How are accents created?

I’d like to say by habit.

Linguistic evolution. As a language travels, it will slowly over time, develop different tonalities, and then ultimately change into a different language altogether.

I think as dialects formed, or as each group deeloped their own way of speaking, they formed different ways of innunciation,..and even differenc languages. these dialects became accents..and accents became based on region.

Accents are from the ancestors of the people who live in these areas. The original settlers of the various regions are the reason there are different accents. The accents merge and adapt, but basically they vary because of the settlers.

I was born in the mountains in Virginia. The area was settled by the Scotts and eventually blended with other immigrants. But many of the twangy country things I say got their origin in Scotland. Even many of the old stories, tall tales and Bluegrass music from my region are a product of our Scottish roots.

@kb12345 who settled the area where you live?

A lot of it has to do with ethnicity, and people learning English (I’m speaking of the US experience here) over their native languages, then settling into ethnic enclaves and maintaining a particular / peculiar manner of speech in their neighborhoods. This has happened with Irish, Italian, Greek, and German immigrants, and is now happening with a lot of Caribbean, Mexican and Central American immigrants as well.

I think a lot of it has to do with what you’re hearing around you. If you move to Texas, say, and stay there for a year (maybe less), you will no doubt have somewhat of an accent when you leave. Once you leave, it will probably become less prominent over time.

If you ever watch Craig Ferguson (late late show, CBS), you can always tell when he’s gone home to Scotland on vacation because when he comes back, his Scottish accent is much stronger…it’s the same type of thing.

Imagine that you and 30 of your relatives isolated yourselves for several generations. As babies came along and learned to speak, some of them might use slightly different pronunciations, or lisp or whistle slightly through the gap between the two front teeth.

Accents and speech patterns would evolve (they would not be created) as time passed. New and idiosyncratic definitions would spring up inevitably.

Think how many families have a private vocabulary for some things. My father and his four brothers, when young adults, had a secret language to outfox their mother and to talk about girls.

In the United States, relatively isolated ethnic groups learning English (if they come from non-English-speaking countries, which can skip that step) create pockets where that English has a particular accentuation to it.
TvTropes’ ’‘Useful Notes: American English’’ page

i have a really strong southern accent and i believe its from my ancestors who were brought up and raised that way.

@bkcunningham I am from Boston. I don’t know where it could have possibly came from. I was just wondering because my father told me how he traveled to Georgia a few years ago and as soon as he opened his mouth they looked at him like he had 7 heads! All of this info does really make sense though.