If you’re born in a certain country you will speak in that native accent. But what’s the science behind acquiring a new accent or vice versa?
In: Biology
Every language has rules about his sounds are used. These rules are most easily internalized while young. These aren’t written rules, but linguists will use systems to understand these phonological rules. We use the same rules in the process of reading and writing, incidentally.
The phonological rules change from languages to language. As someone already pointed out, when you are born you have the potential to use all the different sounds used in an languages. As you grow up, your caregivers make sounds at you, and they respond to the sounds you make in return. That way you learn which sounds are important to notice. You organize the way sounds are used in the language you use to communicate. Those organizations become the rules you use to produce and perceive speech.
You can learn the phonological rules of a new language, just like you learn it’s grammar and vocabulary. Sometimes, you need to be explicitly taught the rules.
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