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.

Imagine this the other way round. English parent concerned about child speaking with Scottish accent....

I would find it quite understandable and not be offended in the least if it was English parents living in England with no Scottish family and their children never even having set foot in England. I'm sure in that case the parents would also not have expected it.

Accents do change over a period of time in any town. My husband’s grandfather was born in a town in the highlands at the beginning of the 20th Centuary. He left for England ( to get a job) with his wife when they were in their early 30s. I don’t think his accent changed at all after that. My husband and I frequently went on holiday to where he was born but when we went there nobody talked in quite the same accent. One day we were in a pub and my husband heard someone with the same accent as his grandfather. He was a very old man who had lived in the place all his life and was the same age as his grandfather.
We live in the South East of England and I can’t believe how much the London accent has changed in the last few decades, influenced by all the immigrants (from other parts of the UK and the world) that have moved there.
I hope your daughter retains her Scottish accent.

I moved around a lot as a child. All over GB. Every place we moved to I had a very different accent to everyone. It was never a problem. I quickly picked up the local accents at school. This is what will happen to your child.

Her accent will continue to change for the rest of her life depending on who she spends time with.

Me - English parents, born in Scotland. Had a weird mixed accent until I moved out of the parental home. I now sound super Scottish.

My son - Scottish, moved to a softer sounding area many years ago, no longer sounds like me with the broad accent.

My much older cousin - Born in the same place as me, super broad accent. Emigrated to New Zeland, eventually sounded like a Kiwi, then moved to Australia and has a weird NZ-AUS fusion. No hint of Scottish at all.

Weirdly, my English parents, still sound English but use the local dialect - aye, away an boil her heid etc 😂.

Maybe your daughters wee pals are slowly turning the opposite way and they'll meet in the middle somewhere!

This! I have a Scottish acquaintance who moved to Yorkshire probably 30 years ago. Their spouse can tell straight away when I've been in contact with them as they revert to broad Scottish for a couple of days after 😂.

I'm finding this really hard to believe. A nursery in the highlands where the majority of staff and children are English??

I am an English sounding Scottish person, so I get the worry, it’s a loss of heritage, not a hatred of the English accent and the “where are you from originally” gets boring and people seem to doubt the “here”. I wouldn’t overly force it, but try and embrace some tv shows, songs etc with Scottish accents and hopefully she will start picking it up again.

I am guessing a tourist location. We holiday in the Highlands every year. A vast number of the hotel/Arbnb/restaurant owners seem to be English.
Even the doctor I saw in a remote location was English.

You are lucky there are young families where you live @Scotupnorth most of the highlands are full of retired English people who have set about turning their villages into Surrey on Spey complete with village greens! Heaven knows who will be caring for them in a few years time- the council houses are full of people from England with additional needs or disabilities who will never be able to work but will always get a house.
Most of my children's generation have left the countryside and moved to cities to rent. They can't afford to live in the highlands or islands.

It's a complete destruction of a unique culture and your own children will be affected too unless there is a complete reset of house prices in England. I'd ask nicely for a focus on Scots language and culture in the ELC and school.

I think many small children don't have much in the way of an accent.

My Mancunian niece sounded very posh most of the way through primary school but the accent is there now.

I'm English in Scotland and for a long time didn't think my kids had a Scottish accent at all but it's becoming more noticeable.

I also couldn't hear it at all but when we went down south other people would ask if they were from Scotland (without knowing us) so there may be a degree of this.

Parts of the Highlands are also said to traditionally speak the Queen's English because it is a very gentle accent in places like Dornoch compared to say Aberdeen. It's why it was popular for call centres at one point.

Why is that so hard to believe? The Highlands have always had an influx of people searching for a certain lifestyle, since COVID this had been even more so with the ability to work remotely.
Even in my central Scotland commuter town we are surrounded by English accents, mostly people who came to Edinburgh to study, never left and have now started families here. At least half of ds1 class in primary had at least one english parent.

Why?

Post COVID it's very similar to Edinburgh in terms of the originally English population.

It's why there are £750,000 houses now being sold in Inverness.

Kids will pick up an accent from wherever, it's inevitable.
A Scottish friend was very concerned about the loss of word that she had used when young. Children not allowed to use them in essays at school.
Lum for tower or chimney, domine for teacher I remember.

Are you in Forres by any chance ? Nairn is also very English. I am in the SW of Scotland and my niece has 2 sons, one has a very polite and slightly English accent, the other sounds like he has been raised in Springburn.

If as you say there are ao many English people living and working in your area why does it even matter? Surely all these people will also be speaking with English accents and she won't be singled out or stand out as different at all?

Even Scotland has varying accents. I moved from the West coast to the East many years ago, and the Edinburgh accent sounds English to me. I think try not to worry

Scottish children move on from an English accent in my experience. Gentle reminders were used in conversations eg ‘draws’ (drawers), ‘innit’, ‘isn’t it’ etc.
Our family speak Scots at home but Scots English outwith the home and as they have grown older, our bairns’ accents are obviously Scots with a local dialect. I’m from the Highlands and dh is from much further down the A9.

I have had a few aggrieved English parents complain that their children were picking up a Scottish accent and worse! Scottish words like breeks, creenie and skelf! I’m sure those children also grew out of it too but those words are part of the language of our country regardless of accent.

The Highland accent can be very gentle and lilting anyways so I wouldn't be worried about this at all. I'd be more concerned if they were picking up an American accent from too much online stuff- which can definitely be a thing.

@RapunzelsSplitEnds makes a deeper point than I did above. Some words are Scots - fine. Others though might be slang - Questionable I suggest.

@Itsonlytoday if you don't have many native Scots speakers in an area, who decides what's slang?
It's concerning that there are so many English speakers that a child can feel unhappy speaking Scots in their own country. Imagine if Norwegian suddenly became a minority language in Norway?
It's not at all good for social cohesion.

My mum is Scottish but lived in England most of her adult life.

English people say she sounds Scottish still. But Scottish people say she sounds completely English.

@gingerlybread I beg your pardon, I am all for the existence of and continuing use of Scottish words. They should be encouraged. I am a fan of Burns.

Two kids joined our Scottish School at age 6 and 9 with strong cockney accents. Within 6 months they had the same accent as the rest of us.

i did notice when one of them moved to London to work as an adult she switched to a London accent really quickly.

Sorry @Itsonlytoday I'm probably just touchy about this subject!!