Do your children have a different accent from you?

[UnquietDad]

I get the feeling this has been discussed before - apologies if it is old ground for anyone.

Have you moved to an area which is not your "home", or settled with a partner who is from a different part of the country, and found that you've, almost to your astonishment, raised children who speak totally differently from you? (i.e. from your personally, or from both of you?)

I suppose it's inevitable that children will pick things up from school. In our house I still find it odd and slightly jarring that my children have the "short Northern A" - DD will say "classe" and "grasse", and talking about going "oop" to school. And all three of them (DW, DD, DS) will take the piss out me for my Southern RP. (That is a "slightly irritated" face, not really "angry". Another new MN icon needed.)

I do know some fellow "southerners" at the school and some of their kids speak more like their parents than like their peers. I often mean to ask them how they do it!

My DD1 talks without a scottish accent even though DP and me are scottish, living in scotland. Weird eh?

We moved from Essex to Somerset and DS was born here. He's a right little country yokel with a real Somerset twang.

Oh lordy yes!

Dh & I are both Scottish, whilst dd and ds both speak with an English accent. When we go home to Scotland, dh swears my Scottish accent gets stronger whilst talking with the locals!

Mine are geordies. It make me laugh.

Especially when the baby says "oh man"

ds is not speaking yet as only 10 mo, but i'm from the north of Scotland and sound quite posh (lol!) compared to the southern scottish accent round here. god knows how he'll speak, but he ain't gonna sound like me!

Yes my ds sounds like Prince Charles compared to us!

no farkin way

I correct them endlessly to speak properly (ie mancunian )

but it doesn't help that the people at the playgroup have very strong accents and dd1 keeps saying "norrrrrrr" for "no"

grrrrrrrr

Yes I think it is normal and inevitable. I only live 30odd miles away from where I was brought up but DS definitely talks with the local accent.

Not in this situation as a parent but was on the child's end of it. My mum is from London and my dad is from Manchester. When I was born we were living in Birmingham. My mum often says that, once she went back to work and I went to nursery and a child minder, she had some difficulty in understanding me. We moved when I was 7 and now my accent is more like RP.

I think it depends on how much time the children spend in different environments. Wasn't there a comment made that children who watched Ballamory were coming out with strong Scottish accents despite never having been there? Is basically the same thing.

what area is that in, oliveoil? I can't place "norrrrr"! Is that Yorkshire-ish?

Yes. dS was born in Herts, but we moved when he was just 2. |Although he was a really early talker I was convinced that he would have lost his estuary accent by now, having lived in rural central Scotland for 2.5 years. But no.

His accent is as pronounced as ever. He sounds like Charlie out of Charlie and Lola. I'm Glaswegian and dh is from the Wirral. Most of his peers at nursery all have broad Scottish accents.

Now dd (2)is picking up a lot of ds' accent despite being born in Scotland. V v odd and quite disconcerting.

WE get a lot of comments because it's very odd to hear and quite bizarre once people realise that neither parent speaks with a SE accent either.

Maybe it's just too much CBeebies

Message withdrawn

Well, there is the, like, theory that so many people, like, aged under 30? speak like this all the time? because they, like, grew up watching Neighbours? So they are, like, trying to sound Australian?

Could do with a solution as to how to get children to speak 'properly' though.I'm in Sheffield and much as I love the very core of the place, I hate the accent.

My 3 year old occasionaly says momeh! (for mummy).
(Drives me **ing wild!)

I'm a southerner, I'd like them to have that -metropolitan accent or speak like they're from deepest darkest Surrey (as I am, yeh! stop laughing now!)

How does that happen?

rofl UDad

Easywriter you could get them to call you Emperess/Ruler of your Universe/Me Lady.

Yes.

I am American and my husband and children are Scots and speak as such.

I find nothing irritating about their voices or accents. If this was to be a source of annoyance, I would not have married a man here or chosen to bring up children here.

[hijack] Where are you, easywriter? We're out towards Bradfield way. I feel the same way as you about the accent! And kids saying "nannan" to their grandmothers really sets my teeth on edge.

Unsurprisingly, BoyinBrum is ... very, very Brummie. I am Sarf London and DP is RP. DP worries a little bit about the Brumminess but I find it adorable.

I'm from the northwest, dh from the southeast where ds was born, moved to my hometown when ds 1 then moved to the middle-east(Dubai) when ds nearly 2, we went home this easter and my family said ds sounds South African WTF!!!

Dh keeps telling me off because ds says he going in the bath not the barth it is a constant arguement in our house But in answer to the question, yes ds does have a completly different accent to both of us and he is surrounded by people from all walks of life so I don't know what his accent will be like as he grows up (he is 6 now)

I think it's a very lucky person who has nothing better to get annoyed about than peoples' accents, tbh.

I hope there is never a time when the sound of my own childrens' voices 'sets my teeth on edge'.

If you don't like how people speak in your area, and you don't want your children to speak like that, then why the HELL are you there?

Do you any idea how insulting and condescending that comes across?

And then people from 'certain' regions wonder why they're so disliked elsewhere.

UDad We're just off Endcliffe Park. Nannan isn't a word (sorry, Sheffield folk but I'm not having it). Luckily all their Granny's and Grandma's have never even heard 'nannan' beforeso didn't consider it an option. Phew!

Maisiemor You could be onto something. One of my girls Godmothers refers to me as Suwwey Pwincess. (Clearly she know's me too well to be fearful for her life anymore). -Must sort that out

I didn't say it was my own children. Please don't get cross with me because I wanted to start a discussion, for Gawd's sake. people come on here with far more trivial things to moan about. And people move areas for all kinds of reasons, not always their choice.

I moved back to SCotland to try to get ds understood by my relatives (amongst many other reasons). They still take the rip out of him (apparently affectionately). If we moved back to the SE (shudder) then I would get the p8ss taken out of my accent constantly instead which was really miserable and constant

easywriter - oh well, you're okay, you're up the posh end.