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Original poster

Do your children have a different accent from you?

131 replies

UnquietDad · 13/06/2007 15:09

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!

OP posts:
expatinscotland · 13/06/2007 16:16

Some members on here have posted statements such as their children's accents with regards to particular words 'sets their teeth on edge' or that they want them to speak like 'Southerners' when they don't even live there, etc.

And whilst that may seem okay to you, it really is quite rude to others.

It's a bit like moving to Spain and not bothering to learn the language, wanting fish and chips in the cafes, etc.

expatinscotland · 13/06/2007 16:18

Just looking at it from the angle of living in a northern region with a large influx of 'southerners', it's one of the things that does indeed irritate and offend many natives.

Blackduck · 13/06/2007 16:22

Oh muminbrum I'm with you - dp Sarf london, me North London (RP when I want to...) ds is perfecting a lovely brummie/Dudley accent (I blame the nursery staff who have accents you could cut with a knife...)

OhNo40 · 13/06/2007 16:30

My DD 3 knows that mummy says "bath" and daddy says "barth". As I do bath times most of the time she leans towards my pronunciation and has great fun "imitating" dh.
Having said that, we live in the south so after a day at nursery she sometimes talks about the graars outside on the lawn.

Original poster
UnquietDad · 13/06/2007 16:39

It is totally unlike moving to Spain and wanting fish and chips and speaking VERY LOUDLY IN ENGLISH, which I have seen people do and found annoying. If DW and I decided to do that I'm sure we would "go native" to some extent.

We haven't taken a conscious decision to "emigrate" to Yorkshire, although I do love it here - it just worked out that way. Plenty of people are "from" here but don't have the accent - I'm just interested as to how they do it.

OP posts:
suedonim · 13/06/2007 16:53

Easywriter, I've no idea how it happened! Oddly enough, dh and I no longer sound like our siblings who are still in Kent, either.

I don't have an ear for accents and can't identify where people are from at all; in fact mostly I don't even notice whether people have an accent. So it would be impossible for me to ape the accent of the area where I live.

Califrau · 13/06/2007 16:58

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

pointydog · 13/06/2007 16:58

For all expat's passionate extremism here, I agree with her basic point.

purplemonkeydishwasher · 13/06/2007 16:59

DH and I both have canadian accents.. so far i think ds (20mo) sounds like us. but then we're the ones teaching him to speak!
but TBH i probably wouldn't even notice his accent. my parents on the other hand! they'll comment on it!!

ernest · 13/06/2007 17:18

I'm from North East, Dh from Kent, live in Switzerland. Kids have got absolutely hideous (sorry, yes, I know) estury accent, even tho they spend all day every day with me, and barely more than an hour a day with him . And since our last visit to Kent, they have been constantly taking the piss out of MY accent, while merrily walking around saying eg "We was 'ardly 'ittin the waw" As clearly now they have lost the ability co pronounce the letter h, or l or conjugate verbs

Not that I'm bitter, you understand.

NoodleStroodle · 13/06/2007 17:20

We're all posh received pronounciation

TranquilaManana · 13/06/2007 17:26

im an accent chameleon. people probably think im taking the piss sometimes, so rapidly do i start to sound like them when i speak to them... my mother says i have amusical ear.

TranquilaManana · 13/06/2007 17:30

my kids apparently sound 'posh', well, according to my 27yo, going on 17yo brother who still lives on the mean streets of hackney (so kind of east, kind of north london) and insists on speaking amongst his pals as though they are actually from some really hard ghetto and answers the phone 'eezy geez'. i shit you not.

i was a v high pitched east end cockney as a child. its still in there somewhere... like i say, accent chameleon.

easywriter · 13/06/2007 18:39

Much as I really should leave it, I won't as I dislike being called rude or condescending.

If I say I want my children to sound like southerners even though I don't live there it's because:

  1. In my opinion southerners sound great. Get me! Expressing an OPINION not being rude or condescending. It's like saying I like onions but I hate okra. It may not be your opinion but it is NOT rude or condescending.

  2. Perhaps I like the southern accent because I lived there for 20 years and hence it sounds normal to me! (Normal is merely what you are accustomed to).

