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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?

#111

Post by Gormo »

mahmud wrote: post #20
wwortiz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your typing comes off with a very thick accent, something you don't find often online.

Oh, a funny American. Did you get that humor in a legal settlement? -- Edit: Let me add that what you're noticing is probably my staccato diction, filled with code-words and verbal winks to deliver mild amusement to an invisible audience of masochists who I love oh so very much. Cultural and linguistic banter might not be appreciated in these "learned" circles; but to the objects of my affection, the working classes…

Much, much beer.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#112

Post by Gormo »

mahmud wrote: post #22
detst wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but which one? He says "us Somalis", "...the U.S (we...", mentions in his profile that he lives in Northern Virginia but also calls Sydney home yet the diction (i.e. "shopkeepers", "Chavs", "piss-taking", etc.) of his post screams British to me.

Napoleon called the English "a nation of shopkeepers".

He intended it as an insult; the English, in his mind, were too concerned with the practical matters of life and not at all with grand visions and ambitions.

This is also the man who said "You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bonfire under her deck? I have no time for such nonsense."

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#113

Post by Gormo »

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…

Why is it that whenever I hear Brazilians speak, I think they are speaking Russian?

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#114

Post by Gormo »

thinker wrote: post #25

I'd agree with the analysis that English is closer to how its spoken in the US today accent-wise. If you look at how people speak English in British colonies, the pronunciation isn't heavily accented to how its spoken in the UK today. For example, South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh).

I've heard more than a few Indians speak in an accent that very close to Scottish.

Caribbean English accents also remind me of Scottish.

I wonder if there were certain areas of the British Empire that had disproportionate Scottish influence.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#115

Post by waterlesscloud »

barrkel wrote: post #39
wildjim wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seem to remember a statistic where UK is reputed to have a greater number of dialects than any other country in the world, which probably has a lot to do with the difficulty people have with understanding some accents (tried Glaswegian, anyone?) Also, IIRC, the colonies tended to have a commonality in heritage of the colonists, too. E.g. at one time, Australia had a "large number" of criminals, there are quite a lo…

Ireland has a distinct accent for almost every county too. The fine differences can be subtle, but sampling Cork/Kerry sing-song, Northern Ireland ("Norn Iron"), northside / inner city Dublin and Dublin 4 / southside are all quite different range in the spectrum.

The US has a large number of distinct accents. I'm originally from Georgia (Atlanta, not Tbilisi) and there are at least 5-6 accents in that state alone. I'm willing to bet a trained specialist could narrow down someone's origin pretty closely. The idea of a "southern" accent is very, very broad.

The thing with US accents is that we're a very mobile country. People move around and lose much of their accent. I lost a lot of my own living in Atlanta, which is over half non-Georgian, and then a lot more living in California the last decade or so. It's there, but only in traces. A lot of Americans are the same...

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#117

Post by andrewf »

Scriptor wrote: post #110
bbgm wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Many of us who do speak English as a first language ( or are very fluent in it) are definitely closer to RP but for those who pick it up TV etc have a huge influence and that is getting more American

It's interesting how South Asian English uses many British words as well (such as "dustbin" instead of the American "trashcan"). I was young enough to relearn the American words when I moved to the US. However, it's still the British words that I use when English occasionally pops up in my native language.

Australians tend to use a funny mishmash.

Cars have boots (not the American trunks), but they're smaller than trucks (not the British lorries).

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#118

Post by weeksie »

JacobAldridge wrote: post #75
weeksie wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hrm. I never noticed a large difference until I left. Now that I'm in NY I can usually pick someone's state right away. Folks from Melbourne have the most pronounced accents, I reckon. Something about how the 'e' becomes all elongated when they Melbourne, it sounds like 'Mahlbourne' to my Sydney-sider ears. The difference is probably about as pronounced (if not moreso) as the difference between a middle class non-reg…

You can always tell a Victorian, you just can't tell him much. As a Queesnlander, I find South Australians easiest to pick, slightly more refined vowel sounds, although my fellow cane toads do stand out when I'm at work in Sydney or Melbourne.

Heh, I've always thought that South Australians are like the Liverpudlians of Oz, accent wise :)

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#119

Post by hetman »

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…

Funny you should say that. I saw someone post a link from an Aussie comedy show on another site. Apparently most of the Americans couldn't understand half of what he was saying, which surprised me because while distinctive, it's certainly not the thickest I've heard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suVxmPpyR9s

Edit: My experience (and that of other Aussies traveling to America) seems to be that you have to slightly Americanise the way you speak to be understood easily.

Re: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

#120

Post by csbutler »

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 don't know much about how the American accent arose. But from what I know about the Australian accent, it apparently arose in the first generation of children born in the country.
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