Does linguistic accent derive from repetitively copying neighborhood people, or directly copying one person..?

Question

If one person had an odd way to talk and others just copied it.

Answer 1

Normally neighbourhood people, but if you talk an awful lot with that one person, it could certainly have an effect.

My husband has two accents in French, a Quebec one that he uses in Quebec or with Quebec people and a Swiss(ish) one that he uses in Europe or with Europeans. He grew up in Quebec but his parents have only Swiss accents. When we were living in Quebec my daughter had the Papa accent and the everyone-else accent in French but since we moved to Switzerland she's lost the Quebec one at least for now. My dad is from England and I feel my sisters and I can "do" his accent quite well (unlike most of our Canadian friends/husbands) but it's not "our" accent at all.