Anyone else have a drifting dialect?

[ronnieM]

I don't know if it has any relation to the speech part of my autism, but it seems like my dialect changes/drifts/rotates subconciously a lot faster and more than anyone else I know.

It's mostly english dialects, but sometimes the pronunciation sways to scandinavian and germanic languages since i was learning some at one point.

They usually change out between a week and a month or two and come back a few months later.

It's like I don't have a central dialect and it just happens without me actively controlling it.

Does this happen to anyone else???

 

[Kittyinpink]

I don't know if it has any relation to the speech part of my autism, but it seems like my dialect changes/drifts/rotates subconciously a lot faster and more than anyone else I know.

It's mostly english dialects, but sometimes the pronunciation sways to scandinavian and germanic languages since i was learning some at one point.

They usually change out between a week and a month or two and come back a few months later.

It's like I don't have a central dialect and it just happens without me actively controlling it.

Does this happen to anyone else???

Not so much anymore.. I often imitate other accents and mannerisms very quickly. Also if I have just read a book in a different accent to mine (including Shakespeare ) I find myself actually thinking in that accent.. very embarrassing if I happen to be drunk in public!

 

[Zeke]

I don’t know about a drifting dialect, but I have definitely noticed a shrinking vocabulary lately. If this continues I may be reduced to using 5 words over and over for the rest of my life!

 

[sdweasel]

They usually change out between a week and a month or two and come back a few months later.

That does seem pretty quick. I have limited experience, but I've have some evidence that this happened when I was younger. Moving away from home for a year, literally across the country, people quickly became unable to tell what region I was from based on accent/dialect. When I returned I got a lot of comments about how differently I spoke.

I always chalked it up to being a social chameleon and emulating local mannerisms so I didn't stand out, but who knows.

 

[ronnieM]

That does seem pretty quick. I have limited experience, but I've have some evidence that this happened when I was younger. Moving away from home for a year, literally across the country, people quickly became unable to tell what region I was from based on accent/dialect. When I returned I got a lot of comments about how differently I spoke.

I always chalked it up to being a social chameleon and emulating local mannerisms so I didn't stand out, but who knows.

For me though, I rarely go anywhere (especially in covid times) and haven't moved out of my home city for my entire life, so yeah, i'm not sure why this happens to me.

 

[nezquic66]

Sometimes my accent will become more Midwestern, almost a Wisconsin/UP accent. I’m from northern Ohio.

 

[Schwanensee]

It took me ages to (mostly) lose my German accent when speaking English, but now it depends a lot on who I spend time with. While I was in Taiwan I spent a lot of time with Americans, so my accent shifted slightly that way (not a lot though, I still got people thinking I'm Dutch). Then I went to visit my Scottish friend and stayed with her for a while, and now I sound a bit Scottish, which has proven to be quite stubborn. I'm sure if I facetimed my American friends more, it would shift back.

 

[perlFerret]

Sometimes my accent will become more Midwestern, almost a Wisconsin/UP accent. I’m from northern Ohio.

My MIL just moved to coastal Oregon. She has the absolute WORST UME accent ("Ya, der! Hey, donchaknow!") It's was comical the one trip we took out there with her a few years ago when nothing was said to my wife or me about accents but everyone pointed at my MIL and said, "You're from Wisconsin, right?"

FTR, I'm originally from Virginia but never picked up any sort of accent from there, either. I tend toward a very mild UME accent but, like the OP, shift between Germanic, Norwegian, and Irish or Scots for some odd reason.

 

[perlFerret]

It took me ages to (mostly) lose my German accent when speaking English, but now it depends a lot on who I spend time with. While I was in Taiwan I spent a lot of time with Americans, so my accent shifted slightly that way (not a lot though, I still got people thinking I'm Dutch). Then I went to visit my Scottish friend and stayed with her for a while, and now I sound a bit Scottish, which has proven to be quite stubborn. I'm sure if I facetimed my American friends more, it would shift back.

I have Brother who is an ambassador to Northern Ireland. He visits every six months and for two weeks after he returns each time, he sounds like he's still there.

 

[Kaliborio]

I don't have a drifting dialect, but I am autistic and have typically had an out-of-place accent. I started with a pretty much incomprehensible mumbling Queensland drawl. As I had more contact with my family (who are of British origin) into my early adolescence, that shifted hard toward an English Received Pronunciation accent. I realised I wasn't fitting in at school, so I tried to smash it back down to a Queensland accent around the time I graduated. Now, to Queenslanders around me, I sound like I'm from Victoria (around 1,800 km away).