# Your native language: have you lost a regional accent?



## Orreaga

I'd like to have an idea how common it is for people to lose the regional accent they grew up speaking, especially those who still live in the region where they acquired the accent, in whatever language.  If so, to what do you attribute the change?  Do you see it as an affectation?

In the US, some people become self-conscious of a strong regional accent at a certain time in their lives, they may notice that it isn't spoken on national TV, or may go to university in another region and lose their accent in favor of a more "standard" American accent.  Some Southerners I know can switch back and forth, they'll switch to a standard accent when speaking to non-Southerners, and then switch to their original accent when speaking to Southerners.

I grew up with a fairly strong accent from my native New York City area, but "lost" it (without consciously trying) sometime in adolescence.  I can't even imitate one very well, and am sometimes sorry that I can't talk that way again with New Yorkers.


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## Mahaodeh

In Arabic I can confidently say no, I haven't lost my accent.  However, I grew up in London (from 2 to 12 years of age) when I learnt English with a very strong and clear London accent (not cockney).  Since I left my contact with English has been based on movies (mostly American, sometimes Australian and British) and what we learned at school (since no one was a native speaker, there generally was a very strong Arabic/Middle Eastern accent).

Now I'm in Dubai where I meet people of different background.  Native English speakers generally tell me that I still have a British accent but it doesn't specifically sound London.  I suppose I lost it, and I'm also sorry that I have lost it.  What interests me though is that although I've lived in 4 different Arabic countries with 4 distinctive accents for extended periods of time, I didn't lose my own (Iraqi mixed with a little Palestinian - not pure Iraqi).


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## sokol

Orreaga said:


> I grew up with a fairly strong accent from my native New York City area, but "lost" it (without consciously trying) sometime in adolescence.  I can't even imitate one very well, and am sometimes sorry that I can't talk that way again with New Yorkers.



Why don't you try to read Labov's great work about Lower East Side accent - the book with a big apple )) on the cover called "The Social Stratification of English in New York" (you'll get it at any university library I'd guess). Very interesting findings about the prestige attached to the New York accent.

As for loosing accents, this is more likely to occur if there are pronounced attitudes towards certain accent (which certainly seems to be the case concerning New York accent and, I would guess, US Southerners accent too).

Me, I am a native speaker of Austrian German and grew up in a region where the dialect is the main means of all spoken communication, and I did live for 6 years in Graz and for 8 years in Vienna, both towns where it would be not accepted speaking my local dialect as in both towns they would have a very hard time understanding me.

My adaption was as follows: I still speak my 'mother dialect' with friends and family from the region where I grew up. In Vienna, however, I have adopted a mixture of my dialect with the local city dialect (mainly phonetic adaptions plus omittance of words not understood in Vienna): with this I get by very well, most of the times.

[Inspired by your posting I've now read the English Wikipedia article on New York dialect - though quite short it's an interesting read.]


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## confusion

In my village people use to speak dialect; every village has a particular one, sometime they are quite different even if there are just few kilometres between the villages. I speak dialect only sometimes, because I don't know it very well. I do have a little accent: people coming from Trento city can tell that I come from a valley. Anyway I lost at least in part my native accent because the university I attend lies in Trento. And I know it's pretty easy to me to acquire a new accent (in my language, different thing for English!), since it has happened that I stayed with people coming from - for example - Bologna and I "switch" to their accent very quickly. 
Different from accent is the "problem" of the pronunciation of words: for example here in Trentino we say "perchè" (which means "why"), but we should say "perché", how it is said in the most part of Italian regions, I think.


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## Orpington

I used to have a strong Geordie accent (Newcastle upon Tyne), but I went to high school in the next town, where people speak in quite a posh accent. I now speak in a sort of mixture of the two.

I tend to switch accents depending on who I'm talking to, without even realizing. Also, there are certain words that come out in a very strong Geordie accent, such as pure, which i pronounce pyua with the stress on the a.


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## alexacohen

When I moved from Granada (South of Spain) to Santiago de Compostela (North) no one could understand the way I spoke. I had to repeat what I said two or three times till whoever it was I was speaking to understood me.
So yes, I lost my original accent out of sheer necessity, but I did not acquire any other; I have a kind of neutral accent, but I pick up the accent of the people around me. 
However, whenever I return, even for a few days, to my native city, I recover my original accent.
I don't realize what I do: it's the people around me the ones who have noticed, and have told me.


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## Paulfromitaly

In my experience children can lose/change their native accent if they move to another region/area when they are still young and they attend school with other kids who have a different accent, but once they have grown older people can hardly lose their accent.
That's why it's so easy to single out folks coming from a different region even if they moved many years before and the harder they try to monkey the "new" accent, the easier is to identify them as "foreigners" especially when they venture on speaking dialects.


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## sokol

I do not agree completely, Paulfromitaly: of course there's a tendency to not losing accent any more when you're grown up.

But it depends: some people can keep accents seperate (more or less) and use them according to situation (that's what I do), others cannot quite manage that and only ever use one accent in any period of their life but adapt quickly (and unconsciously) to a new region even already in their adult life (I've got a sister and a niece who belong to this type) and others cannot adopt at all very well in their adult life and stick to their accent, neutralized to such a degree that they're understood well where they did move to (here in Austria I notice that especially immigrants from Germany stick to their accent, I know one person who came to Vienna from Germany's north and lived here most of her adult life, over 20 years, and still speaks her Ruhrdeutsch, whereas her children did adapt very well to the local accent and dialect).


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## Janey UK

I was born and raised in a working-class area of Birmingham, in the English West-Midlands, where there is a very strong regional accent (called "Brummie"). I left Birmingham to go to University in Norwich at the age of 18, and have lived in Norwich ever since (24 years) and I've lost my regional accent almost entirely (without intending to do so)...to the extent that I couldn't mimic it now even if I wanted to. 

However, I haven't replaced my "Brummie" with a Norwich accent...my speech is now "neutral"...neither posh, regional nor working-class...which sometimes I think is rather a pity...


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## Orreaga

Thanks, sokol, for the reading suggestions (I will have a look at Labov) and to all for describing your particular experiences with accent or dialect loss, or ability to switch from one to another at will.

Interesting, Janey UK, that I share the experience with you of not being able to mimic my original accent, and the feeling of disappointment that this generates.  The older I get, the more I enjoy hearing different accents in English and other languages I have exposure to, and the more I feel that some accents are becoming endangered as the media and globalization seem to have a homogenizing effect.


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## Paulfromitaly

sokol said:


> I do not agree completely, Paulfromitaly: of course there's a tendency to not losing accent any more when you're grown up.


Well, maybe there's a difference between German and Italian 
What I can tell you is that, even though I'm in my thirties, I can hardly recall of a single adult (it's different for children) coming from Southern Italy who lost their accent. It takes no more then 5 seconds to understand they weren't born and bred up North and a little more to figure out from what region they come from.
It's true that some people do want to keep their original accent as a distinguishing mark whereas some others would rather try to blend in with the locals. The latter might be able to make themselves out to be locals to foreign ears, but not to native ears.
It'd be exactly the same thing if I moved south of course: they would single me out in few seconds.
There are people who consciously or unconsciously tone their original accent down of course, I can do the same when I want to speak with a more standard Italian accent.
That's a completely different kettle of fish, however.


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## danielfranco

I haven't lived in Mexico City since 1986.
However:
When Spanish-speaking people meet me nowdays one of the first things that they ask me is, "from which part of Mexico City are you?"

Go figure.


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## San

Orreaga said:


> I'd like to have an idea how common it is for people to lose the regional accent they grew up speaking, especially those who still live in the region where they acquired the accent, in whatever language.  If so, to what do you attribute the change?  Do you see it as an affectation?
> 
> In the US, some people become self-conscious of a strong regional accent at a certain time in their lives, they may notice that it isn't spoken on national TV, or may go to university in another region and lose their accent in favor of a more "standard" American accent.  Some Southerners I know can switch back and forth, they'll switch to a standard accent when speaking to non-Southerners, and then switch to their original accent when speaking to Southerners.
> 
> I grew up with a fairly strong accent from my native New York City area, but "lost" it (without consciously trying) sometime in adolescence.  I can't even imitate one very well, and am sometimes sorry that I can't talk that way again with New Yorkers.



