What creates accents? Is it purely psychological, or is there some physiological element in play?
• Accents develop from the relative isolation of populations. The pronunciation and language of each population changes in different ways and accents are the result. This happens in much the same way that isolation of populations leads to different evolutionary outcomes. Changes to language and pronunciation come from a range of sources: immigration, the introduction of new words, the popularity of different influences like music, random changes, and so on.
The root cause of most accents is psychological not physiological. While the shape of the mouth and jaw can affect our voices, we can adapt easily – think of actors who change accents for roles. And our accents usually match that of the area in which we were raised, not necessarily the accents of parents, whose physiology we inherit.
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Lewis O’Shaughnessy, London, UK
• There is no one true language or pronunciation from which people diverge. English, for example, has always been a gaggle of related dialects and different accents. Also, language is always changing. There is no reason why everybody should change in the same way at the same time.
The driving forces behind an individual’s accent are varied though. For example, when people speak alike, who are they imitating? Most of us generally speak like the people around us.
But people also imitate those they look up to and want to be like. For instance, if you want to belong, you will talk like your neighbours. If you want to get ahead, you might talk more like the people in centres of prestige, such as your country’s capital.
You might not notice you are doing it, but to linguists, these alterations in speech stick out like a sore thumb.
David Cordiner, Birmingham, UK
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