I watched ‘Family Man’ (I am not sure if that is the title - it’s the one with Nic Cage in it) a while ago. The little girl who played his daughter had a very strange accent which emphasised the ‘w’ sound and a few other things. At the time I put it down to the fact that she (or her family - the Vegas) is from a south-American country.
But then today I watched ‘Big Daddy’. The little boy in that had exactly the same funny accent.
It’s difficult to describe, the best element of it I can describe is the over-pronunciation of the ‘w’ sound in words with the ‘w’ sound in them.
Does anyone know what on earth I am talking about? Or am I just mad.
I forgot to mentiuon - the Girl’s big sister (Alexa Vega - karmen from Spy Kids) has a perfectly normal accent. Which throws the family accent-trait theory out of the window.
Was it a matter of wh- words? White, whale…I can’t think of any others, but you catch my drift. Some people put some amount (as opposed to no amount) of emphasis on the h in the wh construction. And it may have something to do with their acting coaches, encouraging them to enunciate. Being young, they might do it a little over the top. Just a guess.
It’s a common “problem” among little children before they finally learn to speak properly. R’s and L’s come out sounding kind of W-ish. Like “never” becomes “nevuw” and “please” comes out “pweez?”
It’s a very cutesy thing, possibly brought on by American baby talk, which also heavily emphasizes w sounds like “awww…did widdo baby faw down and huwt himsewf?”
I understand that. But what these children talk like does not seem like a mere speech-impediment. Deadly Nightlight gave the best example so far - “welcome to orth” is exactly what she sounds like. And a child-bad-speech version would be “welcome to erf”
Maybe it is not-properly-learned-yet-speech thing, but it doesn’t seem like that, it seems like they are doing it deliberately. (btw I have no objection to it - it’s very cute)
British baby talk is exactly the same. And many old women talk that way to those little rats with squashed faces they call a ‘dog’
Probably the most pronounced type of that accent I’ve heard was a boy from Boston on Bill Cosby’s “Kids Say the Darndest Things.” If you’ve seen it, the boy was the one who had an opinion on anything and everything.
It seems to me that the cause of it was the falling out of baby teeth and the coming in of permanent teeth. That causes some kids to try to pronounce their words very very precisely. At least that’s my take.
E. Fudd