“Peppa Pig” has inspired children all over the United States to act British and speak with English accents.
According to parents in the United States, the popular children’s cartoon Peppa Pig is changing the way their children speak.
The British show has always been popular, but children have been exposed to it more since the COVID outbreak, when parents desperate to keep their children occupied while working and attending Zoom calls relied more heavily on “Peppa Pig” as a babysitter.
According to The Wall Street Journal, one California mother recalled her child speaking to her in a British accent and asking, “Mummy, are you going to the optician?”
During the lockdown, her child had watched numerous episodes of the hit children’s show, which is now regularly topping global viewing rankings.
Dominique Parr, a parent, shared a TikTok video of her 3-year-old daughter Hazel repeating lines from the show. The video went viral, receiving over 10 million views and support from parents whose children were adopting a similar accent.
According to Parrot Analytics Ltd., Peppa Pig is one of the world’s most popular cartoons, ranking second on their charts for the past year, just behind SpongeBob Square Pants.
In a statement, the owners of Peppa Pig Entertainment One Ltd. said: “Young Peppa fans see her as a friend…and, as we do with friends that we admire, pick up some of their characteristics. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” it added.
At the height of the pandemic last year, Amazon Prime Video made Peppa Pig – along with a selection of other family-friendly content – available for free streaming after schools were closed to combat the coronavirus outbreak.
A user on Twitter said, “I have a kid who spoke with a British accent for a year and a half because of Peppa.”
“The story about Peppa Pig making kids talk like they’re British is really funny to me, because my kid watched it when she was like 4 or 5 and for quite some time she had a little British accent and I thought it was hilarious,” another user wrote.
