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.

@treadingonlego have you been drinking?
These comments aren't unhinged - you just don't like them.

“Every Polish person I've known has had a poor opinion of Germans. This is the national sentiment of Scots towards the English.”

Scotland is better than this. Scotland MUST be better than this so rural communities like yours GingerLily can survive and thrive with movement, progress and life rather than stagnation and decline.

Come on. Please.

@Igneococcus well- do Poles and Germans get on?
Why should Scots like the English particularly ?

Also just back from the highlands this evening and yes surprised at the amount of English living people there. Was nice though chatting to them about different parts of Scotland etc and England as have family in England xx

@Moreshroomsplease please do explain. Why can't any children born in my nice middle class village in the past 28 years( some English) afford to live here?
Why is it full of retired English people?
Why is this replicated across the Highlands and one family in a village is seen as a victory?
What would "being better" look like here?

The entire point of the EU, that you seem to like so much despite also seemingly not having the faintest clue about it, was that Germans and Poles and all the others that have kicked each others arses for centuries in Europe, finally get on with each other. That was in the beginning at least it's entire fucking point and an awful lot of people in Europe are still trying very hard to make this happen. Maybe try learning from that.

Raised in spring burn made me laugh 😂

Jesus. That's quite some attack. I've actually done a lot of work in the area but you stick with your prejudiced opinions..

But you are okay, because you assumed was white English but according to your definition I'm now allowed in again 🤣

Why is it a problem?

@Igneococcus the EU was/ is fantastic.
It doesn't stop people protesting against over-tourism in Spain. It protects and promotes minority languages- Gaidhlig benefited hugely. It was responsible for identifying Scots as a language. It protected the marginal farms and crofts in the highlands.
We aren't in it now because
ENGLISH
people voted against it.

It's not in the interests of Scotland to defend and promote the English state or to accept a wholesale settlement of the highlands by lots of retired English people.

It's a different country.

The hypocrisy of people who will accept disgraceful UK immigration policies, refusing asylum seekers, not processing their requests, Afghan translators denied UK citizenship.
And yet when I say that a village where the local children are in the minority is a sad situation, there's a pile on and I'm accused of drinking and being unhinged.

@Nothingtosayhere it's a problem because Scotland is not the same country as England and the houses that should be full of local children are full of English people who can afford to come here because the housing market is a mess.
Meanwhile the children who grow up in the highlands are not able to stay in their home area.
That includes English children.
And they also have to contend with well off English retirees.

I grew up in an area with a very strong regional accent - the area that is, not me. I never spoke with that accent, as my parents didn't, though all my grandparents did. I moved away at 18.

I returned when I was 55 for 5 years, and discovered that, half way through that time, I felt much more comfortable talking with the local accent when there. It was like it was programmed within me, and became very natural to speak in the local accent. Talking to friends from further south, and moving back away I am far more likely to revert to RP.

So all is not lost, for your daughter! Expose her to local culture, the music, the history, the landscape, the stories, and the accent will become part of her.

You need to make up your mind if it's retirees or children that get your goat because I very much doubt all these retirees have school-aged children that swamp the local schools.
Actually, I don't care, I'm going to bed, work tomorrow.

@UnderTheStairs51 if you're seeing this on Mumsnet and particularly Scotsnet which is an incredibly conservative website, full of people who hate the Scottish Government, don't you realise that wider society may actually feel a bit more antagonistic towards English people than you have realised?

Last time I checked my passport we all lived in the UK. So glad too, when there are people with your vile views that Scotland didn’t get independence. Read what you have written and try saying again that you aren’t a nasty bigot.

@gingerlybread the difficulty with making that analogy is that some people voted for brexit because they experienced increasing difficulty in finding homes to rent, difficulty accessing council housing,lack of school,places and not able to get in schools closest to them, schools having greater influx of students who didn’t have English as their first language, government not investing in skills and education because they could just as easily import people with qualifications from abroad or people who were happy to live 10 to a house and work for minimum wage or less. Perhaps those people in certain areas of the UK felt like their way of life was being irreparably altered? Perhaps how you feel about your area?

