The reason Meghan Markle has apparently picked up an English accent

"Speech is a living thing."

Meghan Markle has only been officially living in the UK less than a year but some people seem to think that she's picked up a bit of an English accent. The duchess, who has arguably just married into the poshest family in the UK, was overheard speaking to members of the public in what some thought was a new accent while on walkabout in Cheshire in June.

Meghan Markle’s got a case of the Madonna! She’s now speaking with a British accent! It happens! Have you heard Lindsay Lohan talk lately? ? pic.twitter.com/sexMnNlglc

— Perez (@ThePerezHilton) July 6, 2018

Speculation around her accent hasn't gone away since then but according to one expert, it's natural that the way Meghan speaks is changing. "It’s absolutely normal for a human being to take on the accent of the people around them when they want to belong to that group,” dialect coach Pamela Vanderway told The Guardian. “Accents are one of the ways human beings identify as being part of a group. She is representing the royal family, so she’s part of England. "So there’s a particular pull for her to take on that way of speaking [and] she may or may not be taking it on consciously.” It's not just moving to a new place that can effect someone's accent, she added. The way we all speak changes over our lifetime. “Prince Charles himself, if you look up his first television interview ever, his accent has changed. “Speech is a living thing. It’s not locked down.”