Why do people have accents?
Have you ever wondered why people have accents? Well, even if you haven’t wondered, I bet you are now. Personally, I’ve thought of this countless times and I've finally done my research and now I have the answer. I'm super excited to share this with you because I think the reason is really interesting!
So, there are obviously a lot of different accents around the world, and depending where you live in the world, you think of different people living in different countries to have different kinds of accents. For example, I live in America, so I would consider people who live in England to have a British accent. But, on the other hand, if you lived in England, you would consider us to have an American accent.
What is an accent -
Before we begin, I wanted to make sure all of you knew what an accent was. An accent is a way someone speaks based on where they live. An accent is the way a word is pronounced by different speakers.
Dictionary Definition: a distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language, especially one associated with a particular nation, locality, or social class.
Why people have accents -
Now that we have that out of the way, let's actually start talking about why people have accents. It starts out when you are a baby.
Did you know that even before a baby is born and they are in their mother's stomach they can hear their mother's voice? Therefore meaning, after a baby is born, they can recognize their mom just by hearing her voice. That may seem irrelevant. But it's actually a very important fact! If you are wondering why it's so important, it's because a baby learns to talk and grow their accent based on what they hear! So, say before a baby is born, they hear that their mother has a Canadian accent, that’s the accent they would grow overtime, and therefore that’s how they would learn to speak! Pretty cool, right? But, even after that, after a baby is born, they are subconsciously listening to the conversations being held by the people around them. Which leads them to learn to imitate those languages and speech patterns.
The study on imitation goes further than studies initially thought! There was a study where bird noises were played to a baby, soon after, the baby was accurately able to imitate the noises the birds made!
But, as children grow older, they slowly start to lose their gift of imitation. Which is why it is also harder for adults and older children to learn new languages than it is for younger children and babies.
Another thing is, when a baby cries, because they heard their mothers voice before they were born, their mothers accent is in their cry.
Personally, I’ve always thought that accents were genetic but I was wrong! They’re learned!
Accents are more than just how you pronounce words, they are a way of communication. Sometimes, even people who speak the same language, can’t understand each other because of the accents each of them carry. Isn’t that crazy?
Changing your accent -
Changing your accent is something that is a hard thing to do, but very much so possible. Much like many other things, it’s much harder to do as you get older. But, in some cases, people do not try to change their accent, it just happens. For example, if someone were to move to a new area, they may start to lose their accent in exchange for a new one, though this can take several years. You can try changing your accent by practicing pronouncing words and letters differently, especially vowels.
An interesting example of this is when Britain colonized America, for several years, the settlers lost their traditional queen's English accent and in replacement spoke with a American accent.
Animals -
When I had this question in my mind, it never even occurred to me that animals must have accents too (not including humans)! Research studies in the UK show that the cows there moo-ed differently based on where they lived in the country! The study showed that the cows moo, reflected their owners' accent!!! Isn’t that insane? This also goes for birds, hamsters, and even dogs and cats!!! Dogs and cats are usually domestic pets, but like cows, they develop regional accents from their owners and based on where they are from.
BONUS!!!
For my bonus today I have a challenge for you!!! I challenge you to try and speak these phrases and tongue twisters in any accent of your choice!
-- Hello, how are you? My name is _________.
-- How's the weather?
-- What time is it?
-- Peter Piper picked a peck of purple pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Where’s the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked? (Give this one a try with a British accent!)
-- How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if the woodchuck could chuck wood? He would chuck, he would, as much as he could, and chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would, if a woodchuck could chuck wood.
-- Your choice!
Let me know in a comment what accent you chose and which phrase you did as your choice!
Well, that’s it for right now! See you guys next time! Bye!
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