• Question: Why do people have different accents?

    Asked by 11nednm1 to Alexander, Josh, Serena, Simone, Stuart on 20 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Josh Makepeace

      Josh Makepeace answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Hi 11nedmn1! Thanks for the question – I don’t really know the answer. I imagine that accents came about because human populations living apart from each other would slowly over time have started to speak differently, gaining different accents and different languages. I guess it stays that way because as a child you learn to talk like the people who are around you the most. But your accent can change over time. I’ve been trying to keep my Aussie accent while I’ve been living here!!

      It’d be interesting to see whether in the future accents stay like they are now, or whether some accents disappear as people move about more.

    • Photo: Alexander Munnoch

      Alexander Munnoch answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      I think accents persist because we learn our speech initially from our parents and then the people around us and these will dynamically change with time. On a global scale this is affected by the mixing of cultures, langauges and media.
      The origin of accents is a probably a consequence of both cultural separation (there are still alot of different languages in the world that use different sounds in their languages) and social conformity (you will gradually pronounce words the same as the people around you).

    • Photo: Stuart Archer

      Stuart Archer answered on 21 Jun 2013:

      That’s a really good question, I’d never thought of that before! Since it’s Friday, I went and had a good read up on it 🙂

      It’s pretty much as Josh and Simone said – isolated human communities developed little changes in words and pronunciation over time (think about your group of friends – do you have any words or ways of saying things that noone else would really get?) Accents like those in America or Australia for instance developed around the mix of accents and languages of the people who settled there. It’s not really know exactly how long it takes a new accent or language to develop – it seems to vary from a few years for regional accents (such as Liverpool or Manchester) to hundreds of years for a new language. The English language is a particularly weird one because of the number of times we’ve been invaded by various different races throughout history!

      Your accent can change a lot whilst you’re growing up; it’s reckoned that your accent isn’t really fixed until you hit your twenties, but even then it can change. People have analysed the Queen’s accent by looking at all of her speeches since she was crowned and found that even her accent has changed over the years!

    • Photo: Serena Corr

      Serena Corr answered on 24 Jun 2013:

      Hi 11nednm1
      Like the others have said, I would guess accents really depend on the surrounding population and language traits. I’ve had a little experience with accents changing – I have an Irish accent, but after I had lived in the US for two years, I definitely picked up a slight American accent in a few words! I suppose you can get used to hearing words spoken in a particular way and it’s possible to pick that up.

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