You haven't said what do you think a regional accent is, so it is difficult to answer your question that way. If we are talking about accents from little villages or valleys, which sometimes consist in a very particular intonation, different from the one found in the next valley, I suppose it is posible to lose it, although never easy.

But, I think it is different when talking about big regions with millions of inhabitants and a very characteristic regional accent. In this case it is much harder to lose it, first of all because very often, what categorises you as a speaker of that region it is not only pronunciation, but also some grammatical features as well as syntax and loads of vocabulary. You cannot expect to leave all this behind overnight when most people cannot do it in their lifetime.

Secondly and more important, the more strong and healthy a regional accent is, the more likely it is to have developed a high register, one which from the outside is  seen as softened and far easier to understand, but still clearly noticeable. I suppose you are not mistaking that for losing an accent, are you?

The way I see it, losing an accent means picking another one, what I wouldn't say it is common at all for adults in my experience. For example, you have mentioned TV, I grew up without hearing my accent in TV or the radio, ever, and it didn't change anything, neither for me nor for anyone I've ever known. But I just belong to the second spanish generation grown up watching TV, we don't know what will happen in the future. Anyway, for one reason or another the thing is that I never losed my Andalusian Spanish accent entirely, not even when I lived in other Spanish speaking areas for years. So I've always sounded at least as a Southern, and Andalusian for people aware of languages and accents.


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## Orreaga

San said:


> You haven't said what do you think a regional accent is, so it is difficult to answer your question that way  [...]
> 
> Secondly and more important, the more strong and healthy a regional accent is, the more likely it is to have developed a high register, one which from the outside is  seen as softened and far easier to understand, but still clearly noticeable. I suppose you are not mistaking that for losing an accent, are you?
> 
> The way I see it, losing an accent means picking another one, what I wouldn't say it is common at all for adults in my experience. For example, you have mentioned TV, I grew up without hearing my accent in TV or the radio, ever, and it didn't change anything, neither for me nor for anyone I've ever known. But I just belong to the second spanish generation grown up watching TV, we don't know what will happen in the future. Anyway, for one reason or another the thing is that I never losed my Andalusian Spanish accent entirely, not even when I lived in other Spanish speaking areas for years. So I've always sounded at least as a Southern, and Andalusian for people aware of languages and accents.



Thanks for your input, there are obviously more variables to consider than I indicated with my simple question.  By "accent" I mean those speech characteristics (whatever they are) by which others can identify you as coming from a particular region.  "Losing and accent" to me means taking on a "neutral" accent, not another regional accent.  There may be no such thing as a "neutral accent" in many countries, which is also useful to know, only "prestige" accents or dialects, as with London, Paris, Florence, and perhaps Madrid.  For instance, even before I moved away from the New York City area, people would say, "You don't sound like a New Yorker" when I told them where I lived.  I'd just say, "Not all New Yorkers talk that way".  There is a version of US English used in broadcasting (although not all broadcasters use it) which to me represents the most "standard" or "neutral" North American accent, although it may just be a Southern California accent.  But I think when most people hear it, they cannot identify it with any particular region.


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## sokol

Paulfromitaly said:


> Well, maybe there's a difference between German and Italian



No major differences, no - but I think Italy is more comparable to Germany (for size and differencies between north and south); within Austria, though there are remarkably different dialect and accent regions, the linguistic difference between these regions is not so huge as it is in Italy (or Germany, for that matter).


Paulfromitaly said:


> What I can tell you is that, even though I'm in my thirties, I can hardly recall of a single adult (it's different for children) coming from Southern Italy who lost their accent. It takes no more then 5 seconds to understand they weren't born and bred up North and a little more to figure out from what region they come from.



Well, so I'll speak for me - born and raised in rural Upper Austria, went to university in Graz (lived there over 6 years), and now living in Vienna (since 8 years), and keeping the accents more or less apart:

- in Graz of course everyone knew at once, when I arrived, that I was neither born in the city nor raised anywhere in Styria, but with time I learned to adopt a somewhat 'local' sounding dialect for use in Graz only: certainly I was still noticeably neither Graz nor Styrian raised, but I didn't stick out very much either, the accent adopted for Graz was a mixture between 'neutral Austrian dialect' (as far as one could say that this exists at all) and Styrian dialect

- in Vienna, nowadays, it's very much the same; basically I've just adopted the 'Graz variety' for use in Vienna

- and when back in Upper Austria I still try and speak my 'mother dialect' with as little accent as possible; nevertheless, sometimes interference takes place (and usually this causes some humoristic remarks from my friends); but for the most part I manage to keep my Upper Austrian accent (to a degree that no one not knowing me would guess that I'm no longer living there)

As for my sister and niece for some time in their lives living elsewhere and adopting to the accent of the area where they did live quite quickly, this really did happen.
But the structural difference between mother dialect and dialect of the region in both cases was rather small, so there was no necessity for huge adaptions. It would be more like (for example - the example might not be very well chosen, I'll let you decide on that one ;-) someone from a village some 50 km away from Milano moving to Milano and adopting the city dialect (and simultanuously abandoning the own dialect).


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## Zsanna

I was born, grew up, did all my studies (including universities) in the same place in Hungary for 27 years. The region (so not only my town) has a very distinct dialect and accent to go with it. I learnt both to use and to drop it in the same place. I learnt not to use it at university. 
Although the students from others parts of Hungary claimed it was a nice accent and wanted to learn it, our teachers tried to put through the message that if you are well educated, you are not supposed to speak with an accent.
So I use it now only when I feel relaxed and automatically switch over to a neutral ("proper Hungarian") accent when speaking for "work reasons" for instance... 

I do not think that it is affectation because it does not "sound" it, it does not have such motivations behind it, etc. The aim was not to pick up a "fashionable"/"in" accent, just to "speak properly". (If I had replaced my accent with that of our capital, it would be a different matter altogether...  _That _sounds affected to me! No offense meant to those with a "pesti" accent, though.)


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## Orreaga

Zsanna said:


> I was born, grew up, did all my studies (including universities) in the same place in Hungary for 27 years. The region (so not only my town) has a very distinct dialect and accent to go with it. I learnt both to use and to drop it in the same place. I learnt not to use it at university.
> Although the students from others parts of Hungary claimed it was a nice accent and wanted to learn it, our teachers tried to put through the message that if you are well educated, you are not supposed to speak with an accent.
> So I use it now only when I feel relaxed and automatically switch over to a neutral ("proper Hungarian") accent when speaking for "work reasons" for instance...
> 
> I do not think that it is affectation because it does not "sound" it, it does not have such motivations behind it, etc. The aim was not to pick up a "fashionable"/"in" accent, just to "speak properly". (If I had replaced my accent with that of our capital, it would be a different matter altogether...  _That _sounds affected to me! No offense meant to those with a "pesti" accent, though.)



Nagyon érdekes, Zsanna!  Since I'm interested in things Hungarian, I wonder where you are from, is it Szeged?  That's the only place I know of with a distinctive accent (I think it might be called "szögödi" because of the pronunciation of "e"), although a friend of mine in Budapest says you can't really hear accents anymore in Hungary, it's becoming very homogenized, or maybe people just don't speak to _him _with their particular accents.


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## Miguelillo 87

Well interesting question, in my case it's a quite diferent and a little funny-weird; I was born in Mexico City but my grandma was born in a little town near of Cuernavaca, Tehuixtla; The accent almost in all Morelos state is the same, and since I was a child i went there for my vacations in summer and in x-mas I bgan to get used to the accent, Now when I arrive to my town or even to whatever town in Morelos I start to speak as they do even with the regionalism and with a perfect accent, my friends who join my there for holydays find it funny how I can change so fast my accent some of them think that I'm joking but NO!!! Really I can't manage that.


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## PABLO DE SOTO

I have lost some of my regional accent but it has not been on purpose. I would say I have lost it unconsciously after many years living in another region but when I am back in my hometown , my original accent, almost immediately comes to me with no effort.
If I had always lived in my hometown, I would have not changed my accent.
In the region where I was born ( Canary Islands) people are very proud of their accent and those, few, who try to speak with a "Madrid accent" (acento peninsular) are not held in great esteem.


