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The accent humans would have if they moved to Mars, explained by scientists
When humanity finally leaves Earth to colonize the moon, and even Mars, what will their accent be like? Thats exactly the question Professor Jonathan Harrington hoped to answer.�
In the (hopefully) near future, humans will break through the atmosphere to live on other planets. Naturally, those outposts will evolve into societies, and with it come innate cultural, biological, and psychological differences between them and their distant ancestors.�
Accents develop over time
With Venus and Mercury simply too hot, and Jupiter being made of gas, a natural assumption is that our descendants will settle on our moon and eventually Mars. While life would look starkly different on either of those floating rocks, scientists believe it will one day be doable.�
One facet of the future that is often overlooked is how humans will sound compared to their contemporary counterparts. Speaking to Live Science, Harrington, who is based at the University of Munich in Germany, shed light on how new accents emerge over time.�
“We remember the sounds and words of a conversation, and these can have a small influence on the future way that we speak, he explained. This is why friends who live abroad might sound different when they come to visit.
Essentially, when humans are isolated from a group of people for some time, they will begin to mimic each other with their own unique twang. This, over time, creates entirely new accents.�
Back in 2019, Harrington put this theory to the test by shipping himself off to Antarctica with researchers from various parts of England, Iceland, Germany, and the U.S. Northwest. After a winter together, they began noticing distinct differences in the way one another spoke.�
How will our accent change on Mars?
“Exactly the same thing should happen in any environment in which individuals are isolated together over a prolonged period, whether this is in Antarctica or in space,” Harrington said. “In fact, accent change should be even greater in space because contact with the home community is even more difficult.”
Over generations, the accents of the colonists would develop further until their accents were entirely new and different from our own. Thats unless they come up with a completely different language!
