The kids said something the other day that I thought was revealing. We were talking about how people talk and the kids asked “Do we have an accent?”
Of course our immediate response is to say “No”. We assume that our way of speaking is normal. It is always the others that have an accent. But after thinking about what any of our non-American English speaking friends would say, we realize there is such a thing as an American accent. After thinking twice, we said, “Yes, perhaps we do after all. At least, other people are sure that we do even if we don’t recognize it as an accent.”