Isolated for Six Months, Scientists in Antarctica Began to Develop Their Own Accent

The model used recordings made before the winterers left to simulate what might happen to their accents as they spent time together. Their prediction was unerringly accurate, even if it did exaggerate the effects compared to what happened in real life. The winterers themselves wouldn't have noticed either as they happened over time. But when the so

One of those changes was the "ou" sound in words such as "flow" and "sew" that shifted towards the front of the vocal tract. They also saw some of the winterers beginning to converge in the way they pronounced three other vowels.

they discovered that the pronunciation of some of the words had changed ever so slightly. What they were seeing was the beginning of a new accent emerging.