Accents

Kate   Fri May 05, 2006 2:41 am GMT
Why is it that there are so many different accents in the world, how does one get and accent.... if I was to talk a newborn Russian baby, and raise the baby with me, would the baby gain my canadian accent or would it still have the russian accent? Please if anyone has the answer , let me know.
Guest   Fri May 05, 2006 3:00 am GMT
If you and the baby don't live in Russia or a predominantly Russian area then the child won't have a russian accent. It will have what ever accent is used in the area it grows up in. If you don't live in Canada then it wont have a canadian accent either, unless you completely isolate it from the world but that's not really advisable. For example my cousins live in scotland, they moved there when they were 6, they have a scottish accent but their mum has a birkenhead accent (trust me there is a big difference). Accents are enviromental not genetic.
Jonnsi   Fri May 05, 2006 5:40 am GMT
"Accents are environmental not genetic."

Actually, that’s not quite true. In my opinion accents are a blend of a diversity of factors.

I live in New York and I'm exposed to all sorts of accents everyday of my life, so to answer your question, if the baby is born in Russia but is raised in Canada, he will have a Canadian accent. Now this would probably change if the baby is raised in Canada by a Russian family, in that case, you would probably recognize a little tiny bit of Russian influence in his accent, like a lot of Asian-American New Yorkers; most of them sound very standard, but in most cases you can still hear that remote Asian influence in their speech, specially if the are bilingual.

Other factors that will affect his accent are the kind of music he listen to while he's growing up, A 15 year-old who grows up listening to Hip-Hop and R'&'B and hangs out mostly with African American will probably sound a little or a lot like an African-American, conscious or unconsciously

There's also what a call a cultural pride factor floating somewhere around there, and that’s when decision comes into the picture. Take my friend Jose, from the Bronx, New York, both his parents are Puerto Rican ,but he was born in the states, if he wanted to sound like the guy in the news at noon, he could, but he doesn’t, Instead he has CHOSEN to pronounce very strong T's, drop his R's and use a different intonation when he speaks.

And the list goes on and on.

And by the way if by "a Russian accent" you mean that he's not going to sound like a native speaker, the answer is that he won't have a Russian accent then. It really doesn't matter your ethnicity, background, preferences, sex, culture or whatever; if you're raised an English-speaking country you will definitely sound like a native speaker, not an ESL student.

…and that’s the word.
Guest   Fri May 05, 2006 8:27 am GMT
Those are all environmental factors. None have anything to do with genetics.
JakubikF   Fri May 05, 2006 9:02 am GMT
It's also interesting just why we get an accent and why we cannot get rid of it fast. We need a lot of time to speak correctly and it's hardly possible to speak in foreign language as good as a native speaker. What's more the worst thing is that we sound strange and funny whatever we're talking about. And it also stands a question - should we try to sound perfect or should we rather concentrate on learning words, gramma and the "culture of language"? In my opinion it's very important to speak and sound correctly. I see that the methods of education rather concentrate on communication. If you cannot sound close to native speaker - don't worry, be understood - teachers say. I disagree with it. I always try to learn vocabulary, gramma and accent in the same time. I mean that I try to pronoun words in language which I learn as good as I can though I would be understood without this.
Don't you think it's horrible to hear a man who speaks English and sound "perfectly" like Polish, German or Russian?

According to the topic. I would take my uncle and aunt as an excample. The both are Polish. They live in Canada in Quebec. I know that both of them have polish accent though they ude French everyday. Their children would speak very well Polish and French. But they don't because kindergarten and school made them more "French" (canadian-french). They have strong french accent and problems with Polish. It proves that the environment includes the most on your accent.
JakubikF   Fri May 05, 2006 9:07 am GMT
*They
*use
Jonnsi   Fri May 05, 2006 2:15 pm GMT
I apologize Guest, I didn't mean to go against you, I was rather trying to reinforce your point, but it was way too late for my mind to work properly.

Yes, Accents are environmental not genetic, I totally agree.
Guest (the first one)   Fri May 05, 2006 3:09 pm GMT
That's kool. Wasn't me that replied to your post anyway. What you said was all true like, you just needed to switch the words environmental and genetic around and it woulda bin tops. I know they're environmental coz my accent changes depending on where I am and to whom I'm talking.
Sznedvics   Mon May 15, 2006 5:29 pm GMT
Hula Hoops