At what age do regional accents stick with the speaker? My cousin moved from Newcastle, in north-east England, to London, in the south, when he was 5. He spoke with a north-eastern accent before he moved, but now there is no trace of it. He speaks like a Londoner. Yet my sister moved to London to go to university aged 19, and she has lived there for 12 years now, but still has her original north-eastern accent. So at what age does this process of accent-change stop happening? And why?
David Hughes, South Shields, Tyne and Wear, UK