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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?

#61

Post by barredo »

Rod wrote: post #48
barredo wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 His…

Well, Castilian (Castellano) is Spanish, and Spanish is Castilian according to definition. Although all of them are 'Spanish languages' because they are languages spoken in Spain.

I guess difference, if we call it that way, between Spanish and Castellano as terms, is the similar of English and British. Right? I'm not sure, but I guess they are close.

Check this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Castellano-Espa%C3%B1ol.pn...

* Blue: Places where it's mainly called 'Spanish' (Español)

* Red: Places where it's mainly called 'Castilian' (Castellano)

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#62

Post by stretchwithme »

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…

Languages evolve too but much more quickly. The British who came to America spoke the same dialects of course, but this changes in one generation.

We pick up the dialect of the people that we are exposed to as we learn speech, so likely back then family was more influential then now, especially if you lived in the country.

And, of course, how we speak was influenced by the native population. I grew up near the Onondaga Reservation in New York and probably speak a bit like the people who live there.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#63

Post by saint-loup »

stan_rogers wrote: post #29
joe_the_user wrote: post #5

As I recall from an article in Time a while back, the Southern American accent is the most authentic representative of the pre-revolutionary war accent. The Northern American accent has been changed more by waves of immigrants (especially those coming in the 1890-1920). I've heard that the French-Canadian accent is closer to pre-Revolutionary French as well. It seems that those areas with the least upheavals are wher…

Canadian French is actually close to what is (or was, at least until shortly after WWII) spoken in Normandy. Our soldiers were better able to communicate with the locals on D-Day than even the Free French. "Standard" French was once just the local dialect of Isle-de-France, a small region including Paris, but "French", even in France today, is but a loose collection of mutually-comprehensible dialects. Canadian Frenc…

>>> but "French", even in France today, is but a loose collection of mutually-comprehensible dialects.

That's simply not the case. A lot of effort has been made by the French Republic to spread the standard french language (mandatory school with class in french, even for kids speaking regional dialects). Nowadays, there are still local expressions and idioms, but the vocabulary is quite homogeneous.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#64

Post by detst »

mahmud wrote: post #58
wwortiz wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See now I can't tell if you are trying to be funny or a dick, but what I said I meant in no way to offend you. Your previous comment did indeed come off with an accent (I wasn't even trying to be funny).

And this is exactly what I meant by "piss-taking"; your comment was such a delightful jab, I was pleased to play along :-) I stopped short of scratching others as well, my gut response was to say "Did you divorce a German and take half her humor in settlement." That would have gotten an ovation from the English crowd, but could have confused you and other festive yanks in this victorious of all occasions! Happy 4th o…

I can't speak for him but as someone that had the exact same thought, here's the problem: it's not a "delightful jab" at all. You misinterpreted it and then went on to say things in a way that could be easily taken as being a dick or an internet troll.

I have a sense of humor and will laugh at just about anything but the written word does a poor job at conveying subtleties. If you want to be interpreted as "piss-taking" and not another internet troll, you need to do better.

EDIT: How does this get down-voted? I'm simply saying he misinterpreted a comment and then was himself misinterpreted. If the point of "piss-taking" is just to have a little fun then I would think that it would follow that it be relatively clear that's what you are doing. Clearly that didn't happen on both sides here.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#65

Post by philwelch »

martey wrote: post #57
philwelch wrote: post #43

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?

I do not think it is that surprising. Being part of the same political entity, there should have been a decent amount of intermingling and cross-travel in both directions. There was a NYTimes op-ed today about colonists from Massachusetts who returned to England to fight in the English Civil War in the mid-17th century: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/opinion/04tinniswood.html

On the other hand, transatlantic travel was far more time-consuming, unpleasant, expensive, and difficult then than now. If you couldn't afford it outright, one-time passage was worth years of indentured servitude even if you were from a rich country. While the odd rich American aristocrat like Jefferson or Franklin could travel to France for a few years serving as a diplomat, and a group of Puritans could commission a ship to take them across for their latest religious crusade, transatlantic travel can't have been that common.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#66

Post by sprout »

philwelch wrote: post #43

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?

Most of the population growth was fed by immigration, and most Americans traded regularly with British merchants even after 1776.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#67

Post by bvi »

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. :-)

Is there really that much of a difference between Flemish and Dutch?

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#68

Post by lkozma »

hugh3 wrote: post #50
ErrantX wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Speaking with "no accent" is the same like not speaking in a dialect: it means you speak the dialect which has become the "official" one.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#69

Post by Rod »

barredo wrote: post #61
Rod wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 His…

Well, Castilian (Castellano) is Spanish, and Spanish is Castilian according to definition. Although all of them are 'Spanish languages' because they are languages spoken in Spain. I guess difference, if we call it that way, between Spanish and Castellano as terms, is the similar of English and British. Right? I'm not sure, but I guess they are close. Check this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Castellano-Espa%C…

I understand the definition Castellano = Spanish, as it simplifies a lot of things. The danger of such definition is that it overshadows the other languages spoken in Spain. The definition British English = English proper is one thing, but British = English is another, as it obscures the fact that there are other languages spoken in Britain and, thus, is somewhat "imperialistic".

In any case, I have never met a Spanish person who said "I speak Spanish" in Castellano. I have heard Spanish people saying that in English, because most foreigners are somewhat ignorant about Spain and think that the country is all about toros y sevillanas, a monolithic, homogeneous block, culturally and linguistically, which is far from the truth.

Disclaimer: I am Portuguese.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#70

Post by davidw »

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.

Here in the Veneto, the former Republic of Venice, the dialect is still very alive and well, and in many situations is more prevalent than Italian. And it really is quite different than Italian in many ways:

"She's a beautiful girl"

Italian: E` una bella ragazza.

Venetian Dialect (at least one version of it): Xe na bea tosa.

Lots of words change, and even the grammar a bit. Indeed, with many italian "dialects" it's quite likely that they evolved from Latin on their own, rather than there being some standard "Italian" that then diverged.

It's really amazing, too, how much it changes over short distances - I can't hear it myself, I don't speak it that well, but you can ride an hour by bicycle from here and people recognize that you're from over there...

Edit: another good bit of dialect would be appropriate for the comment by Mark_Book below, "xe un mona".

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