picking up accents at school

[Sallyssss]

Ok, now I am know this thread wont make me the most popular person, but I need some advice/reassurance (or a kick up the back side ;-) .

My 5 yr started a new local school in a new area (where we have moved to)and has already started picking up the accent, which to put it mildly I do not like!

Hmmm - do I accept this? Will she grow out of it? Any words of wisdom?

I think that you will probably have to accept it. If you make a big issue out of it in front of your 5yo, you are likely to make them worry about how they sound at home and at school (because they won't be able to hear their own accent and so can't judge).

I have picked up accents from my parents, schools all over the country, from housemates at uni who came from all over the place. I get people suggesting I am northern, essex, midlands and (v.specific this one) Leicester. None are quite accurate, but it does go to show how easily accents are acquired.

As a result of different geographical backgrounds and of education, all 4 of us in my household had different accents!

My dad was 'educated' Cornish thus had the sort of burr that'd get him a job on the BBC these days - a bit regional but insufficient to scare the horses; my mum is broad Devonian; I am RP with some Australian rising inflection as a result of a posh girls grammar (state, though, but very middle class) and 15 years in Oz (and an Aussie DH). DB has a broad 'Ampshire accent which I hate! He could be describing String Theory but he'd still sound thick as 2 short planks. And even he recognises it! The DSs attended a local primary with a lot of local families, in the town for generations and it was all I could do not to correct these DCs when they came for tea with their 'Oi!'s and 'Wau'ahh' when they meant water... and their inability to pronounce the 'th' sound! SOem of it was definitely Estuary English gleaned off all the telly they watched, too!

Of course, many will be shrieking 'Snob!' at this point but I don't care. I don't want my DCs to sound like they just stepped out of Billingsgate Market or Portsmouth Docks as they didn't.

do you live in birmingham? that would be understandable

I don't think that there's much you can do. It doesn't matter anyway - it's what you say that's important, not how you say it.

ampere, just wondering if you would object quite so much to your DCs sounding like they had just stepped out of Eton even though they didn't? Is it OK to have a different accent to your parents so long as it's aspirational?

Everyone of us now has a different accent.

My dds are picking up west country from school. I sound pretty posh. My dh is northern (very gently though because he's lived down south most of his life) and granny - having moved to Leeds now sounds Yorkshire.

The west country accents make me laugh because a granny of mine spent a lot of time trying to prevent her sons picking up a Bristol accent (she was welsh) so she would turn in her grave if she knew how her great grandchildren spoke.

Well, the ones who don't live in France and speak French, that is!

You're going to have to accept that your daughter is going to pick up the local accent. She won't even be doing it consciously -- at that age children naturally pick up speech they hear around them.

It's OK to have a different accent to your parents- as long as it doesn't make you sound as if you're as thick as the above mentioned planks, 2 of, short.

You may not like it but the fact remains, a 'posh' accent is perceived to carry more authority than a regional one, especially a regional accent that makes you sound clueless. Like Estuary English, for example.

but there isn't just one local accent anywhere, really, is there? where we are (south London) some kids speak Sarf London, some Eastenders Estuary English, some faux Jamaican patois, some Polish/Russian/Somali etc accented English, some RP

I don't want my kids speaking in a Sarf London accent - it's so whiny! and yes, I do correct them if they say wa'er, bo'ul, spage'i etc - or rather, I just raise my eyebrows and they say it correctly

If it makes you feel any better, my sister went through a phase of Sarf London when she was at 6th form college, but 20 years on sounds perfectly educated

basildon, you hit the nail on the head when you say:

"...If it makes you feel any better, my sister went through a phase of Sarf London when she was at 6th form college, but 20 years on sounds perfectly educated..."

You associate her presumably now NON 'Sarf London' accent with 'perfect education', as do many people! That's the way it is.

I would only correct grammar and not accent.

this always makes me laugh mine started school in glasgow, moved to a posh area of wiltshire, then to aldershot, and now live in canada. every time they pick it up, and every time they lose it. i do miss listening to nursery rhymes in broad glaswegian now we get 'it's 'recess' mommy, not playtime'...

I moved alot as a youngster and started off broad northern (Sheffield/Doncaster), moved to the Midlands and ended up in London and have lived here for over 10 years. My accent has changed HUGHLY over that time and not intentionally. I wouldn't worry.

At my primary school I spoke with a broad Oxfordshire accent which is really local yokel Wurzel Gummidge Combine 'arvester stuff

I remember my parents objecting a bit, which mmade it worse

I was moved to a naice school (not because of accent but because first school was also atrocious) and overnight began speaking RP. Now dd1 speaks in the faux-Jamaican patois basildon mentions. I ignore it. It is a phase.