The Reason People Have Regional Accents

Accents are a funny thing. Within one country, you can have multiple different accents. But where do they come from and why can some people within the same area sound kind of different?

We often just chalk up these regional accents to being a natural occurrence and then don’t think anything more about it. But Arran Lomas from Thoughty2 has some insight into regional accents, offering up a very insightful explanation as to their origination and propagation.

As he explained, “Accents are strange things. A language can be spoken using the exact same words but in hundreds of different ways. Sometimes accents are so dissimilar that two speakers of the same language with different accents can’t even understand one another.”

The interesting thing that Lomas points out, is that accents are developed in childhood, meaning that during the formative years, a kid grows up hearing specific ways that people around them speak, and then will mimic the sounds as they first attempt to talk.

In addition, there are specific physical characterizations that can affect both tone and intonation, which is why accents are cultivated over the course of generations.

However, the origins of accents are a little more complex, but Lomas did his best to summarize them in a way that can be understood.

He added, “So to summarize, we have accents because humans like to explore and when two different cultures come together in the same location the unique ways in which they both talk get amalgamated into a brand new accent.”

Watch the video below:

What accent do you have? Let us know!