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## Stiannu

I agree with Paulfromitaly's analysis of the situation in Italy: that's why the starting question surprised me a little bit, because in Italy I got used to the fact that, while children can switch more easily and are still undefined in their accent, grownups lose their regional accent very rarely. Maybe it's specific of Italy, and anyway it's more evident for southerners. 
Still, my "situational" attitude with accents looks more like Sokol's: my mother is from the North-West (Torino, where I've always lived), but my father is from the South (Napoli): as a result, I can't speak properly any of the two regional dialects (I try but I sound ridiculous), but I can easily switch from one accent to another when speaking in standard Italian. Also, I have this unexplicable and involuntary attitude of assuming my conversation mate's regional accent after, say, 5 minutes (a very rare attitude in Italy). I guess that living in a mixed-accent family and in a mixed-accent city (Torino is full of southerners and the Piedmontese regional accent has lost importance, while it resists in the countryside) helped in this, but who knows...


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## jinti

I grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, and now I've lived in New York City for 15 years or so.

When I'm in NY, they say I have a Pennsylvanian accent (well, actually they just laugh at my accent and ask me to say certain words so they can amuse themselves ) and when I'm in Pennsylvania, they comment on my NY accent.

Maybe I speak Pennsyl-Yorkian now?


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## Etcetera

Orreaga said:


> I'd like to have an idea how common it is for people to lose the regional accent they grew up speaking, especially those who still live in the region where they acquired the accent, in whatever language.  If so, to what do you attribute the change?  Do you see it as an affectation?


I grew up in St Petersburg and Murmansk region, and I speak with Petersburger accent. Mind you, regional differences in Russian aren't as marked as, say, in English or German, and most differences are in lexis rather than grammar or pronunciation. Although I've been living in Moscow for almost 12 years, I still use a lot of words which are common in St Petersburg and aren't used in Moscow. But, as I know their Muscovite equivalents, I can always explain to a Muscovite friend what I mean by _povareshka _or _porebrik_, so it's no problem. I could use the Muscovite words, of course, but I simply don't want to do it.


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## Zsanna

Yes, your guess is right, Orreaga!  
However, I cannot imagine that you couldn't hear accents anymore even if the tendency is to hide it as much as possible (especially in "official" places). 
I do hear them when I'm back in my hometown... Lucky me! 

By the way, "Szögöd" is exclusively used by people who do not know our dialect/accent! ) (Remember the horrible imitation produced in the 70s series entitled Rózsa Sándor? The entire area was dying of laughter, I wonder whether "Szögöd" came from that "opus" originally...)


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## JazzByChas

Well, I am a cultural phenomenon called "an Air Force (Military) brat" which means that my father was in the military, and as a result, I have lived in many parts of the United States and in England.  I don't really know what my first dialect was, although since I was living in the South at that time, my mother tells me I spoke with a strong southern accent at the time.

I spent the most time growing up in the southwest, so I developed a mid-western/southwestern accent.

Now, I imagine when I am not thinking about it, I talk that way, albeit watered down a bit from living in Washington, DC for many years.

When I am around people who speak a different dialect/accent, I tend to start speaking like them (after a long enough time)


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## VivaReggaeton88

I am from New York (Long Island) and when I speak to people from the northeast of the US they always know that I'm from Long Island. I also lived in Florida for 2 years and I didn't lose my accent (nor would I want to, considering the way they speak ). I am definitely proud of my accent though.


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## Setwale_Charm

Oh yes! and it is my pain! I lost my Devonshire accent at school and as I have practically never met anybody from Devon outside of the UK, I have had no opportunity of "reclaiming" the Westcountry accent...
All this was helped by the enormous pressure that the multitude of other accents, dialects and foreign languages spoken around me and forcefully pouring into my ears.


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## Lugubert

When I was a kid, playmates on the west coast understood that I had moved there from the other side. When visiting Stockholm, it was very clear to everybody that I lived on the west coast.

I can't say that I have had a dialect that I could lose. Nowadays, I can choose which accents and words to add to my neutral language to "reveal" my origin in the west, east -- or south.


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## 0stsee

In my native language, there's no such thing as a "neutral accent". Just as in German-speaking Switzerland everybody has an accent.

As to whether I've lost my accent; I doubt it.
I've never lived in other parts of my country.

Salam,


0stsee


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## Setwale_Charm

0stsee said:


> In my native language, there's no such thing as a "neutral accent". Just as in German-speaking Switzerland everybody has an accent.
> 
> As to whether I've lost my accent; I doubt it.
> I've never lived in other parts of my country.
> 
> Salam,
> 
> 
> 0stsee


 
Well, then the question of the thread does not apply to you obviously. We are only talking about people who have moved away from their native places.


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## clipper

I moved from south west England at 19 with a strong "west country" accent to a town close to London where I remained for 13 years.

On moving to Spain I was quite pleased to be told by many of the language schools which interviewed me for teaching work that my accent was a "desireable" central southern accent, something which I would never have been able to claim to having had I stayed in the west country.

However as I have now been out of the UK for several years I notice that my original accent is returning to prominence, as if it had only ever been masked over......


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## cirrus

I love the fantasy that people have a neutral accent. As a northerner I have lost count of southerners who tell me, that unlike me, they don't have an accent.  Twaddle!  

Having moved south from a village in the Pennines in the early 80s, my vowels have rounded out a bit but it is still pretty obvious where I am from.  What I find interesting is people who move here and decide to purposefully change their accent. This comes across to me as though they are somehow ashamed of where they come from.  

My approach is probably bi dialectal - there are some areas where I would still automatically use dialect (talking to small children, when I am tired or emotional) and others eg doing a formal presentation where I would use more standard forms.  

I come from an area where there aren't that many people, so I rarely hear anyone who speaks the way I do. I get annoyed by people who mimic my accent when it is obvious it isn't theirs. I can't be alone in this - I have met several people in London who feel the same way I do - to the extent that we have  accused the other of taking the mickey out of our accents only to find we were brought up less than half a dozen miles away from each other.


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## Setwale_Charm

cirrus said:


> I love the fantasy that people have a neutral accent. As a northerner I have lost count of southerners who tell me, that unlike me, they don't have an accent. Twaddle!
> 
> Having moved south from a village in the Pennines in the early 80s, my vowels have rounded out a bit but it is still pretty obvious where I am from. What I find interesting is people who move here and decide to purposefully change their accent. This comes across to me as though they are somehow ashamed of where they come from.
> 
> My approach is probably bi dialectal - there are some areas where I would still automatically use dialect (talking to small children, when I am tired or emotional) and others eg doing a formal presentation where I would use more standard forms.
> 
> I come from an area where there aren't that many people, so I rarely hear anyone who speaks the way I do. I get annoyed by people who mimic my accent when it is obvious it isn't theirs. I can't be alone in this - I have met several people in London who feel the same way I do - to the extent that we have accused the other of taking the mickey out of our accents only to find we were brought up less than half a dozen miles away from each other.


 

Goodness! Why on earth this longing for a loss of the richness of diversity so often manifested on these forums !


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## cirrus

Setwale_Charm said:


> Goodness! Why on earth this longing for a loss of the richness of diversity so often manifested on these forums !



I don't understand which part of my post suggests I long for less diversity. Can you explain?


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## Zsanna

cirrus said:


> ... I get annoyed by people who mimic my accent when it is obvious it isn't theirs...


 
I don't know whether I'm alone with it but to me it can indicate that the person has a special charm/attraction if others try to imitate his/her accent. 

I remember I had a little boy (from a totally different part of Hungary) as a private student (when I was a student myself) and within two weeks he started to use the accent I had at the time. His parents were not surprised (as they told me) because we got on so well together. _I_ was surprised because I certainly didn't expect it appear in such a form...

I also remember witnessing a conversation in Germany (Augsburg) and while listening, being totally under the charm of the beautiful sounding German a girl spoke. I decided to pick up my German studies as soon as I got home!


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## Einstein

cirrus said:


> I love the fantasy that people have a neutral accent. As a northerner I have lost count of southerners who tell me, that unlike me, they don't have an accent. Twaddle!


 
Yes, this is due to the development in the 19th century of a kind of inter-regional accent known as "received pronunciation" (horrible term!), which took root more in the south (or rather south-east) than the north. People who speak with this accent have the illusion that it is "neutral" in comparison with local London, Kentish, Sussex, East Anglian accents. On the other side, many northerners have the illusion that all southerners speak this way!
The question is: in how many countries do people consider a "neutral" accent possible?


