Has your accent changed?

[MardyBra]

I grew up with a fairly strong regional accent. I went to university in my own region but it faded there, mainly because I was mixing with students from another region. Eventually in my twenties I ended up working in London with an accent that was all over the place ( short and long As galore) before returning to my home region with RP with a hint of my original accent.

Hope that makes sense. (I try not to give locational details to keep anonymity).

None of this was ever conscious. Just wondered how others' speech has evolved.

mardy

Indeed it should. But I'm a sucker a bit of alliteration

Dopey what is wiffy rammel??? Ask your DH! I need to know!

Both my ILs are from Ireland, one from North and one from South. Both still totally incomprehensible to me after they have been in England for DECADES (especially the Northern one, I honestly have NO idea what he's on about most of the time)

I went to Uni with a broad E Midlands accent and got taunted for being a "Northern trainspotter" type. Was livid. Managed to tone it down over the first year, got it all back (and then some) by working at a local to home factory over the long vac, did pretty much the same in the second year and then in my third found myself living with a Southern lass who had been to elocution lessons! I decided I could learn from her and by the time I graduated I'd pretty much lost the midland vowels. I'd say now I'm slightly confused RP, and people have often said they can't work out where I come from (which was the original idea).

DS on the other hand makes me want to cry, he has native RP and never slips up on the vowels. He gets looked at strangely when we go to see his grandparents! We taught him to say geeor the last time which was hilarious

I think it's a smelly dog???

Yes. Grew up in Northern England so had that accent and dialect.

Went to Uni in Scotland but mainly socialised with students and it was quite a posh Uni so I seemed to go more RP.

Moved further North in Scotland with a Scottish dh and now have kids at school here and mostly socialise with people from Scotland and I seem to have a wee bit of a Scottish accent.

When I go 'home' though and see friends from school dh says it sounds like I'm speaking a different language!!!!

I used to have a very strong Manchester accent, moved to North Yorkshire and am now (after 18 years) considered to have a local accent and my Manchester friends and family have accused me of going 'all posh'

I've recently discovered though when i'm nervous or angry I revert right back to my Manchester roots!

dopy thanks

Wiffy I get. But 'rammel' for 'dog' is a new one to me. I may have to start using it.

Oh hang on. Rammel almost sounds like 'animal'. Hmm. Am understanding a bit now

Such an interesting thread and topic.

Accents are a huge part of my life.

DMum is from England originally, proper East End cockney accent area. However she didn't live with her family and was taught to speak "properly" by the "auntie" she lived with. She was sent to a fairly posh school in a fairly posh area so sounded fairly posh herself!

Then she emigrated to Canada, met my (Canadian) Dad and had me and my brother. Until I started school, I spoke with an English accent

I left Canada in 1996, been in England since 2003, and still have 100% of my Canadian accent. I can put on a perfect English "RP" style accent if I want to, but what comes out of my mouth without thinking about it is pure Canadian.

The DDs on the other hand (both of whom were born here) have vair posh accents indeed. Until they get off the plane in Canada, then it takes them about 30 seconds total to lose their English accents. They switch vocabulary too, without even seemingly thinking... pavement/sidewalk, motorway/highway, trousers/pants, rubbish/garbage etc etc.

So I joke around... I've got the passport, I've got little English schoolgirls as children, I've got more family here than in Canada... so after 12 years the ONLY thing that is not English about me is the accent

Oh and another thing I wanted to mention. My favourite uncle (ref. lots of family in England, above) did grow up in the East End and has the thickest, most gorgeous cockney accent, complete with rhyming slang. He is almost a character out of a book. It is quite fun listening to DMum, DUncle and DDs having a conversation!

I'm on my third accent...I had a strong Yorkshire accent until I moved to Scotland when I was 7... Within a year I had a north west Scottish accent.

I move to the east central belt as an accent and after 20 yrs, I sound Scottish but I have a much stronger accent than where I grew up and a much milder one than where I live now.

