Do you develop a heavier accent as you get older?
All of the adults in my life seem to have heavier accents that the younger ones.
Update:Thank you for your answer Cindy! I should've probably clarified though that none of them are immigrants, all are in the United States for multiple generations.
Comments
The likelier explanation is that their accents have stayed the same and yours is different with the new blend of people in your community. I know it's weird to think of it the first time to hear this, but everyone has an accent, and to some people yours is extremely thick. It just depends on the person hearing the accent to determine if it's strong or not.
Back to the question though: Young people tend to spend more time with their peers than with those outside of their age groups. So it's much more likely that you are changing with the blend and the older people are the same. And after being acclimatized in the accents you hear, when you go back to speak to an older person after having not spent time with them in a while, you're surprised to hear it.
Possible. Language is an 'alive thing', and changes with our location, age, culture, nurture and nature. For instance, I can detect a second generation immigrant's English from an Indian family, than one from a Spanish family. Again, I can detect in these ones, which one was educated in a Public School and which one in a Catholic School, by the wording they use, and so forth.
In languages, English is the only "living language" which STILL is growing. Technology, communications, music and other modern sciences have changed our Language so much, that a myriad of new words appears almost daily, that including "slang" as well. This, specially in highly infiltrated areas due to immigration (South Western side of the USA, for instance).
Yes; I would not be surprised to show a heavier accent as I grow older.
Your accent is more strongly influenced at younger ages, but even adults start to adopt the accent of the population they are immersed in to some extent if they stay long enough. Moving around a lot can mess with it a bit too though. I was born in Texas and heard a fair amount of Spanish. My parents told me I was able to pronounce Spanish words pretty well even though I never really learned the language. But I moved to Maine when I was about 5 and stayed there until I was 19. I am now actually trying to learn Spanish and can't roll my Rs no matter how hard I try!
If you mean by a heavy accent, the accent of some other language/place, then older people who have immigrated from another country will tend to have heavier accents because they grew up speaking a different language, or if they speak the same language, will have grown up speaking it in the manner of their homeland. The younger ones will have grown up much more in the new country, and will have picked up the manner of speech of that country.
Hmm...I never noticed. I just turned 50. Does my accent sound heavy to you?