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## cirrus

Einstein said:


> The question is: in how many countries do people consider a "neutral" accent possible?


My temptation would be to suggest people who have voiceboxes which are computer controlled a la Steven Dawkins, alternatively ones with precious little understanding of linguistics. 

Neutral is, I feel, shorthand for "I have chosen to not speak in lower status way" it implies a comparison with other forms.


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## Zsanna

Neutral accent, even better: no accent is certainly possible in Hungarian.


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## danielfranco

Well, even computers have accents: astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, because he's disabled by ALS, cannot speak and uses a voice synth controlled by computer to speak for him. But, the contraption itself pronounces the words with an American accent. Hawking, a Brit, would have prefered a different accent, I'm sure.


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## Pedro y La Torre

danielfranco said:


> Well, even computers have accents: astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, because he's disabled by ALS, cannot speak and uses a voice synth controlled by computer to speak for him. But, the contraption itself pronounces the words with an American accent. Hawking, a Brit, would have prefered a different accent, I'm sure.



Does it? Doesn't sound so to me.


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## danielfranco

He's said it before himself, in a couple of his books. I think it does.
But, what do I know? It could be because any other accent than an American one would stand out for me, no?
D


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## mirx

I have been living abroad for the last 2 years. My native language is Spanish, but where I now live is an English-speaking country. Upon my 1st return to my homecountry. My brother immediately commented on my affected accent, and the taxi drivers would continously ask me if I was a foreigner (expecting an affirmative answer so that they could then drive around in circles and charge a higher fare). I also noticed that I would lose my foreing accent when speaking with family and friends after a couple of days. The way I speak to other people in the street has completely changed and I don't see it coming to the way it was.

It may also have influenced that I work in a customer service position and have to keep a boring, monotonous, flat accent.

Regards.


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## 0stsee

I've lived in Germany for many years now, but I don't think my accent changed when I speak Indonesian.
I sometimes have some trouble finding words, but my accent didn't really change. I do use German instead of Indonesian interjections, though, and my gestures are a bit different.

Salam,


0stsee


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## Einstein

After 30 years in Italy my accent when I speak English hasn't been influenced at all. As Ostsee says, the problem may be in finding words, but not accent. The change in accent usually comes when you are surrounded by people who speak a variant of your own language, e.g. British living in the USA or Brazilians living in Portugal.


----------



## Paulfromitaly

Einstein said:


> The question is: in how many countries do people consider a "neutral" accent possible?


I don't think a neutral accent actually exists, however people who have taken diction lessons are able to speak with a really mild and almost imperceptible accent (at least in Italian).


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## Zsanna

Einstein said:


> The change in accent usually comes when you are surrounded by people who speak a variant of your own language, e.g. British living in the USA or Brazilians living in Portugal.


 
I think it is more the question of reflecting (to a more or less extent) the sound-formation habits in one's environment. 
So it does not depend on whether another language is spoken around somebody or the same with another accent, the point is to what extent (how easily + with what precision) the individual is going to be able to "juggle" (do the toing and froing) between the two different sound formations. 
If he gets used to the "new" sound formation and cannot trace back his way to the old one, he'll speak his own language with a new accent (let it be of the same language or not).

Oh, and I think we are not exactly the best judges of our own accents but it is also tricky what others say... Some people will say (if not complain) that one has an accent meanwhile others will swear on that you don't have any... We may find that it depends on the day of the week...!


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## cirrus

Paulfromitaly said:


> I don't think a neutral accent actually exists, however people who have taken diction lessons are able to speak with a really mild and almost imperceptible accent (at least in Italian).


I wonder to what extent this is about striving to avoid certain characteristics rather than embracing others?  Can they keep it up when they are tired or emotional?


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## Paulfromitaly

cirrus said:


> I wonder to what extent this is about striving to avoid certain characteristics rather than embracing others?  Can they keep it up when they are tired or emotional?


You made a point: I guess they would find it harder to do that when they are stressed or emotional, however if under certain conditions some people can speak without a noticeable accent, it means it's technically possible.


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## Brioche

Einstein said:


> Yes, this is due to the development in the 19th century of a kind of inter-regional accent known as "received pronunciation" (horrible term!), which took root more in the south (or rather south-east) than the north. People who speak with this accent have the illusion that it is "neutral" in comparison with local London, Kentish, Sussex, East Anglian accents. On the other side, many northerners have the illusion that all southerners speak this way!
> The question is: in how many countries do people consider a "neutral" accent possible?



Daniel Jones, in the Preface to the first edition [1917] of his _English Pronouncing Dictionary_ called his model of pronunciation PSP = Public School Pronunciation. He described it thus "_that most usually heard in everyday speech in the families of Southern English persons whose menfolk have been educated at the great public boarding-schools_".

By 1926 he he had abandoned the term PSP in favour of RP = Received Pronunciation.


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## Chaska Ñawi

Orreaga said:


> I'd like to have an idea how common it is for people to lose the regional accent they grew up speaking, especially those who still live in the region where they acquired the accent, in whatever language.  If so, to what do you attribute the change?  Do you see it as an affectation?



Excuse me, folks, but our original topic is lonely and unloved.  Thanks for getting back to it and giving it your love and attention.


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## ESustad

I grew up in northern Minnesota, near the Canadian border.  I had a strong Minnesota accent (mistaken for Canadian in other parts of the US) until age 20, when I moved to France for two years.  In France, I spoke English regularly, although the bulk of the time I spoke French (which I knew at a low fluency when I arrived).  During those two years I lost my heavily Canadian accent in French, and also the identifiably Minnesota accent in English.  Today, my English sounds vaguely Mid-Atlantic (although Minnesota returns if I've been drinking).


----------



## Pedro y La Torre

ESustad said:


> I grew up in northern Minnesota, near the Canadian border.  I had a strong Minnesota accent (mistaken for Canadian in other parts of the US) until age 20, when I moved to France for two years.  In France, I spoke English regularly, although the bulk of the time I spoke French (which I knew at a low fluency when I arrived).  During those two years I lost my heavily Canadian accent in French, and also the identifiably Minnesota accent in English.  Today, my English sounds vaguely Mid-Atlantic (although Minnesota returns if I've been drinking).



What is the difference between a Minnesota accent and a stereotypical Canuck?
I can't say that I have been able to distinguish.


----------



## ESustad

Pedro y La Torre said:


> What is the difference between a Minnesota accent and a stereotypical Canuck?
> I can't say that I have been able to distinguish.



There's no significant difference between northern Minnesota and Winnipeg or Thunder Bay, in terms of accent.  Most people from the Twin Cities sound more neutrally Midwestern.


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## JamesM

I don't think I ever quite acquired my regional accent.   Despite being born and raised in California I am often asked by fellow Californians where I am from.  To me I sound just like any other Californian.  I suppose it might be the words I use, more than anything.  To non-Californians I definitely sound Californian, so I have no good explanation for it.


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## merquiades

I don't believe I have lost any regional accent (in English) as I never have set out to change it, but at the same time it has become enriched from different sources as I have been exposed to people from everywhere around the world for years and years.  
Actually, I'm not even sure what it would mean to have no accent, to lose ones accent, and what that would really sound like.  I always find that the people who proclaim loudly they have no accent at all actually turn out to have the strongest ones.  I have sporadically heard that from people from different parts of the US, like Michigan, Missouri, Texas, Idaho... all of which have seemed strong to me. I chuckle each time I hear, "we have no accent in my hometown of East Jeffersonville, XXX".  Of course, I hear an accent.  
If no accent means adopting another accent from another region, I definitely haven't done that. And for sure, I do not have anything close to a Hollywood accent, that many people have told me. As foreigners have seen so many films and series, they identify that as American.


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## cirrus

merquiades said:


> I chuckle each time I hear, "we have no accent in my hometown of East Jeffersonville, XXX".  Of course, I hear an accent.



I love this. 
It's amazing how cloth eared and unaware people can be when it comes to basic linguistic awareness is it not?


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## Hacha

I've always lived in Madrid and as such have a madrilenian accent, but I pick up accents really easily. Whenever I'm speaking with someone I like for more than five minutes, I uncounsciously pick up their accent even if we are in the middle of Madrid (ironically, I'm no good at imitating accents consciously). A friend of mine thinks it may be a subscounscious attempt to fit in with the group we're in, since it seems a common enough trend to us.

