I am currently in California but I lived in England for 4 years and have only just come back, about 6 months ago, because of school. Some people have told me that I have a different accent now from when I went away and I was just wondering why your accent changes?
Responses (2)
It's completely normal. I live in England and have a friend who is a Californian. She believes she and I have the same accent but she sounds very, very American to me. When she goes home, though, they all tell her how English she sounds.
Basically, an accent develops as you're immersed in it. Think of it like a suntan. If you go out in the sun, you get brown. If you're around people with a certain type of accent, you pick it up. It happens with animals too and they make different noises in different regions. It's a very useful marker to tell if someone is one of your clan or not.
We learn our accents from our peers as we grow up. It usually remains fixed by late teens. However, when we mix with people who have different accents, we pick up nuances. We are left with an accent that is not one or the other!
If we move back to the area where our original accent is spoken, the other nuances will eventually disappear.
More interesting than I thought :)