One such piece of wisdom is, "A child learns to speak by listening to its father." This is a really profound statement when you think about it. Tonal inflection, word choice and even the passion with which something is spoken from the mouth of a child for the most part comes from listening to the parents. If the parents continually use vulgar, four letter words, this is what the child's vocabulary and speach will be peppered with. If the parents use kind supportive words in their speech to the child and others this has a greater poswsibility of being picked up the child. Children born in the north but raised in the south, or born in the usa but raised by parents who have a German inflection, most likely will pick that up too.