I remember one summer I went to see my family in Cáceres (center-southwest) for two weeks, then off to a summer camp in Málaga (south) for a month, then off to see a friend in Asturias (north) for another week, then back to Madrid (center). Everywhere I went, people was surprised I was not a local (althought it's true I'm really familiar with cacereño, which is very similar to asturiano, and that I was in Málaga for a whole month)... except for when I came back to Madrid, when I was speaking with a really weird mix of all three and a new friend couldn't believe Madrid was my hometown 

So, to answer your questions, Orreaga: no, I don't see it as an affectation, at least in my case. I'd attribute it to a wish to belong or fit in with the group.


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## Sepia

Paulfromitaly said:


> I don't think a neutral accent actually exists, however people who have taken diction lessons are able to speak with a really mild and almost imperceptible accent (at least in Italian).




I have never found anyone who can even define what a neutral accent is supposed to be. So how could anyone claim that someone has something that they cannot define?


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## merquiades

Sepia said:


> I have never found anyone who can even define what a neutral accent is supposed to be. So how could anyone claim that someone has something that they cannot define?



When people say that in France I paraphrase that they really mean they are making a very strong effort to try to imitate some form of Parisian accent and eliminate the one typical of their region of origin.  They are typically successful in various degrees. The more the accent approximates the ideal the more neutral they say the accent is.
I don't know if people try to do that in Germany and what accent they might try to imitate.  It might be a French or Italian issue (assuming the Italians are trying to pick up some Tuscan or Roman accent).
In English or Spanish speaking countries people don't typically make such a strong superhuman effort to erase their origins or it isn't as important to them.  It's normal, not shameful, to have the accent from where you were born.  Being cultured is measured more in the correctness of the speech, the grammar, and the variety of synonyms.


----------



## ESustad

merquiades said:


> In English or Spanish speaking countries people don't typically make such a strong superhuman effort to erase their origins or it isn't as important to them.  It's normal, not shameful, to have the accent from where you were born.  Being cultured is measured more in the correctness of the speech, the grammar, and the variety of synonyms.



You sure about that?  I know that in England particularly, people can be enormously judgmental about a person's accent.  In the States, someone with an Appalachian drawl often encounters stereotypes, and don't even get me started on the politics of Black American English.  

In Mexico, the Yucatecan accent is seen (or heard) as being a sign of a yokel.  No one in Spanish-speaking countries outside of Spain likes the _ceceo_ lisp, which is judged as effete.


----------



## merquiades

ESustad said:


> You sure about that?  I know that in England particularly, people can be enormously judgmental about a person's accent.  In the States, someone with an Appalachian drawl often encounters stereotypes, and don't even get me started on the politics of Black American English.
> 
> In Mexico, the Yucatecan accent is seen (or heard) as being a sign of a yokel.  No one in Spanish-speaking countries outside of Spain likes the _ceceo_ lisp, which is judged as effete.



I wasn't thinking particularly of England, but actually most of the people I've never known from there have not wanted to change their accent, a northerner doesn't care to sound like a southerner for instance, or a Scot like an Englishman.  It seems to me that Cockney is actually cool now in London.  I did, however, meet a girl from York who was obsessed with sounding like she was from Oxford, and actually believed that Americans should try to do the same.  I chalked it up to her having lived so long in France, where she must have picked up this attitude.  There can be such accent mania here. 

I spent time in Appalachia and I found the people there really proud of their heritage.  They don't seem to make any effort to modify the accent even when others don't understand them.  Ebonics... well, that's another story.  I suppose some (perhaps many) people strive to get rid of traces of that dialect when they talk.  I know it's true it's kind of looked down on in the US.  It's probably related more to racism.

I don't know what a Yucatecan accent sounds like at all, so I cannot comment on it at all, or any Mexican accent really.  

In the past there has been a stigma attached to _ceceo_ in the regions where they have that accent in Andalucía, like Granada.  It's more redneck than effete.  It's still not present on tv there for sure.  There was a critical study I read once about accent on TV. Men were more likely to have _ceceo_ than women in all given contexts.  Ladies would make more of an effort to have a standard accent or change it consciously for formal interviews, especially those on TV.  On the other hand, aspirating the s at the end of syllables, and dropping the unaccented -d has no social stigma at all in southern Spain.  It's even encouraged in many circles.  Politicians in Spain have regional accents to prove their regional pride.


----------



## irinet

I haven't lost my dialectal accent. Moreover, I am still using specific regional words from my native region though I live in Bucharest for more than 12 years. But this is because I am still in touch with Moldovian people and because I don't want to fully blend.


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## beezneez

merquiades said:


> I wasn't thinking particularly of England, but actually most of the people I've never known from there have not wanted to change their accent, a northerner doesn't care to sound like a southerner for instance, or a Scot like an Englishman.  It seems to me that Cockney is actually cool now in London.  I did, however, meet a girl from York who was obsessed with sounding like she was from Oxford, and actually believed that Americans should try to do the same.  I chalked it up to her having lived so long in France, where she must have picked up this attitude.  There can be such accent mania here.
> 
> I spent time in Appalachia and I found the people there really proud of their heritage.  They don't seem to make any effort to modify the accent even when others don't understand them.  Ebonics... well, that's another story.  I suppose some (perhaps many) people strive to get rid of traces of that dialect when they talk.  I know it's true it's kind of looked down on in the US.  It's probably related more to racism.
> 
> I don't know what a Yucatecan accent sounds like at all, so I cannot comment on it at all, or any Mexican accent really.
> 
> In the past there has been a stigma attached to _ceceo_ in the regions where they have that accent in Andalucía, like Granada.  It's more redneck than effete.  It's still not present on tv there for sure.  There was a critical study I read once about accent on TV. Men were more likely to have _ceceo_ than women in all given contexts.  Ladies would make more of an effort to have a standard accent or change it consciously for formal interviews, especially those on TV.  On the other hand, aspirating the s at the end of syllables, and dropping the unaccented -d has no social stigma at all in southern Spain.  It's even encouraged in many circles.  Politicians in Spain have regional accents to prove their regional pride.



Trust me, Americans are EXTREMELY prejudiced and judgmental when it comes to accents. I once worked in an office where I handled a correspondence between a potential employer and a former employer. The reference letter to the hiring employer pleaded that the young lady was a qualified, hard-working and pleasant person, IN SPITE OF her annoying and dreadful accent. He suggested that once her productivity became apparent, her accent would become less of an issue.  Any accent that drips of poverty and hard work is condemned in the strongest terms, e.g., Appalachia, "Ebonics", Ozarks, and New Jersey. Accents scented of idle money and power are regarded as superior: Crusty British, certain New England accents. But most Americans hide behind an undefinable "Standard American" accent, that we use like a second language to conceal our origins. I know many people who took special classes to learn the "standard" accent. When I was 5-6 years old, I myself had to take a "speech development." I was kicked out after I threw a tantrum Lol. Hated the teacher, hated the class. If anyone tells you that they are proud of their accents, you should bear in mind that it is only because someone told them it was shameful and they refused to be bullied.


----------



## midlifecrisis

Orreaga said:


> I'd like to have an idea how common it is for people to lose the regional accent they grew up speaking, especially those who still live in the region where they acquired the accent, in whatever language.  If so, to what do you attribute the change?  Do you see it as an affectation?


I grew up in a working class area where an East Anglian sub-dialect was common. I then got a scholarship to a private school where a broadly 'RP' accent was the norm. I'd say by the age of 12 or so, I'd lost any trace of the local accent, not through conscious effort but by assimilation with the peer group. Now I cannot even do a convincing imitation of the local accent - indeed my attempts at Scottish accents are probably better! Looking back to other boys in a similar situation at that school, which had a catchment drawn from both a market town and the surrounding villages, it strikes me that those like myself with an 'urban local accent' lost it rapidly, whereas those with a 'rural local accent' did not, despite the latter attracting more open criticism / stigmatism than the former. However, interestingly, what I have clung onto is an only partial shift of a few class-marking terms.  I grew up having 'dinner' at midday and 'tea' in the evening.  I'd now say respectively 'lunch' and 'dinner'; most of my social group would say 'supper' for the latter but to me saying that would feel like a conscious shift. So perhaps regionalisms fade more easily, or at least less consciously, than social class markers?


