Scottish child picking up English accent

[Scotupnorth]

A bit nervous about posting this as I hope it's not taken the wrong way by anyone...

I live in a town in the Scottish Highlands, we moved here not long ago from another town in Highland. We needed to move to a bigger house but since Covid prices have gone wild with so many people moving here and so we couldn't get anything suitable in our price range in our home town and needed to move to another one about an hour away. I love it here although similar to many of the other towns in the Highlands, there has been a huge influx of people moving here from England, particularly post-covid. I have no issue with this however my daughter has started at the local nursery where the majority of staff and very many of the children are now English and she is now starting to say many things with an English accent. She is only there 3 days a week and we are very hands on with her so she hears us speaking to her all the time but as time goes on she's speaking this way more and more and it's starting to make me a bit nervous. Obviously there is nothing wrong with English accents but she has been born and brought up in Scotland and has never set foot in England so it would be weird for her to grow up speaking with an English accent. I was hoping initially that she would lose it as she gets older but I've recently started working in a position with local children and so many of them have English accents, including many children who have been born here, that I'm worried that she won't. When she has been saying things in an English accent we have been repeating it with our accent and she will often repeat it again with a Scottish accent, but as she is speaking this way more and more, I don't want to be correcting her all the time and giving her some kind of complex about it.

Anyone else in a Highland town having issue?

I hope this post is not taken the wrong way, there is no anti-English sentiment to my post or feelings but I just feel it would be weird for her to speak with an English accent when she is Scottish and has been born and raised here to Scottish parents.

DH spent the first 10 years of his life in the Glasgow area and the next 40 in Bristol. His accent still changes depending on whether he's talking to someone English or Scottish.

Kids adapt to fit in with their peers. You'll find as time goes on and their friendship groups change, their accents will morph (several times in a day depending 😁).

I think I am strange cos I don't really hear accents unless they are very strong. I have friends from all over the UK and often someone will meet them and say - I love your accent - and I think what are they talking about.

My DD is accused of having a posh accent. All I hear is someone speaking clearly.

Is it possible that in the way I don't really hear accents you might be more finely tuned to hearing accents? Just a thought.

I suspect your child might be one of those people who grows up able to imitate lots of accents.

I agree not to worry about it. My in laws are in the highlands. When my nephew was 3, he had an English accent and I know it drove his dad crazy (as he does actually hate the English). As he’s got older, it’s developed into a local accent and he now sounds very Scottish. At that young age, they don’t tend to have accents.

My mum has actually suggested this but not for me but DD. My dad was actually an immigrant and I am bilingual and teaching DD my dad's language also (Italian) and when she speaks Italian she does so with the Italian accent that we talk to her in. My mum has suggested that maybe this has made DD more attuned to the language and tones she hears and more likely to mimic them. I'm not sure if that could be true or not.

I'm English but Scottish family (mine, grandparents z aunt's and uncles.). I sometimes find myself talking Scottish, especially when I'm getting annoyed 😁 I'm now 55 lol

@Scotupnorth for the same reason as your seeing I think. A large percentage of dc have parents with well spoken English accents so go to school speaking that way. Dd1 is 15 and definitely sounds more Scottish now than she ever did in primary school but it's certainly not the local leith accent or anything close.

For those saying there is not one English accent, I realise this the same as there is not one Scottish accent. DH and I come from different Scottish towns and have different accents but both would be easily identified as Scottish. Most of her nursery workers are from various places in Southern England and she definitely speaks in a similar tone and accent to them, you hear it in her vowels in particular, such as when she's saying words like flowers or dirty.

Someone suggested that I have an issue with her identifying with the English people living here and that is just not the case at all, nor do I have any issue with 'incomers'. As I said in my last comment, I am the daughter of an immigrant and as someone who moved here from a town 1hour away I would consider myself an 'incomer'. If we moved to England and she picked up an English accent I would completely get it, it's just something that has cropped up and was quite unexpected and living in Scotland we just never thought that she might not have a Scottish accent. I guess that time will tell whether or not she continues speaking more with an English or Scottish accent. I can't pretend that I wouldn't love her to stick with the Scottish one, she has a different accent to me when she speaks Scottish and to my ear it just sounds beautiful, gentle and soft whereas my accent is far more gruff.

