t class or culture specific.

I didn’t mean SSBE, @Mapandthermos, although they are very similar. Contemporary RP is more like Kate Middleton’s accent, rather than the late queen’s accent.

I speak with BBC English, my DH is American. Eldest sounds like me, my DH, with an Essex twang. Middle child has an extremely strong Essex accent but with a few Americanisms thrown in. Youngest is not speaking yet 😆

I'm doing my best to accept the way they speak but I cannot stand "fink" for "think", or the sort of "eye" sound instead of "ay".

Birf-die, rather than birthday.

Edited to add: I don't mind when others talk like that, but I struggle with the fact they don't sound like how I'd imagine my children to sound.

Okay, thank you.

I’ve never heard the term ‘neutral RP’ used as a descriptor of modern RP before. Do you know who coined that term?

I do know RP has changed over the years.

I haven't had time to read the thread fully but I expect many posters will claim to have a 'neutral' accent.

Your DC will grow up with the local accent OP. They won't hear it but you will. When they are older and are asked to describe their accents, they will say they have 'neutral' or 'soft' accents.

Both my parents were Irish. Dad very strong Tipperary and Mum Westmeath, not so strong.
I and my brother lived in Ireland to begin with but we moved to England.
My brother sounds like a Londoner and I , apparently, sound very posh. ( we lived in Hertfordshire ) I think because I went to a drama club for about 10 years. Neither of us sound Irish but I have no problem understanding people with strong accents because I’m so used to it. My dh, however couldn’t understand a word my dad said 🥴

Friends of ours from Australia had their two boys in England. The eldest was 10yrs when they went back to Australia, the youngest 5. We saw them all last weekend and whilst the youngest definitely sounds Australian the eldest still sounds very English with just a hint of Aussie. ( parents both Australian ) He said in Australia they call him English and in England they call him Australian.

I think you pick up the accent of the place you grow up in and from the people who surround you. If you go to school in a country you start to sound like everyone else at school.