As kids, our favorite shows had a lot of influence on our behavior.
I remember being absolutely obsessed with The Big Comfy Couch , so much so that I would starfish out on my carpet and pretend I was a giant clock, just like Lunette the Clown.
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We’ll never forget our childhood heroes.
The show Peppa Pig has been particularly influential in recent years.
Airing in 170 different countries and in 40 different languages , Peppa Pig is seen by a lot of children worldwide.
The show stars Peppa, an anthropomorphic pig with a British accent who embarks on various adventures and learns valuable lessons alongside her family.
One 2-year-old took a very particular liking to Peppa.
Meet Penny, a typical Canadian toddler learning new words at lightning speed.
Brianna Bell didn’t think much of her daughter’s obsession with Peppa Pig , until she noticed that Penny was beginning to sound distinctly different from the rest of her family.
The child was using British phrases and pronouncing certain words with a British accent, just like Peppa Pig.
“My friend from Britain turned to me one day and said, ‘Do you realize your kid speaks with a British accent?'” Bell explained to CBC . “‘Yes, I’ve noticed. It’s all thanks to Peppa Pig!’ I laughed in reply, my cheeks pink in embarrassment”
Penny’s entire vocabulary carried “a slight Peppa inflection.”
She used words that were commonly said by characters on Peppa Pig such as “tomato,” which sounded like “toe-mah-toe,” or zebra, which she pronounced “zeh-brah.” Words like “Popsicle” became “iced lolly.”
The television show had shaped Penny’s perception language, and at such an impressionable age, it didn’t take long for the accent to stick.
Brianna isn’t the only parent experiencing this phenomenon.
So many North American children have adopted a British accent from the show that Romper writer Janet Manley dubbed the phenomenon ‘The Peppa Effect’ .
“My niece has never left Georgetown Ontario but she sounds like the Queen” one Twitter user reported.
At the time, Brianna was unaware of the study, and thought that Penny was a special circumstance.
“I wish I had other parents to compare stories with” Brianna said, “to confirm that I wasn’t the only one raising an oddball Canadian kid with a British accent.”
Scientifically, it makes sense for children to mimic the voices and sounds that they hear around them.
Rebecca Thompson, a speech pathologist based out of Guelph, Ontario, explains that kids are responsive to feedback, so if their parents are encouraging the way they speak, they’ll continue.
“If the language they are learning comes from a source with a British accent and British dialectical vocabulary differences, they could pick that up.”
Penny has since grown out of her ‘Peppa Pig phase,’ but her mother looks back on it with nostalgia.
“She went back to speaking like a typical Canadian kid, adopting the accent and inflections of her peers and our family became a fully Canadian-sounding family again,” Brianna explained.
“A few years ago I would have never thought that my daughter would stop calling training wheels ‘stabilizers,’ but now it feels like eons ago that she spoke with her sweet Peppa accent.”
If you’re a parent whose child has caught onto the Peppa Effect, you don’t need to worry. Afflictions like this are perfectly normal, and as your child grows to have other influences, they’ll grow out of the accent too.
h/t CBC