The Scottish half of my family speak in Doric but they can switch to standard Scots when speaking to me on the phone. Accents can be fluid so your daughter might become 'bilingual in accent' as she mixes with more Scots accent speakers. When I visit the family it only takes a week for me to sound like them although I'm English! I hope you are saving some video clips of her at the moment because if her accent changes over time, it'll be something cute to look back on.

I hadn't thought of that but will definitely be doing that now!

My nieces lived in London until they were 3. Strong London accents despite their parents' cut glass English accents.
They then lived in Canada until they were 8, full on Canadian accents. Now they are in New York, both have US accents with a good NYC twang.
Kids seem to pick up the accent of their environment until they are teens.

To look on the bright side, your DD, though being bilingual, may well just have a flexible voice. My DD went to international school (in mainland Europe) where there is a very specific accent (kind of a mix of British, American, South African and with an Australian-style upward inflection)- we’ve been back in the UK under a year and she sounds local again unless she is FaceTiming her friends back in her old school where the old accent is back. She’s just started learning French at school and despite coming to it late her French accent is great. It’s a skill! She’ll probably choose what accent she has depending on the situation

Mum is Scottish and dad is English.

We had a mix of accents when younger. We moved to a completely different country and as kids we picked up the local accent.

But when I speak to my Mum, my accent automatically changes. I don't do it on purpose, it just happens.

We were very involved with the Scottish community in the country we moved too, and it was quite a common thing. At school or when the kids were all together, we had local accents. Just one had to speak to a parent and their accent also went into full Scot.

Most of our parents kept their accent, but perhaps with a bit of a twang of local here and there. We found the Scottish and Northern England parents with the strongest accents, don't lose them as fast. The children all do (until home time).

We're in central Scotland but lots of the families around us are English, their dc were born here but have kept their English accents from their parents. At primary it was just accepted that they sounded different, but at secondary it's definitely picked-up on and some of them are not trying to adjust their accents to fit in, with varying success!

Will DD go to a more diverse secondary school where she might revert back to the local accent?

I would also say Highland accents (and also middle-class Edinburgh) can be quite mild, closer to English pronunciation compared to Glasgow/west coast where it's more nasal.

I know where you're coming from, I'd feel the same if my children spoke with an English accent when we are Scottish and have always lived here. It's almost like a watering down of the culture.

My child was born and raised in England but speaks very American.
Thanks to autism and you tube 🤣.
I think you are being a bit silly if that's all you have to worry about 🤷‍♀️

My highland children have yorkshire accents. They have never visited yorkshire. There are more people from Yorkshire in their small school than from the whole of Scotland.

I would not describe any of the children in the school as being well-spoken, or clearly-spoken to be more accurate. Are some people on this thread thinking you are concerned because your children have become 'well-spoken'?

Similar to Paul Whitehouse. Born in Wales and lived there until he was 5 or so. Then moved to London. He didn’t speak for 6 months and then when he did he had a London accent. You fit in with your peers.

In your case OP I suspect she will go back to having your accent soon enough. It’s like the children who pick up an American accent from watching too much YouTube. It doesn’t stick.

It’s just the way it is OP. Your kids won’t be clones of you while they’re mixing with the outside world. I speak RP - plain English accent, no dialect - I grew up down south and went to private school. I moved to the midlands and my kids have grown up here, so they have a local accent that they’ve picked up from their friends. It’s not a big deal.

I’m Scottish and my DD is too. We moved to England when she was about 7 & now has an English accent. My accent has softened for English ears but it’s still very much Scottish.

No advice really, just that these things happen when exposed more to an accent that isn’t your own

I am in my 70's now, London born and my accent has shifted all over the place depending on where I was living. Honestly I don't think that correcting your child's accent is either kind or helpful.

I always knew when my Scottish friend had had visitors from back home - her accent really returned. She went back home in the end.

A bit different but my DD, by the age of 3, was speaking with a South East English accent. This is despite the rest of the family speaking in a NE accent and us spending 3 months a year in the NE. I think it's their peers that set the accent rather than anything else.

Are you sure that she is speaking with an English accent? She might just be speaking “more English accent than you”. We are far more attuned to differences than the same.

My (Scottish) friend living in England with an English husband would swear on a bible that her son has an English accent. To me he sounds Scottish.

Do you have any English friends who you can ask what accent they think he has?

I thought that said electrocution at first.

Boulevardofbrokendreams I was born in London ,and my Nan used to teach me to speak "proper like!" I am grateful in many ways . We now live on SC, I many friends have no accent or are well spoken.Including me!(or so I am told) I do think its a shame when local accent is lost though