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## rhitagawr

Janey UK said:


> I was born and raised in a working-class area of Birmingham, in the English West-Midlands, where there is a very strong regional accent (called "Brummie"). I left Birmingham to go to University in Norwich at the age of 18, and have lived in Norwich ever since (24 years) and I've lost my regional accent almost entirely (without intending to do so)...to the extent that I couldn't mimic it now even if I wanted to.
> 
> However, I haven't replaced my "Brummie" with a Norwich accent...my speech is now "neutral"...neither posh, regional nor working-class...which sometimes I think is rather a pity...


I'm a Brummie as well. Yippee!! I grew up in Birmingham so I suppose I spoke with a Brummie accent then. I've lived in Cardiff in Wales for many years and I haven't picked up a Cardiff accent (a harsh, unattractive accent if you ask me, although I suppose I'll get into trouble for saying so). Some people have said I sound as though I come from north of Birmingham. Perhaps it's because I went to university and then worked for a while in Yorkshire. I'm glad I haven't lost my regional accent (wherever it comes from). If you've got one, keep it. The more linguistic variety the better. There's something called Estuary English - presumably because it's spoken around the Thames Estuary. It's a boring, colourless, invented 'accent'. You never heard it in my young days. It's spoken by people who don't want to sound posh but who don't want to sound common either.


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## Alandria

For My experience, I think Brazilians have the most soft accent when they're speaking American English. 
All my american friends told me that.


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## JamesM

beezneez said:


> Trust me, Americans are EXTREMELY prejudiced and judgmental when it comes to accents. I once worked in an office where I handled a correspondence between a potential employer and a former employer. The reference letter to the hiring employer pleaded that the young lady was a qualified, hard-working and pleasant person, IN SPITE OF her annoying and dreadful accent. He suggested that once her productivity became apparent, her accent would become less of an issue.



It depends on the position, the accent and the work involved, I think.  If it's a customer-facing job and the accent is so strong that it is difficult for many people to understand it can be an issue.  I'm thinking of a very strong Vietnamese accent, for example, where many of the ending consonants are dropped.  Do you know which accent the person had?



> Any accent that drips of poverty and hard work is condemned in the strongest terms, e.g., Appalachia, "Ebonics", Ozarks, and New Jersey.



Now, hang on.   I don't remember Bill Clinton "condemned in the strongest terms" (at least about his accent) even though he had quite a drawl.  George Bush Jr. was lampooned for his vocabulary and malapropisms rather than his accent.

I think "poverty and rural" might be a more accurate combination than "poverty and hard work".  I don't think any accent can claim "hard work" as a hallmark of the accent.  That sounds like a personal grudge on your part rather than a general American characteristic to me.  There are plenty of Bostonians who are hard-working blue-collar people.  The "Car Talk" hosts come to mind.  

Looking at "Real Housewives of (fill-in-the-blank)" you have all sorts of idle rich from all over the U.S. with a huge range of accents.  There's no way to tell from the accent whether the person is dirt-poor or independently wealthy.


----------



## giuggiola91

merquiades said:


> When people say that in France I paraphrase that they really mean they are making a very strong effort to try to imitate some form of Parisian accent and eliminate the one typical of their region of origin.  They are typically successful in various degrees. The more the accent approximates the ideal the more neutral they say the accent is.
> I don't know if people try to do that in Germany and what accent they might try to imitate.  It might be a French or Italian issue (*assuming the Italians are trying to pick up some Tuscan or Roman accent).*



This is not the case, in Italy we never try to pick up Tuscan or Roman accent.
These accents are not considered "better", "prestigious" or  something similar, there's no reason to try to pick them up or to imitated them



merquiades said:


> In English or Spanish speaking countries people don't typically make such a strong superhuman effort to erase their origins or it isn't as important to them. It's normal, not shameful, to have the accent from where you were born. Being cultured is measured more in the correctness of the speech, the grammar, and the variety of synonyms



In italy too


----------



## Nipnip

JamesM said:


> *I suppose it might be the words I use, more than anything*.  To non-Californians I definitely sound Californian, so I have no good explanation for it.


Syntax, lexicon and accent. I myself don't think of as having lost my regional accent, but defintely the words I use are perhaps not standard where I am from. I am at a poing in my life that no matter where I'm at people always ask me where I am from.




Hacha said:


> A friend of mine thinks it may be a subscounscious attempt to fit in with the group we're in, since it seems a common enough trend to us.



A bit of this too, I grew up among different social strata, with very different lifestyles, academic backgrounds and affinities. All those groups had different accents and I somehow developed one for each. About two years ago I was negatively surprised when I found myself talking with the accent and the attitude of someone I thought I had buried long time ago, but it took 10 minutes speaking with someone of the same persuassion to dig up the corps of an old me.


----------



## merquiades

Nipnip said:


> Syntax, lexicon and accent. I myself don't think of as having lost my regional accent, but defintely the words I use are perhaps not standard where I am from. I am at a point in my life that no matter where I'm at people always ask me where I am from..


 I would agree with all that 100%. I just met up with non-widely travelled cousins and I heard hundreds of words and expressions I would never use anymore. They conjured up old memories.  I thought I'd retain them but I can only remember one: "mango" for "chile pepper".  Pronunciation is easier,  adding r where it doesn't exist and removing it were it does:  warsh for wash, saprise for surprise, lots of long o and a.


----------



## Gwunderi

giuggiola91 said:


> This is not the case, in Italy we never try to pick up Tuscan or Roman accent.



I don't (consciously) try to pick up the accent, but often do it automatically. I visited Rome for the first time when I was over 20 years old (and later several times), and after two or three days we were there, I caught myself speaking with a Roman accent (not proper I think, but I could state a swift in my accent). I.e. I said: "E mò che facciamo?" with Roman cadence - usually I would say: "E adesso cosa facciamo?". Funny, we had to laugh about it


----------



## Mishe

Orreaga said:


> I'd like to have an idea how common it is for people to lose the regional accent they grew up speaking, especially those who still live in the region where they acquired the accent, in whatever language.  If so, to what do you attribute the change?  Do you see it as an affectation?
> 
> In the US, some people become self-conscious of a strong regional accent at a certain time in their lives, they may notice that it isn't spoken on national TV, or may go to university in another region and lose their accent in favor of a more "standard" American accent.  Some Southerners I know can switch back and forth, they'll switch to a standard accent when speaking to non-Southerners, and then switch to their original accent when speaking to Southerners.
> 
> I grew up with a fairly strong accent from my native New York City area, but "lost" it (without consciously trying) sometime in adolescence.  I can't even imitate one very well, and am sometimes sorry that I can't talk that way again with New Yorkers.



Slovenia, although a small country with only 2 million people, has more than 40 different dialects and 6 dialect groups, which is quite a curious phenomenon for a relatively low number of speakers. Also, people are quite proud of their regional dialects, but they take pride in the (standard) language itself as well. However, dialects and regional accents are very much alive and thriving, although everybody learns the standard variety.


----------



## Einstein

I know some Sicilians (now in their 60s) who have lived in Milan since they were young adults. You can hear that they are Sicilian, but when they go back to Sicily in the summer their fellow Sicilians say they have a northern accent.
I had a similar experience in London. I had a colleague from Newcastle whose Geordie accent was evident, but he told us that when he went back to Newcastle they said he spoke with a London accent. Of course, the people in Newcastle only noticed what was different from their own accent and not what remained of it. In the same way his Londoner colleagues noticed what remained of his Geordie accent and not what he had acquired in London.

These are typical cases: the Sicilians sound Sicilian to the northerners around them, who therefore say that they haven't lost their accent, but but in reality they partially lose it, which is noticed only by their friends and relatives in Sicily.


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## Peripes

I must say that in Peru, there's heavy accent within the different regions. I used to think I spoke without much accent, buth when I came to Lima it became more and more evident that I clearly spoke in a very different way. I mostly tend to switch words within my sentences and speak quite quickly and with a somewhat high tone, all of them typical from people who are in contact with the Amazon region. It's very difficult not to pick up the expressions they use here, specially the slang used by the younger generations, but people still point out to me that I was not born here from my way of speaking. There are some people that look down on the andean accent, specially because of the influence Quechua has on it, associating it with negative connotations. I remember that some rude kids used to make fun of one of my cousins just because she came from Cusco and her accent was quite evident.


