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Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

nicholasjohnpatrick.com

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Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#41

Post by ErrantX »

mahmud wrote: post #3

Which explains why we can understand Aussies and Kiwis, but a random Nigel from the UK would have a speech that baffles. It boggles the mind how two people from different corners of London have different accents. Not to mention Manc vs Scouser vs the myriads of tongue-twisting nasal hiccups uttered all over them Shires. It's like they almost take pride in differentiation. Throw an international party and the two UKia…

Try being a Brit without an accent. It's so bloody boring I have to fake the Queens English to get laid. ;)

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#42

Post by mahmud »

ErrantX wrote: post #41
mahmud wrote: post #3

Which explains why we can understand Aussies and Kiwis, but a random Nigel from the UK would have a speech that baffles. It boggles the mind how two people from different corners of London have different accents. Not to mention Manc vs Scouser vs the myriads of tongue-twisting nasal hiccups uttered all over them Shires. It's like they almost take pride in differentiation. Throw an international party and the two UKia…

Try being a Brit without an accent. It's so bloody boring I have to fake the Queens English to get laid. ;)

Bring that accent to America and you might land yourself an endorsement contract with a condom maker.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#43

Post by philwelch »

From the article:

Americans in 1776 did have British accents in that American accents and British accents hadn’t yet diverged. That’s not too surprising.

Really? Because that surprises the hell out of me. Americans were an ocean away from Britain for maybe a century before 1776, and the accents still hadn't diverged?

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#44

Post by bocajuniors »

davidedicillo wrote: post #8

I always been fascinated by accents and dialects, coming from a very young country like Italy, built on top of thousands of city-states, where it's enough to drive 30 minutes to encounter a completely different dialect and culture.

I read somewhere that before 1960 less than 50% of italians spoke Italian.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#45

Post by barredo »

jacquesm wrote: post #11
Rod wrote: post #7

Interestingly, it's also hypothesized that Brazilian Portuguese is closer to Portuguese proper 500 years ago than Portuguese proper today. The fact that the Portuguese spoken in former Portuguese colonies in Africa sounds more Brazilian Portuguese than Portuguese proper suggests the hypothesis is right. Moreover, Portuguese poetry of the Renaissance period only makes sense phonetically if spoken with a Brazilian acce…

Same for Spanish, Spanish as spoken in Colombia is very crisp and precise, Spanish spoken in Spain much less so.

Also, like in UK, you can find like twenty different accents only in Spain. Even in Canary Islands, with 7 main islands, have huge difference between them.

Not to speak of Catalonia, Basque Country, Andalusia, Madrid, Zaragoza or Galicia (closer to Portuguese).

Spain has now 6 official and co-official languages: Castilian/Spanish, Catalan/Valencian (Catalonia, Balearic Islands, Valencia, South of France), Basque (Basque Country and Navarra —Pamplona—, South of France), Galician (Galician and nortwest Castille), and Asturian (Asturias/Leon) and then Occitan (North Aragon, North Catalonia, South of France).

Also, in Melilla and Ceuta (Spanish cities in North Africa) there are two "branches" of arab that are in the process of becoming co-official, "dariya" or "moroccan arab" in Ceuta and "tamazig", some sort of antique Bereber language in Melilla.

So, that's 8 languages, also Portuguese and a myriad different accents in a peninsula with less the area of Texas.

Edit: Bereber is older than arab, so it's not an 'arab branch'.

Edit2: Add English to the list, as official language spoken in Gibraltar (UK colony).

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#47

Post by jrnkntl »

liedra wrote: post #24
sgt wrote: post #16

Here in SA we are very proud of how much better (and some may say more poetic) Afrikaans sounds than Dutch. But hey, that is a very subjective opinion indeed :-)

As a non-Dutch speaker living in Belgium, I find Flemish much nicer to listen to than "real" Dutch too. :-)

As a native Dutch-y I must upvote both of your comments. Afrikaans sounds more logical than the contemporary Dutch and Flemish sounds softer and 'more sweet' (to me :)

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#48

Post by Rod »

barredo wrote: post #45
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same for Spanish, Spanish as spoken in Colombia is very crisp and precise, Spanish spoken in Spain much less so.

Also, like in UK, you can find like twenty different accents only in Spain. Even in Canary Islands, with 7 main islands, have huge difference between them. Not to speak of Catalonia, Basque Country, Andalusia, Madrid, Zaragoza or Galicia (closer to Portuguese). Spain has now 6 official and co-official languages: Castilian/Spanish, Catalan/Valencian (Catalonia, Balearic Islands, Valencia, South of France), Basque (Bas…

Thanks for shedding light on this. Almost all Americans fail to realize that there's no such thing as a "Spanish language". There are many of them, Castilian being the "official" one (it's what it's written in the Spanish Constitution anyways). One could, perhaps, call them all Hispanic languages, since most of them (Basque is the notorious exception) are derived from Latin from the times of the Roman province of Hispania.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#49

Post by Mark_Book »

bocajuniors wrote: post #44
davidedicillo wrote: post #8

I always been fascinated by accents and dialects, coming from a very young country like Italy, built on top of thousands of city-states, where it's enough to drive 30 minutes to encounter a completely different dialect and culture.

I read somewhere that before 1960 less than 50% of italians spoke Italian.

yessa de rest spoka de broken english

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#50

Post by hugh3 »

ErrantX wrote: post #41
mahmud wrote: post #3

Which explains why we can understand Aussies and Kiwis, but a random Nigel from the UK would have a speech that baffles. It boggles the mind how two people from different corners of London have different accents. Not to mention Manc vs Scouser vs the myriads of tongue-twisting nasal hiccups uttered all over them Shires. It's like they almost take pride in differentiation. Throw an international party and the two UKia…

Try being a Brit without an accent. It's so bloody boring I have to fake the Queens English to get laid. ;)

What does "no accent" mean? How can anyone not have an accent?
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