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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Subaru on Sunday 27 January 08 13:05 GMT (UK)
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Hi
Would it be possible to have an Irish accent, if your parents were both Irish, but you hadn't lived in Ireland? I'm trying to discount somebody who has the same name, year of birth, same regiment in the army. But I was looking for somebody who was born in Ireland, everything else fits apart from the other person was born in Nuneaton, Warwickshire.
How impossible would it be, could he have picked up his parents' accent?
Rosemary
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I thought that a person usually takes on the accent of their peers/birthplace rather than their parents - imagine a person born and living in England with German parents - they wouldn't speak with a German accent.
However I used to know someone who was born and bred in Australia and spoke with an Australian accent, who swore that he spoke with a Scottish accent at home. His parents were Scottish.
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Hi rosemary
Don't know about anyone else, but it certainly is, Both my parents are Irish, and my 2 sister's and I have Irish lilts, but my 2 brothers speak with Aussie accents, and we have been out here for Donkeys years
Regards Sue
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I agree with Sue, it's perfectly possible. Children will often have the same accent as their parents until they go to school, then they will pick up the local one from their friends if it is different. But if the parents are part of a wider 'ex-pat' community they could easily grow up with the accent of a country or region thay have never lived in, or even visited. If you are any doubt about this, just go to Corby, Northamptonshire and try to work out from people's accents who was born there and who was born in Glasgow!
Mean_genie
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I agree with Mean_genie. My family emigrated when I was four and the neighbourhood I lived in was entirely ex-Pat. My mum was from Glasgow and my dad was from Derry. I spoke Gaelic as well as I my next door neighbour taught me to from the age of 5. She and her husband always spoke Gaelic to me ;D
I didn't discover I had an "accent" until we moved to another city. Who knew ??? To this day my brother who was 14 when we emigrated still has a slight Irish lilt even though he was born in London. Only visited Ireland once when he was nine.
mab
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yes but if your parents come from Doncaster for exampel then you were adopted to the south coast you wouldn't speak with a doncasterial accent!
we have a boy of 11 across the road from us he moved in about 3 years ago. they come from Glasgow so when he speak to his parents he speaks with a scottish accent but when he speaks to anyone else (here) he speaks with an english accent
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That's exactly what I meant about the wider community. I moved from Glasgow to England when I was 7, and my accent had gone by the time I was 10, because apart from my parents, an aunt and an uncle, all the voices around me were southern english. But one of my cousins, who was much younger when he left Scotland, moved to Corby with his family where there is an enormous Glaswegian community, and he still sounds Scottish, in his late 30s, as do lots of other people there.
Mean_genie
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My husband has a relative born in Northern Ireland who moved to N.Z. and had family there. Her son spoke with N.I. accent which he must have picked up from his mother.
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Accents can be a matter of choice. OH fled South Africa in the apartheid days, and quickly learned that a white SA was not well regarded here, and so learned Standard Received English very quickly.
And Charlize Theron seems to have lost her SA accent for an American one even quicker!
meles
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I also think that some people pick up/lose accents more readily than others. I know of someone who went to America for 2 weeks and came back with an American accent (..we thought they just 'put it on', but who knows). My children go to school with lots of Chinese children with Aussie accents. Why don't they speak with a Chinese accent?
Still think it may vary depending on the person. Some immigrants always have a strong accent and some lose it.
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Thanks for the replies everyone ;D
You've helped me with my problem. I think I'll order the birth certificate, and see if the actual date of birth tallies with the one that I have. So far the year of birth matches, and the quarter. Looking at the neighbourhood where this person lived in Warwickshire, many of the adults were born in Ireland. So if their children also spoke with the parents' accents, and they all attended the same school, I suppose it would be possible for them to retain the Irish accent for a long time.
I'll let you know when I receive the certificate.
Rosemary
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I also think that some people pick up/lose accents more readily than others. I know of someone who went to America for 2 weeks and came back with an American accent
Thats me Ruskie ;D Although i didnt realize it, i pick up accents easey.I have come home with a slight scots/welsh/ or Irish accent it depends who i have spent time with and where i have been.Thats only in 2 weeks I spend 6 weeks in Oz every trip and slip into the accent till a week after i come home.I takes me ages to get back to asking for a coffee (plain) i keep asking for a white one ,dum looks ???
Celia
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My friends 8 year-old son has the habit of using the accent of whichever parent he is talking to.
His father is from the middle of the country and pronounces things like "grass" and "bath" with a short 'a' while his mum is a southerner who pronounces things properly and uses the long "grarss" and barth" form! ;D
Its quite funny to hear him change halfway through a sentence when he starts talking to the other parent!
I also pick up accents quite quickly apparently. I went away for a few months and when I came back, my mother asked why I was talking with a Manchester accent. I didn't realise I was!
Glen