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losing my accent?

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Could I be losing my Canadian accent after a combined total of five years abroad?

The Boy and I were watching a video about elephants playing in the snow. When selecting the video from the search results on Youtube, I thought maybe it would take us to the snowy slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro. But amazingly, the bit was filmed in Rockton, Ontario—the small town in Canada where I spent my summers, running around on the gliding field where my father was a pilot.

Or as the videographer put it, "deep in the back woods of Rockton".

Anyway, in this video the announcer has an voice that I consider relative accent-free: she sounds, I suppose, the way I hear myself speak. According to a profile on the reporter, she grew up in a town where I lived for two years. But the zoo-keeper interviewed in the piece has such a strong Canadian accent that I can actually hear the alleged "oot" when she says "out". Such as at 0:36.

It may be that I've been gone long enough and spending so much time with newcomers to English (Japanese, Chinese, Germans, Indians, even Australians) that I'm starting to develop some sort of un-Canadianized accent.