Can an accent ever be Lost ?

[Deb D]

It might be interesting to note, at this point - and with reference to the "Australian" accent ... that there are subtle differences between the accent found in New South Wales, for example, and the accent found in Victoria.  From what others have said about the "long A" sound ... perhaps Melbourne was settled by a larger number of Scottish and northern settlers?

It's fairly common to hear the short "A" in words like "grass", or "castle", in Victoria, and the longer "A" in NSW.  Victorians also pronounce both vowels in words like "spear" - to us in NSW it sounds like "spee-ar".

I'm led to believe that regional accents are developing in the other states, as well.   

[chris_49]

It's very possible. IIRC Wells in his book says the  main difference in Oz is between rural and urban accents, but that was written 20+ years ago. I do remember that he wrote that some of the "long a" words are "short a" there, probably because they acquired the long sound in English later than the others, after the main Australian settlements were established.

I gather new American accents are evolving too. I'd really only recognise New England (halfway to English English) Southern, and New York/Brooklyn (influenced by immigrants) but apparently there are mid-Western and others. Then there's Canada. To me, Canadians sound more or less American, but to Americans they sound more like English (as do Australians). I think your ear for an accent depends on you how far away it is from your own and ones you hear every day - you'd pick up more differences between yours and a nearby one than you would between two that were both very different anyway.

In south-east England the reverse is happening in that the rural accents are disappearing under the twin onslaughts of a sub-Cockney  - because so many Londoners were dispersed to new towns outside the capital - and Received Pronunciation or "posh" because people like to sound educated and this accent is native to this area anyway. By RP I don't mean the upper-class accent of aristocrats, which has been guyed so often it's on the way out, but the pronunciation of newsreaders, some academics and professionals. To my ear a new "student" accent has evolved which is different to this, but then I live in a University town.

Wells does say that accents evolve all the time, quoting Cockney as particularly innovative, though Scouse is another to my ear. Not only is the London speech of Dickens and others long gone, but even that of Shaw in Pygmalion/My Fair Lady is out of date.  But then most working-class Londoners don't speak Cockney (east end) but a variant of it, and I believe South London is starting to differ from north of the Thames.

There's endless scope for discussion here.

[JAP]

Deb D,

It's not as simple as that!

In Victoria, back in my day, if you were from the 'lower' class (went to a Govt school) you said dance and castle but if you were from the 'upper' class (went to a private school) you said darnce and carstle - and if you had pretensions, you used the long 'a' wherever you came from!!

I and my family lived in the USA for a year when my children were pre-teen.  My daughter (middle child) returned speaking pure American - no other member of the family did!

The Australian accent however is an interesting one.  One wonders where it did come from ...  Yes, there might be some slight regional variations but Australia-wide it's unmistakeable.

JAP

[apanderson]

For a country as small as Scotland, there are dozens of different 'twangs' as we call them. From the north in the Shetlands to the Borders, then out on the West Coast Islands - the variety is quite amazing.

My favourite one has got to be from the Islands though - lovely!

Anne

P.S. I remember when Rab C. Nesbit was to be broadcast 'south of the border' - the BBC considered using subtitles!!

[aghadowey]

history-itself doesn't seem to have checked back for replies to this post but can say that my husband speaks with an Ayrshire accent as did his parents and many other people in this part of Co. Londonderry. My husband's family have probably been in Ulster since 1600s but when we go to Scotland he's asked where in Ayrshire he's from.

[Just Kia]

My OH's parents are Irish, although his mum was born in Pembroke Dock. I guess technically speaking OH is Irish, or would you say first generation English? Ooops what a tangent.

While OH's dad still speaks with a clear North Irish accent (despite living in England for 40 something years), OH doesn't appear to have an accent at all. Yet family gatherings and he slips into a North Irish accent without even noticing.
OH's (older) sister doesn't have an accent and neither do her children.

Ah and when I say "doesn't have an accent", well I guess we do have a midlands accent to anyone not living in the midlands
Here there is a very mixed attitude to using the long or short "a" in words such as grass. I personally use the short version simply because I say it how it's spelled grass instead of grarss, while my grandparents (who raised me) use the long version.

[genjen]

A few years ago, our motor home brike down in the North East of Scotland. The mechanic who came out to us was locally born and bred and not in the first flush of youth.

He started to ask us about the problem. My partner's eyes glazed over and he developed a look of utter panic. He couldn't understand a word the man said.

It took a few minutes for me to search the dusty archives of my brain and to home in to the incredibly strong accent and dialect, one which I hadn't heard in over forty years, since my grandad died. But it was there, lurking in the depths of my knowledge and I very soon adjusted to the mechanic's speech and was able to translate for my bewildered partner who, in his innocence, thought that he was in an english speaking country!

But I think it proves that, once there, the sound and patterns of a particular region's speech are with us for life. We may adapt to wherever we happen to live but we never completely forget what we learned as a child.

[chris_49]

Phair wair ye? Phawt brogue? Buchan Doric?

[genjen]

Broke down in Stonehaven but the mechanic came from somewhere a bit further south. We had to wait forever!