But if these places were already thriving they wouldn't be cheap places for English retirees. The parts of the Highlands with great schools and thriving communities are expensive for everyone.

In a sense, places where there is little work, no schooling options and which largely relies on tourism benefit from these people. They have the cash to prop up the butcher, cafe etc.

I think air BnB is a much bigger issue and I don't agree with second home ownership.

Haha @Igneococcus I don't hate the children because I know they will struggle to get a house against the inexorable forces of the retirees and their fucking village greens.

Truly I hate the housing market and capitalism, bed here too!

It’s exactly the same in my small village where I grew up and lived for 18 years. There are many reasons, clearly. Wage stagnation, lack of opportunities for employment studying and socialising - young rural folk moving to cities isn’t exactly a new phenomenon. People can work remotely now. You are blessed to live in what I imagine is a stunningly beautiful part of the country. Is it any surprise it’s popular?

Older professionals (middle-class) with greater social mobility looking for a rural outdoor lifestyle away from the built up urbanised south are obviously going to gravitate towards the Highlands and yes, will have the cash to outcompete locals. I do think there needs to be some legislative change around this so locals aren’t forced to move away as they can’t afford a house. Bearing in mind this is also happening in parts of England and Wales it’s not unique to the Highlands.

The bit I think many of us find problematic with your argument is that it’s illogical and blatantly and fervently anti-English. EU citizens of any nationality, black or brown people of any nationality are ok, but white English are not ok? Diversity is welcome but also not welcome? The whole conquering nation argument does Scotland no favours and just makes us sound like a petty whinging underdog with an axe to grind.

I do think you make some fair points and it’s never ok for an accent, dialect or community to be eroded away. But there’s no good reason the incomers can’t join in and keep many of those things alive and thriving. I’d be really surprised if all those English people are sitting there in their ivory towers sneering down at all the silly wee Scottish folk. Certainly not my experience in my home village at least.

@Turbottimes happy to be nastily bigoted against English people buying up my country ! Irish 🇮🇪 people wave to you!
@Zippidyza no, those people who voted for Brexit were racists, they haven't spent 400 years as a vassal state of Westminster, come back when you have!
Goodnight Scotsnet quislings!!

you would probably have a lot in common with many people who voted for Brexit as some would be saying very similar things to you about their sadness at the loss of their community identity and way of life.

I live in the Highlands and work in a number of schools over a pretty wide area and am curious to know where op lives because this is not a description of the highlands I recognise either.
Yes we’ve had people relocate here but not so you’d notice huge areas with a mostly English accented demographic. If anything most people have bought second homes rather than live here permanently.

I realise this debate has become quite political.

Going back to the original OP. I do understand why you feel like you do. However please be careful.

I’m Scottish by blood but born and educated in England. My Dad and his sister both moved to different parts of England and had families. I remember my grandmother repeatedly and vocally being disappointed that all her grandchildren had English accents every time she saw any of us. Never nice to feel like a disappointment, especially when it’s something you can’t really do anything about - so whatever else OP. Keep it to yourself and don’t pass it on too heavily to your DD. I did move to Scotland as an adult though with my English accent and felt embarrassed and that I couldn’t identify as Scottish.

From the Highlands and have worked in nurseries/schools. I think she should grow out of it. Had this issue with children watching too much TV - cbeebies, Peppa pig etc!

@PeigiSu This makes me sad.

My kids speak with the very unique (ridiculed by pretty much everyone everywhere) accent their dad has and where we live. My friends in Scotland have laughed at them for how they talk. It will never happen, but if I did move back I know they’d get the absolute piss ripped out of them at school for their accents and sadly, I really don’t think the same thing would happen in reverse. My mild accent is viewed with curiosity, interest, and affection by everyone I’ve met. I’ll always be a stranger but they accept me so kindly it really doesn’t matter.