4 factors that change the way you speak that you may not have known

Although in some cases the differences are more subtle, the accent spoken in the north of a country usually differs from that spoken in the south, just as the accents of mountain people who speak them are not the same within the same territory. of the inhabitants of the coast.

An accustomed ear can recognize, for example, in a single sentence, not only what Latin American country the speaker is from, but even what region of the country it is.

But where do the accents come from and how do they change?

Here we tell you four interesting factors that influence our way of speaking.

1. Your accent can start to form before you are born.

We understand accents much sooner than you think.

In fact, behavioral scientists at the University of Helsinki in Finland discovered that you drink they can recognize external sounds while in the womb.

Babies can too cry differently depending on your mother tongue.

In another 2009 study, researchers monitored the crying of 60 newborns, 30 of whom were French and the other 30 German.

They found that the French babies cried with a rising pitch, while the German babies cried with a falling tune, matching the rhythmic patterns of their native languages.

Experts believe that babies try to form a bond with their mothers, imitating them.

2. Social mobility has impacted how groups of people speak

Social mobility describes the movement of people up or down the social ladder of society.

Historically, accents developed when groups of people lived in relative isolationwithout contact with other people.

Using the English Dialects app, academics from the University of Cambridge collected accent data from more than 30,000 users across 4,000 UK sites and compared the results with a survey conducted in the 1950s.

They found that regional accents seem to slowly fade into a more ‘southern’ way of speaking, while northern ways of speaking are spreading across the country.

A Cambridge PhD student who worked on the analysis believes that the “leveling” of English accents may be due to a greater social mobility.

3. Air pollution can influence your accent

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that exposure to air pollution, both short and long term, can affect our health in various ways.

Physician and human voice specialist Robert Sataloff believes that environmental factors, such as air pollutants, may contribute to the hoarsenessthe changes in the voice quality and control and even the voice fatigue.

A key component of air pollutants is the burning of fossil fuels, accelerated by industrialization in the 18th and 19th centuries.

According to the Museum of London, those born in the capital of England during the 1800s and 1900s were distinguished by their particular slang, sickly appearance and short stature.

However, the voice also played a very important role, and the accent of Londoners was affected by their need to breathe through the mouth because they had the congested nasal passages.

4. Social identity can alter your accent

Human beings are inherently social beings. Accents allow us feel part of a group and they can increase our sense of identity and belonging.

But besides being social creatures, humans are also big imitators.

While the voice changes throughout life, from infancy to adolescence and into old age, that might not be the only time our accents fluctuate.

A 2010 study from the University of California found that we imitate the speech of those we talk to to increase our mutual understanding.

This concept is known as the chameleon effect: the unconscious copy of the behavior of others to create empathy.