So clearly I've just made up my own accent, lol.

Adult changed to accent there, weirdly...lol, I moved to the central belt as an adult.

Yep. Grew up in the North East, so sounded pretty Geordie. Have lived in East Anglia for 8 years and it's practically gone. Totally subconscious as I rather liked my accent! There are certain word pronunciations that stayed (short a's) but the general twang is gone. People look at me and venture 'are you a bit... Northern?!' After a while but it's not obvious any more.

Gillian Anderson is interestingly biaccental. Is that a word?

Oddly I'm biaccental in Spanish. I lived in Andalucia for a bit and picked up the accent. But if I'm in other parts of Spain I tend to speak more standard Spanish - mainly because they look at me in bewilderment.

I think the term is bidialectal. Jennifer Ehle is too (American accent and English accent, grew up partly in both countries)

I've been told quite a few times my accent is hard to place.

Parents are from the NE, we emmigrated to SA when I was a baby. I definitely had a "British" accent in SA. When we moved back to the NE a lot of people thought I was Australian.

Been in the UK for 20 years and I think I sound posh Geordie, but when I meet new people they don't believe I'm from the NE.

Wouldn't bidialectal suggest a different vocabulary too?

And grammar, I meant to say.

Mind you, that would be the case with US v UK English.

I'm a scouser but have lived in the East Midlands for over 25 years. My family that still live in Liverpool have strong accents but mine has softened over the years. I sound like Our Aveline after a few minutes talking to my sisters, though

My children have been told that they "talk posh" - I think it is due to hearing a variety of accents - where we live there isn't one local accent.

Mardy, yes, more than accent: vocabulary, sentence structure, the whole bit

Wow! I didn't know there was a term for this. I am most definitely bi-dialectal. I switch without knowing it, depending on who I'm with. Most of the time, I have no idea that I'm doing it, although I can consciously override it if I try hard enough.

It probably sounds ridiculous to others, because one of my "dialects" belongs to my DH's home country, and I am clearly not from there. Oddly, I find it impossible to deliberately imitate that accent, even if I really try - but at other times, I slip into it without really noticing.

Most of the time, I think it is just two accents (and grammar rules!) that I switch between. However, I have spent huge amounts of time during different periods of my life with Australian friends and very posh British ones. I know that I have ended up sounding like each of them during those periods, because other people have told me so! Does that make me multi-dialectal?

My biggest worry is that people will think I'm taking the piss! I'm not, I do it without realising!

I think my accent has got stronger with age.

I grew up in Yorkshire but to Welsh parents and went to quite a posh school and university so never really had much of an accent.

Came back here to live and have worked in local jobs ever since. I now think I sound more Northern than I ever did as a child.

In my vair best traditional RP, I believe the correct terminology is diglossial.

I suck up and reflect local accents very quickly - I don't think anyone would be able to place my background just from hearing me speak

I'm a South Londoner and depending on who I'm talking to depends on what I sound like. I have lived in an expat community for several years now so the majority of my friends are Aussie, Canadian, Irish and Scots (DH also Scottish)
In my professional life I annunciate all my words properly and have, what a DJ once told me, a radio voice (whatever that is!) When I talk to any of my London friends, I become proper Landarn.
Dad is South African and when I speak to my saffa mates here, I find myself picking up the Afrikaans inflection but in general day to day chit chat, I find myself speaking in some weird English accent with some Australian twang in there and have been mistaken for an Aussie on more than one occasion.
DS1 started with a little Jamaican accent (live in Caribbean) and now at a pre-school with majority English teachers, has a plummy English accent which I know will disappear as soon as he starts Kindergarten. All the expat kids we know speak with hybrid English/American accents.

I thought I had lost my W. London accent after teaching in Southern Africa for a number of years, but then I asked my class to 'repeat after me' an expression.

I was quite alarmed to hear pure Hayes/West Drayton come back to me.