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!

I agree Expat, I only ever correct ds when he drops an h or a t (as in butter or water)but that is his pronunciation.

I would never correct an accent.

Hmmm, don't know what came over me, Pointydog!

Liverpollo?!!! Is that a glamourous Liverpool then? LOL

I never correct the accent because it isn't really there i just don't like the mispronunciation (did I say that already). I mean if they can't speak properly how are they meant to spell properly.

Imagine how that could affect a child, to be pulled up on their accent all the time?

I agree, Dr Northerner, about incorrect pronounciation - DD1 has speech delays and is in SALT, part of her issues is that her speech is not clearly pronounced enough to be understood sometimes. But she does have an Edinburgh accent when she speaks. Mine is the only foreign voice she hears all the time - well, you do hear a lot of Polish being spoken around here .

But seriously, how they speak is part of who they are just as much as it is for you.

And they're, well, not you.

yes, they do a bit.

They also pick me up on any words/terms I use that aren't English (to their great delight).

Expat, it sounds like you desperately want to turn this light-hearted thread into a class debate.
Surely it's just as likely that a northerner might be set on edge by thier child's southern accent than vice-versa.
I don't think there is anything wrong with a parent trying to moderate a strong accent - especially when the "accent" also includes some words that would be considered mispronounced outside the immediate area.
For example, my mother was happy for me to grow up with and Aussie accent, but not for me to say words incorrectly just because they are commonly mispronounced in Aus.

Huh?

I love how people read so much into things when they don't agree with them.

Class is goofy. I'm foreign and I'll never get it, just as I'll never get all this accent business.

It just seems really trivial and silly.

have only read the op.

i moved from essex to cumbria 10 years ago,and my dc speak with the local accent(the ones who can speak,that is),although dd1 often gets called 'posh' or a snob by other children.

i thought i still had a pretty strong essex accent,untill i went to visit my mum a couple of years ago and somebody aked where i was from 'here!' i replied 'oh,you have a northern accent' said they 'ave i eck as like' said i.

i have noticed i dont get called 'cockney' anymore

We have lived up north since ds was 1 (he's 10 now)...but he still sounds very southern...says grarsse and parth and carstle.
dd though (who is 4) and isn't even at school yet...sounds much more northern.
ds has aspergers though...and i think he is just less influenced by the speech of his peers and just speaks the way he originally learnt from us...wheras dd has taken it onboard more

Hurray, Blackduck! Glad we're not alone. Does your LO correct your pronunciation?
And as for you, Expat, normally you're very sensible, but do you honestly expect us Brits to believe that neither class distinctions nor different regional accents exist in the US of A?

Did I state that anywhere, MuminBrum?

I personally think it's all a crock.

Far be it from me to generalise for 300m+ people.

I'm an expat, not an ambassador.

I wrote it once and I'll write it again, I've got other stuff to worry about than how the accent they speak with.

You wrote "Class is goofy. I'm foreign and I'll never get it, just as I'll never get all this accent business."

Yes, I did. That is different to writing, 'There are no class differences in the USA.'

I find it goofy and as a foreigner, it seems to me that English are VERY into it, way more so than any other country I've lived in.

Different from, that is.

My main experience of the US was as an au pair on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. I met Americans there who were conscious of class, and accent, in a way that left most Brits standing.

Accents are just interesting, I like the way they can meld into something new and strange (my favourite was a Canadian girl I once met who'd spent years in Manchester, she had the most odd accent).

I'm a southerner with northern flat a sounds (long story) and DH is from Manchester, accent long diluted by southern living. DD has the flat a sounds (she's 3, so we're still a major influence on her). She picks up local slang at nursery, and recently announced 'Oi don't loike seeds', to my surprise (Gloucestershire).

There was some research published recently that showed that children are far more influenced in their accent by their peers than their parents ... I think it was done with the children of immigrants.

UQD - the exact opposite of you (and iirc you're currently living pretty near from whence I hail). my dds say glarse and grarse and clarse. It bugs the hell out of me. my daughters are southern wusses

There's no R in the RP vowel though. It bugs ME when people try to write it as if there is!! If people actually listen to me they can hear I don't say "clarse".

But I don't actually know how best to write the two in order to make the distinction - I usually go for "classe" and "grasse" to indicate Northern pronunication, although I don't know that to do with "path" and "bath".

how about claase? (and piffle to your "RP")

Well, I couldn't think what else to call it. I write "class" and I hear it as it sounds when i say it, but I write "classe" and I hear it as it sounds when a Northerner says it - like the French word! Bonjour la classe!

Changing things just a tad!

One word that sounds SOOO poncey said with a southern accent but SOOOOOO cool said with a northern accent is... ...

bastard.

Are you with me on this people?

Anyone care to speculate on why this should be?