It’s no secret that kids parrot sounds and phrases that surround them. It’s a trait that teaches them how to act like humans, but it can become annoying when they’re modeling these things after an animated pig that snorts every other sentence.
Janet Manley, Senior Features Editor for Romper and mother of two, explains the toll that “Peppa Pig” has had on her family. She writes that after a 21 hour flight from New York to Australia, her kids had adopted Peppa’s British accent. “She was calling me ‘Mummy’ and finishing her sentences with Peppa’s trademark snort.” Cute? “Two years later, she still oinks in conversation. Call it the Peppa effect.”
The article mentions other parents who’ve also experienced this effect. In fact, there are hundreds of them all over social media.
Is watching Peppa Pig making US children talk with British accents?
This is Oliver Smalley, a three-year-old boy, who has picked up the British accent after watching the popular children’s TV show https://t.co/CcVI5F6XEv pic.twitter.com/UcGigdv9tn
— ITV News (@itvnews) February 12, 2019
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Roberto Rey Agudo, the language program director at Dartmouth College, tells Romper that the rise in young Peppa Pig accents is due to Peppa’s incredible popularity. “Peppa Pig has been such a phenomenon with the 2 to 5-year-old crowd,” he says. This is also conveniently the age when kids start to develop their accents, making it the perfect moment for the Peppa effect to strike.
If you’ve never seen an episode of “Peppa Pig,” here’s a little taste of what these poor parents are going through:
