Sudden accent change

[Neuroticmillenial]

A friend of mine moved to a different part of Wales around 8 years ago when she was 27/28. I can’t believe the change in her accent. She has a really thick, strong Welsh accent. She’s been diagnosed autistic so thought maybe it was her way of masking or trying to fit in, but she says it just happens every time she moves. I believe her but it’s just bizarre listening to her stories as she’s originally from England.

I had a strong cockney accent until we moved to Wales when I was a teenager. I’ve lost the cockney but everyone remarks how I don’t sound Welsh. I’m in my thirties and apparently I sound “posh” or like someone from a military family (or an international student 😂)

AIBU to wonder how someone’s accent can change so drastically as an adult? (I vote I am because it doesn’t affect me, I guess I’m just nosey).

Some people are more prone to picking up accents. There are various sociolinguistic theories on it to do with fitting in and so on. It's often not conscious.

I apparently sound much more Dorset when talking to my sister, and my public school educated father would sound really Dorset when talking to workers on the farm, which wasn't where he was brought up.

I remember one half term we stayed in Wales (where we have family, so it was a regular occurrence) - everyone there commented on my Dorset accent. Got home after a week of playing with Welsh kids, and everyone at home was commenting on our Welsh accents...

I can tell who my neurodiverse husband is talking to on the phone by what his accent is...it changes depending on who he is talking to. Gets off the phone and straight back to "normal".

My daughter is autistic and has a very strong American accent and has ever since she began speaking properly (a few words aged 4 and then sentences aged 6) we put it down to the apps that the speech therapist recommended we use and echolalia.

I often wonder if she was immersed in another accent whether she’d swap to that accent although that hasn’t happened with our ‘natural’ accent so who knows. The rest of us are broad Yorkshire 🤣

its common in those with ADHD. A subconscious way connecting to the person or people around them.

I used to come back from a week with my aunt with a Yorkshire accent like my counsin’s

My friend’s autistic son has a posh English accent which is bizarre cause his parents both have broad Glasgow accents and live in Glasgow.

It is something that can be associated with neurodivergence, but not all neurodivergent people have it.

It's also common for anyone to revert to the accent they grew up with when they're back in the area or on the phone to friends/family.

Personally I am accent-impervious. My sister has a strong regional accent from where we grew up, but I didn't develop it. I talk in a very bland, neutral accent.

I was going to ask if she was neurodivergent- very common if so.

My kids laugh at me because my accent immediately gets stronger when I speak to my Mum on the phone. Amusingly DD1's accent also changes when talking to Mum, my native accent is very lilting (like Welsh or Norwegian) and DD1 picks that up, her friends commented on it when my Mum was visiting and DD1 went into school still speaking with a lilting accent. DD1 and I are both NT so it's not a ND special skill.

I do it, but not totally. So my voice is heavily influenced by the places I’ve been, and I am inclined to match the accent of the people I am speaking to. I was told off for it as a child.

That said I can be totally stumped by a word and be unable to work out what it means.
Court for coat from a Welshman.
Stame for steam from a New Zealander.

I don’t understand how I can be so quick to pick it up, but unable to understand some of it.

Stame out of a kittle was a particular moment of embarrassment. Though so was ‘where’s ya court?!’.

I guess you are a bit because it’s common with neurodivergence so it seems a bit closed minded of you to assume everyone is neurotypical and the same as you.

My husband has a fairly posh sounding southern speaking voice ( the kid's friends always comment on his posh voice)

He lived for the first 10 years of his life in Manchester with his Londoner parents. He had a fairly strong Manchester accent by the time they moved back down south.

He had the Manchester accent bullied out of him at school but now I always joke that the moment he meets any one from Manchester he starts speaking with the accent almost immediately. He says it just comes out naturally.

Agree it’s a ND thing. I’m autistic; my BFF has a strong regional accent and DH says I always speak like her for about 24 hours after I’ve seen her. My parents both had foreign accents and I went to a prep school where everyone spoke vaairy naaaicely. I distinctly remember thinking “this is the accent that will help me fit in better” when I was about 5, and adopting it from then on.

8 years is hardly sudden.

My Mum lost her Welsh accent when she moved to London as a young adult.She was neurotypical.
I came home from Australia after a year with a strong Oz accent and as an older adult I have strong suspicions that I have ADHD but cannot be arsed now to be assessed.

8 years is quite a long time

I didn't realise how much my accent had changed until I met up with some old school friends and realised I now sound very southern compared to them. It wasn't remotely a conscious decision

I'm from the north east but lived in London for a bit where I was constantly told I sounded like Cheryl Cole - quite offended I definitely don't lol

I think I became quite conscious of slowing down when I talked as I was constantly told at work they couldn't understand what I was saying. So I think my accent changed a bit

When I came home for visits I was told I sounded posh!

Im back in the north east now and not really considered to have a particularly strong accent though when with some family it comes out stronger

It's quite common in autistic people.

My sister is like this. If she changed trains at Crewe she would come home with a Cheshire accent.

She isn’t ND.

I know but she has a stronger accent than people who’ve lived there their entire lives and I’ve known her a long time. I’ve lived here 22 years and I’d love to have a local accent because mine is so bland but alas it never happened.

it’s all really interesting.

I'm ND and I often mirror people's accents without realising - I've had many people say they can't work out where I'm from, or assume that I'm from the same part of the UK as them. It's embarrassing sometimes when I catch myself doing it and have to make a conscious effort to fade back to my actual South Welsh accent. I suspect that if I lived somewhere for a number of years, I would develop the accent quite strongly, although it would vanish as soon as I spoke to Welsh friends (or watched an episode of Gavin and Stacey!)

I used to spend all my summer holidays in Wales every year and would come back with a welsh accent. It’s just quite a catching accent I think. I was also fluent in Australian from watching Neighbours and Home and Away! I am not autistic.

Weirdly though, I didn’t develop my own regional accent growing up. My parents were from elsewhere though.

My neighbour and his sister were brought up in Dorset till they were late teens. They've lived here since the 60s. He has a strong Dorset accent, she has a Lancashire accent. There's only a year between them and they've both lived in this same Lancashire town since they moved. It's fascinating.

I think accent mirroring is quite common, as is having two accents and code switching depending on who you’re talking to. My husband has a strong south London accent and I have a very ‘clipped’ RP accent, but over the course of our marriage our accents at home have become closer together- his accent is less pronounced and mine has also softened, but we immediately revert to our original accents with our respective families. Our DS’s accent is closer to my DH’s, but he speaks in mine with my family and DH’s with his family. Sometimes he switches accents multiple times in the same conversation if we’re all together. Most of his school friends have quite strong southwest accents but he doesn’t seem to have picked that up at all, he uses his London accent at school, which I find interesting.

Oh it’s so embarrassing. I cannot stop myself doing it. As soon as I get off the train in York or Liverpool, it’s like I’m doing a particularly shite impression. I’m surprised I haven’t been lamped