Can an accent ever be Lost ?

[Cell]

Hi,
mariahswind regarding your 2 1/2 yr old daughter and you wonder what accent will she have. I have a son who has just turned 3 last month, both myself and his dad have Welsh accents ( I've been living here  in Aus for almost 12 years and before that in Asia for 5 years and still have my  Welsh accent ). My son does not have a Welsh accent at all that I can hear, which is surprising as we are his sole carers, and we were the ones who taught him to speak.

It doesn't sound Australian either to my ears, but an English accent , which is odd as we do not know anyone here with any of the  English accents . I think he must be picking up a mixture of Aussie  and Welsh which is sounding very English to my ears  .

I fully expect him to develop an Aussie accent when he is in schooling years and mixing a lot more with other children. I do  find it strange at such a young age that he is ,he hasn't developed my own and his dad's accent when we are the ones that caring for him full time at the moment.

Children are much more likely to lose their accents than adults in any country from my own experiences, Expat children (school age)  lose it just as fast in Asia as they do here in Aus . Children are still developing their language skills, whilst most adults are not . They tend to pick up a new lingo very quickly and drop the old.

P.S my own  Welsh accent is from my childhood  local town  and not from my parents accents ( one parent has an Irish accent,  the other parent  has a  Neath Valley Welsh accent which is a  different accent  to my own  Welsh accent)

Kind Regards:)

[mariahswind]

Hi Cell,

An employer I had a few years ago is welsh and it took me forever to understand him.... but I love his accent more than anything it is very lilting/lyrical! Don't know what part of Wales he is from.... he went to school with welsh actress Nia Roberts (giving me a less than 6 degree of separation from Ioan Gruffudd, my favorite actor).

[jinks]

I am a Lancastrian born and bred, but I must admit that the
regional accent has become diluted over the years, My Fathers
accent is much stronger than mine, and my Grandmother I always
understood - same town of my birth - UNTIL she started to reminise
about her Mother and her youth.

ALL these generations came from the same regional area of the
North West of England so Can an accent be lost?

I think the dilution of accent maybe due to outside influences
i.e Media but also to the fact that be just want to "fit in" be
accepted , be able to communicate with their peers.

Jinks

[MarieC]

You lot have stimulated me to do some research on the Australian accent and its subtle regional variations!

What I've observed, living in Oz, is that Scots and Irish people in particular never lose their accents - English people, to some (varying) extent.  Australians very often adopt the accent of where they are living when they go abroad - however, my brother, who has been in England for 40 years, still has his Australian accent but with a cultivated English veneer!

There is a distinctive Aboriginal accent, and other ethnic groups sometimes have their own accents.

And I've noticed that NO non-Aussie can ever do an Aussie accent satisfactorily!  A number of American and English actors have tried, and failed, also others.  Wonder what it is about our accent that makes it so difficult to copy?  English people end up sounding like Cockneys!

MarieC

[mariahswind]

marie, you are so right about no one else being able to copy an aussie accent and how easily aussies in most situations tend to loose theirs to some extent when living away from Oz. There is this new show on foxtel called Eureka and there is this american actor (did max headrome actually) whose portraying an aussie character and his accent is so funny!

[Billy Anderson]

I moved from Glasgow to Melbourne 5 years ago,my daughter who at the age of 3 and a half exchanged her Glasgow accent for an Aussie one within 6 months .
Me, still got the Glasgow accent though I have had to slow down for the Aussies to catch up!
Wife,s Aussie accent has got stronger though still with a Glasgow twang!

ps,Mariahswind
 SNAP!! we have the same Anderson Crest,
Stand Sure,
Billy.

[JAP]

... And I've noticed that NO non-Aussie can ever do an Aussie accent satisfactorily! ... 

MarieC, so very true!  I wonder why this is!  And what it is that gives it away!
I think that South Africans (should that be Sooth Efricans!) also have a giveaway accent.
New Zealanders too.

There's always a giveaway with Aussies!  Which any Aussie can immediately pick.  But what is it?

MarieC, like you say, aboriginal Aussies do seem to have a particular accent.  As do Aussies of derivations like Italian, Greek, Lebanese, etc, etc.  But that distinctive Aussie accent is there regardless.  I have an Italian born, Aussie raised friend, who is picked as Italian in France but Aussie in Italy!!

My own people came to Oz going back to 1841 and, at the latest, the 1890s.  From various backgrounds - Scots, Irish, London, Yorkshire, Lancashire, via NZ, etc, etc.

My accent has been picked by non-Australians as broadest Australian, as superior classy English, etc, etc.
But I'm sure that any fellow Aussie would have picked me immediately as Australian (even though they might have made a class distinction!).

I - like all Aussies - can always pick someone whose Australian accent is not truly Australian.  We shall see ...

For instance, Meryl Streep didn't do a bad job as Lindy Chamberlain - but her accent was quite hopeless to any Australian audience.

And the Aussie accent creeps through despite the Americanisms and other accents/words of various Aussie TV and film stars like Julian McMahon, Nicole Kidman, etc, etc  ...

JAP