----------



## Vanda

I sort of have and I don't like it very much. I've lived in so many regions and have been in touch with so many accents so far that now I have a mixed one.


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## Mishe

Peripes said:


> I must say that in Peru, there's heavy accent within the different regions. I used to think I spoke without much accent, buth when I came to Lima it became more and more evident that I clearly spoke in a very different way. I mostly tend to switch words within my sentences and speak quite quickly and with a somewhat high tone, all of them typical from people who are in contact with the Amazon region. It's very difficult not to pick up the expressions they use here, specially the slang used by the younger generations, but people still point out to me that I was not born here from my way of speaking. There are some people that look down on the andean accent, specially because of the influence Quechua has on it, associating it with negative connotations. I remember that some rude kids used to make fun of one of my cousins just because she came from Cusco and her accent was quite evident.



Are people also mocked if they speak Quechua in public?


----------



## Peripes

Mishe said:


> Are people also mocked if they speak Quechua in public?



No, nowadays it's not like people will directly mock you if you speak Quechua in public, but Spanish is so widespread that, to some people, it seems incredible, if not impossible, that someone who lives in the city or any urban area does not speak Spanish. When they're with their friends they may say things like "This _cholito_ came to me and I didn't understand a thing of what he was saying! He better learn some Spanish!" People can sometimes say very nasty things about people who have the andean accent as it's often associated with the _cholo_ stereotype. Peruvians are becoming a bit more tolerant, they may not speak out in public but racism exists. The Government always wants to promote Quechua in some way or another (e.g.: Ads half in Quechua, half in Spanish) but complete bilingualism or interest in this language is, in my opinion, an illusion.


----------



## Mishe

Peripes said:


> No, nowadays it's not like people will directly mock you if you speak Quechua in public, but Spanish is so widespread that, to some people, it seems incredible, if not impossible, that someone who lives in the city or any urban area does not speak Spanish. When they're with their friends they may say things like "This _cholito_ came to me and I didn't understand a thing of what he was saying! He better learn some Spanish!" People can sometimes say very nasty things about people who have the andean accent as it's often associated with the _cholo_ stereotype. Peruvians are becoming a bit more tolerant, they may not speak out in public but racism exists. The Government always wants to promote Quechua in some way or another (e.g.: Ads half in Quechua, half in Spanish) but complete bilingualism or interest in this language is, in my opinion, an illusion.



Well, I find it kind of sad that a native language has such a dodgy reputation. This is, undoubtedly, a remnant of colonization and deeply-rooted racism, which persists in different forms and features all over the Americas.


----------



## Peripes

Mishe said:


> Well, I find it kind of sad that a native language has such a dodgy reputation. This is, undoubtedly, a remnant of colonization and deeply-rooted racism, which persists in different forms and features all over the Americas.



Indeed. I must say that, if the only language one knows is Quechua,  one's completely lost in Peru, at least when talking about the most  contemporary aspects of life.


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## london calling

rhitagawr said:


> There's something called Estuary English - presumably because it's spoken around the Thames Estuary. It's a boring, colourless, invented 'accent'. You never heard it in my young days. It's spoken by people who don't want to sound posh but who don't want to sound common either.


People who speak Estuary English definitely don't sound posh but to my ears they sound far worse than common: it's an appalling accent which is gradually taking over in London (especially in south-east London, from whence I hail). 

Anyway, I personally only ever spoke English with a London accent early on in school (not at home) and only then because I was ribbed about having a posh accent. I stopped using the accent as I grew older and gained confidence in myself


----------



## Mishe

beezneez said:


> Trust me, Americans are EXTREMELY prejudiced and judgmental when it comes to accents. I once worked in an office where I handled a correspondence between a potential employer and a former employer. The reference letter to the hiring employer pleaded that the young lady was a qualified, hard-working and pleasant person, IN SPITE OF her annoying and dreadful accent. He suggested that once her productivity became apparent, her accent would become less of an issue.  Any accent that drips of poverty and hard work is condemned in the strongest terms, e.g., Appalachia, "Ebonics", Ozarks, and New Jersey. Accents scented of idle money and power are regarded as superior: Crusty British, certain New England accents. But most Americans hide behind an undefinable "Standard American" accent, that we use like a second language to conceal our origins. I know many people who took special classes to learn the "standard" accent. When I was 5-6 years old, I myself had to take a "speech development." I was kicked out after I threw a tantrum Lol. Hated the teacher, hated the class. If anyone tells you that they are proud of their accents, you should bear in mind that it is only because someone told them it was shameful and they refused to be bullied.



Another similarity between the US and France.


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## merquiades

Mishe said:


> Another similarity between the US and France.



I wouldn't say I share this opinion at all.  I've known Americans who are proud of their accents and would not hide their origins.  Everyone has their own accent anyway.  I can usually tell where anyone is from.

The French, on the contrary, can sometimes be obsessed with correct accent.


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## Kelly B

I was raised in a region with a relatively neutral US accent - my Oklahoma cousins once told me I talked just like those folks on TV. But I pick up accents wherever I am, so it isn't so much a matter of dropping the old one as sliding toward a new one. I'm slowly acquiring the accent of the region I live in now despite my attempts to resist; it isn't one I particularly like, so every now and then I wince when I hear those long flat vowels coming out of my own mouth. Ack.


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## Ben Jamin

Paulfromitaly said:


> I don't think a neutral accent actually exists, however people who have taken diction lessons are able to speak with a really mild and almost imperceptible accent (at least in Italian).



There are countries with a "neutral" or "standard" accent used by most people. Poland is one of them. I was born and grew up in Poland, and I have never spoken a local accent or dialect, only the standard language. Nobody can tell where I grew up, and the same is true of the majority of people in Poland. Only some people from the country, without much school education, use only local dialects and are unable to speak the standard language. Most people, even those that speak a dialect with their neighbours are diglossic and switch to the standard language speaking with strangers.


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## bamia

It's quite common for young urban Dutch people (myself included) to speak a variety of Dutch called _Poldernederlands, _which is often perceived as a neutral mode of speech (the fact that most people on TV use it probably helps). It's basically a blend of the upper class variety of the standard language and the dialects of the major cities, so it's not as neutral as it's made out to be and it would have been considered dialectal sixty years ago. 

As for having lost a regional accent, I guess I had a bit of an Amsterdam accent as a child but they made a speech-language pathologist 'mend' my speech so it's no longer noticeable.


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## Pedro y La Torre

bamia said:


> As for having lost a regional accent, I guess I had a bit of an Amsterdam accent as a child *but they made a speech-language pathologist 'mend' my speech* so it's no longer noticeable.


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## sound shift

I moved from south-east London to the Midlands (Derby) when I was eleven. In my experience most eleven-year-olds who move to another region adopt the accent used in their new environment, but I didn't - mostly, I suppose, because my mother didn't want me to (not that I was a mother's boy). This brought me some problems, because the retention of my old accent implied a lack of solidarity with my new neighbours and because those neighbours regarded my accent as posh, particularly the /a:/ that I give to "grass" (but if they imagined, as they appeared to, that working people in London gave that word a short vowel, they were mistaken). I'd moved only 140 miles, but the difference in accent was (and is) marked. I don't speak RP, but I don't speak  'Estuary' (which I pre-date) or Cockney either. I suppose I speak as a lot of middle-class people from the South-East of England speak, but with the odd vernacular London or Kent feature, such as the use of a monophthong rather than a diphthong in the word "old". A middle-class accent might seem out of sync with my current financial status, which is not the best, but it's the way I've always spoken. I've grown to like the variety of accents that exists in England, though I find some easier on the ear than others.

I don't think there's such a thing as non-accented English in the UK: there isn't a "neutral" way of speaking that people are happy to adopt. Many English people say "I don't have an accent", but they are mistaken. The great majority display regional features, while RP, though based on south-eastern speech, is supra-regional (but rare and becoming rarer). Consequently I think the only way in England of losing all trace of a regional accent is to adopt RP, but, thankfully, very few take that step these days.