  3. what I haven't said is anything about accents that I love. What I mostly dislike are strong accents of any kind. However, I love Newcastle, Liverpudlian, Irish and Scottish accents. The southern accent doesn't 'make me fall in love' with it.

I think (Expat) that you've got a bee in your bonnet about rude/condescending generalisations made about people with a particular accent and not about people saying I don't like a particular accent (again merely an opinion).

And, here's the thing, if you don't like something (and don't think it's the best) why would you want your children to do it as you want the best for them.

I don't berate my children for their one northern word and I won't if anymore appear... ...(I'll just send them to private school!)

suedonim · 13/06/2007 19:02

I fail to see why not adopting the accent of where one lives should irritate and offend others. If anyone said that Nigerians, Poles or Indians in London should adopt a London accent there would quite rightly be uproar. Accents, changing or not, are part of what and who we are.

zizou · 13/06/2007 19:14

unquiet dad, my dd1 does that antipodean questioning thing? it seems to be the norm at her school? (posh sw london state)despite her having never watched an antipodean programme? then when they go to the comp at 11 they all start speaking in afrocaribbean-flavoured laurenese , whilst carrying their cellos and lacrosse sticks. Makes me rofl.
I am sarf east london my dh is rp.

Wilbur · 13/06/2007 19:22

I find it interesting that your kids can hear your accent and be aware of it, UQD. My mother was Canadian, and had a strong accent despite 40 yrs here, but I couldn't hear it - she just sounded like mum. Other Canadians, they sounded different, but her voice had no accent to me. (Except when she went to Winnipeg for a top up and came back all aboot and eh? )

pointydog · 13/06/2007 20:15

I don't think everyone should adopt the accent of where they live.

Just think it's often such a significant part of us and can be tied in with strong feelings of national identity, and children are so utterly unaware of accent anyway, that some people will be offended in some way if their or their children's accent is mocked.

I don't share expat's strength of feeling but I do understand it.

babyblue2 · 13/06/2007 20:18

I don't have a local accent and neither do my DD's and therefore people think i'm well spoken, although now that the eldest is at nursery the odd accent slips out. I don't want it to and I pick her up on it if she starts mispronouncing words lazily eg, they 'ave an 'abit of not pronouncing the 'h' at the beginning of a word - its beyond me.

DrNortherner · 13/06/2007 20:26

I have a north east accent and do the grasse/cAstle things and roaaaaad and shoe-er not sure. Dh is Harrogate born and bred and speaks very proper.

Ds is 5 and at school now and corrects my speech whic I tell him is and accent and I am not speaking incorrectly. now when I tell him off for droping his T in water (war -er) which drives me mad he tells me its hisaccent.

Grr.

pointydog · 13/06/2007 20:28

I think, also, it's one of the most irritating things you can do - constantly pick someone up on their accent.

TheApprentice · 13/06/2007 20:33

I LOVE different accents, think they add to the richness and variety of life.

My dh and I are English and living in Scotland so fully expect ds to grow up with a Scottish accent and I will be very happy about it.

Ive got lots of friends who are not living in the area they were brought up in and its really great listening to their children all speaking in different accents.

Lets celebrate the diversity of life!

babyblue2 · 13/06/2007 20:36

TBH i'm not keen on accents. I hate mispronunciation and although i'll admit i have my faults but i can't stand hearing mispronounced words from other people.

pointydog · 13/06/2007 20:36

o apprentice, your all-embracing love is quite breath-taking!

expatinscotland · 13/06/2007 20:37

Why not at least let them speak how they wish to speak - your children, that is?

If it goes the way of where you're living, then that's how it goes, or if it goes the way you speak or their grandparents or whatever.

What's wrong with that?

My dad's got a Mexican accent when he speaks English, because he didn't speak English until he went to school and never in the home or in the neighbourhood.

But I'd have gotten ticked off if he'd tried to get me to speak a certain way just because that's what he liked to hear.

My children are going to do a lot of things I don't necessarily like, may as well concentrate on the big stuff.

[rolls eyes]