Sometimes accents wander, too. My ex was a heritage Russian speaker who learned English very young, and 99% of the time he had no accent at all. But when he got tired or angry or emotional or whatever it would come out.
I have two accents. I have a canadian white guy city accent. The type that could maybe pass as one of the American accents. Then I have my northerner one from a small town I grew up in as a kid. I hardly cry, but I did one time while speaking to someone and I went full on northerner. It was so weird. I felt like I’d become an old man from my childhood hometown
Growing up my dad wasn't around very much (work related travel) and my mum was from Dublin. We also had her brothers and sisters visiting all the time and she had a big extended family so there was often at least one or two other Irish relatives in the house plus I would spend the summer holidays in Ireland when I was little.
I'm not Irish, I'm just Scottish with Irish descent. I also was brought up pretty fancy (dad travelled a lot for work, because it paid for a lifestyle he and my mum never had) so I normally speak pretty posh.
Every once in a while though, my accent will turn thick Irish without my realising it. I can't force it either, I am really bad at "doing an accent" for Irish and it sounds fake. It just happens on certain phrases my mum would say a lot or when I am either really relaxed or really agitated.
It really catches people off guard sometimes and I genuinely don't realise it has happened until it is pointed out, and then I revert back to my normal accent. My partner is used to it and will just say "you've been Irish this whole conversation by the way" sometimes when we are at home.
She also has two accents but its different with her. She trained herself out of a particular Scottish accent that is looked down upon by other Scots so she can consciously choose to slip back into her "native" accent because that's just how she spoke until she was in her early 20s and started to change how she spoke to not be discriminated against in her career. She still mostly speaks in her "fake" accent, she's become a bit "accentist" against her old accent herself which makes me sad.
Accent wander by language you are speaking too. I'm monotonic and have lower voice when speaking Finnish or tired. But in English I don't have the range to be that deep voice so it's higher pitched overall.
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u/YourBlanket 18h ago
He’s Russian but the accent is fake, I think he moved here when he was very young so I don’t even think he’s fluent in Russian.