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## Awwal12

Etcetera said:


> and most differences are in lexis rather than grammar or pronunciation


The most noticeable phonetic dialectal features (like okanye, yakanye or the South Russian /g/) are simply too much stigmatized, so they are easier to hear in villages than in cities. More subtle nuances often remain, though. It seems all the Krasnodarskiy Kray, regardless of particular settlements and social strata, has palatal [ʧ] and only a simplified pattern of akanye; in Perm, "shy okanye" is a characteristic feature of most Russian speakers; and so on.

Lexical differences are pretty random and actually rare; what is often presented as such by our wonderful illiterate journalists are just fluctuations in local ususes; for certain, an educated Muscovite will recognise what "поварёшка" is - even though he may be puzzled by "поре́брик" (St.Petersburg), "си́ненькие" (Ukraine and some southern regions) or "тормозо́к" (Donbass). Well, disregard "поре́брик"; it's already a subject of popular jokes.

Grammatical differences between Russian dialects were larger in the past, but they are on decline since the XIX century, so now they are really non-existent; I'd say that all spoken dialects are grammatically closer to each other than to the literary language, with its marked Church Slavonic heritage. The remaining differences are really minor (like formation of certain complement clauses, abnormal syntax of certain prepositions, - which is already extremely rare and confined to rural areas, together with the northern definite postfixes and remote past tense, - and other things like that).

All in all, Russian always was pretty homogeneous compared to British or German dialects (due to the levelling role of Moscow with its central dialect, military and administrative organisation of the tsardom, and numerous migrations and resettlements). And the modern city koine is especially so; regional differences in pronunciation are few and rare. Say, Nizhniy Novgorod seems to be the only city where "normal" okanye is a common feature, but it's not particularly hard to replace it with at least simplified akanye when necessary (especially considering it's just the central Russian okanye with the same overwhelming reduction in a half of the syllables), and then the differences become rather subtle. Ukrainian (either as the first language or as a regional substrate) leaves the most noticeable long-term traces, I believe.


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## Zec

Partially. I don't get asked "Why do you say [æ]" anymore, but I still get asked "Where are you from?". It depend's a lot on who I'm speaking with, and when speaking with peoples from other regions I usually try to modify my accent to be a little closer to theirs.

I'm also not sure if there's a "neutral" accent in Croatia. There isn't enough pressure to make people care about standard pronunciation so something regional always comes through.


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## Schmizzkazz

I have still kept  the use of my regional language.
And I will be able to use it again at a class reunion this evening.


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## Penyafort

In my experience, the only Catalans who may try to adapt their accent to the standard are mostly those working in the media or in education, specially when outside the local area. It is not really a requirement, as the standard is seen as flexible, and many will keep talking as they usually do, just avoiding colloquialisms. In most cases, rather than the accent itself, it's just some forms and words that are changed in order to be understood by people in general. 

I personally speak Catalan and Spanish both with an accent and 'without it' (by this meaning close to the abstract standards of Catalonia and Spain, respectively). I simply change according to the context and location at the moment of speaking. Not that my local accents are that far from the ones considered standard, though.


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## RomanBoukreev

I grew up and living in Russia, Voronezh. Technically, this city is near Moscow and Ukraine, especially Donetsk. My grandmother had a weird Ukrainian-Polish-Russian accent, which consists of words mixed from three languages. It is neither good Russian nor good Ukrainian nor Polish. Voronezh is the city that divided on Voronezh region (Voronezhskaya oblast). It's like District of Columbia in the US and some towns inside DC. Inside Voronezh region, small towns and villages like Gryazi, Hohol, you can often find Russian with Ukrainian accent, or, more precisely, South Russian. It's colloquial words, like "nehay" ("let's", like in Ukrainian, "pusьt" in neutral Russian), "buway" ("bye", "poka" in normal Russian). It's funny, but villages in Voronezh region like Gryazi sound like Ukrainian, but usually no one speaks whole Ukrainian. That's only Russian with Ukrainian/ Southern Russian accent and some Ukrainian words. Also, funny but I never heard Ukrainian г/ґ, technically it is a little Ukrainian accent.

The most pronunciation problems were in sound "r". I was "r" mispronouncing. Many people think that you are very stupid if you are mispronouncing. I got rid of it step-by-step, but I still sound mispronouncing if my head is not 90° angle. It happens mostly during the rotating my head. Another problem is the sound ль; a soft l can sound like й. It is hardly noticeable, but I pay attention. In fact, something between ль and й. People hear something like й and don't annoy me, but automatical software, for example, YouTube Russian subtitles think that I pronounce параллей instead of параллель. Being a child, I was sound like параллей in every word with this sound. Attended to the school, I tried not to use Ukrainian words or something like this. The languages which are ль plays a great role are not to me, like Serbian, it is a lot of ль sounds. I speak repressed "l" and "r" sounds; "r" is closed to English than normal Russian. "L" is closed to Polish "ł", maybe, not exactly, but sort of it. Google speech ID proves it. But these sounds are not a subject for speech criticism. Sometimes I speak the standard (or Moscow) Russian "r", sometimes repressed "r". Never "Oman" instead of "Roman". Polish "ł" is a very difficult sound for "standard Russians". I have some advantage because for me it's easy to repress "l".


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## Awwal12

RomanBoukreev said:


> Inside Voronezh region, small towns and villages like Gryazi, Hohol, you can often find Russian with Ukrainian accent, or, more precisely, South Russian


South Russian and Ukrainian are two pretty different linguistic entities, with quite different phonetics, vocabulary and partly even morphology - even though Russian tends to heavily influence Ukrainian and there is a small flow of Ukrainian vocabulary back into Russian. As for Voronezh Oblast, it incorporates entire Ukrainian-speaking areas in the southwest, plus a lot of scattered settlements founded by former Ukrainian colonists (the name "Khokhol" should be quite telling, shouldn't it?). Of course, they mostly retain the Ukrainian dialect of Slobozhanshchina for everyday use, though with their current Russian ethnic identity they usually call it "хохляцкий диалект русского языка" ("the Khokhol dialect of the Russian language"). It is heavily influenced by Russian even for the older generations, but essentially it's still a Ukrainian dialect, which you are precisely describing. So, while "нехай" is frequently used by Russian speakers in humorous contexts and isn't characteristic, "бувай" instead of "бывай" is a clear marker of Ukrainian dialects (since that analogical levelling with the future forms occured only in Ukrainian).


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## RomanBoukreev

Awwal12 said:


> So, while "нехай" is frequently used by Russian speakers in humorous contexts and isn't characteristic, "бувай" instead of "бывай" is a clear marker of Ukrainian dialects (since that analogical levelling with the future forms occured only in Ukrainian).


In the middle school, Ukrainian television understood by me intuitively even without learning Ukrainian as such. So Southern Russian and Ukrainian are similar for me, although I agree, I mixed them long ago using the Internet and the TV. Some of the Ukrainian elements I never heard in the city itself.


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## Red Arrow

You can't hear that I am from the city of Leuven, but you can hear that I am from the province Flemish Brabant. The younger generations in this province all have the same "unified" accent that is close to Standard Belgian Dutch, but with a different pronunciation of ij/ei [ɛ:], ui [œ:] and unstressed a [ɑ] and o [ɔ]. Furthermore, [ɪ] turns into [ i ] in words that have both sounds. For instance, penicilline sounds like "peniciline". Except for those 5 minor things, it is pretty much the Standard accent.

I never had problems with this accent. This is the way my parents spoke to me as a child. They are of a generation that hided their accent in front of children. You can definitely hear what city my mother is from.

I like speaking with a Standard accent, but I rarely do, because I am afraid it sounds too snobbish.


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## dojibear

I grew up in northern New Jersey, in a suburb of NYC (New York City). I had a strong northern NJ accent, which is similar to an NYC accent. Please don't confuse that with the "southern NJ accent", which is similar to a Philadelphia accent.

I moved to Boston for college. Everyone there talked quite differently. I gradually lost my strong NJ accent, but didn't replace it with a new local accent. Since then I've lived a variety of places in the US without picking up new accents. My children (who grew up in the Boston area) talk differently than I talk.

Today, all that remains of my NJ accent is the way I pronounce "wash/Washington". For me it is still "warsh/Warshington".


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## dojibear

merquiades said:


> I chuckle each time I hear, "we have no accent in my hometown of East Jeffersonville,


Last night I watched a video of a British comedian (Jimmy Carr) performing in Montreal.

He started by telling the audience "I don't have an accent. This is how the language is supposed to sound."


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