61–70 of 110 posts
I read somewhere that the American accent is closer to what British was like in the 1700-1800s. Later the Queen's family, which came from a corner of England, established its accent as the norm. So the American pronounciation is original, and the British one changed in the meantime. Not sure if this is true.
Same with Canadian French.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the Queen’s family, which came from a corner of England First time I see Germany classified as “a corner of England”, lol. (To be fair, before the current crop, the English aristocracy spoke mainly French, and I guess France could be classed as “a corner of England” by people still a bit hung-up on the loss of Brittany...) RP English is heavily influenced by French and Germanic tones. Local dialects are very differ…
The South African accent has a much stronger Dutch influence (from Afrikaans), despite the language being English.
I read somewhere that the American accent is closer to what British was like in the 1700-1800s. Later the Queen's family, which came from a corner of England, established its accent as the norm. So the American pronounciation is original, and the British one changed in the meantime. Not sure if this is true.
The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson covers this pretty well. Along with covering many other quirks of the English language. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29.The_Mother_Tongue
I read somewhere that the American accent is closer to what British was like in the 1700-1800s. Later the Queen's family, which came from a corner of England, established its accent as the norm. So the American pronounciation is original, and the British one changed in the meantime. Not sure if this is true.
The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson covers this pretty well. Along with covering many other quirks of the English language. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29.The_Mother_Tongue
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not sure about these "facts". Why would quebec accent stay the same for centuries? Languages are unstable, especially their pronunciation. Consider also the extraordinary diversity of accents in uk. Did only one cross the Atlantic?
Smaller populations very reliably have slower-evolving language. Icelandic is similar to old Norse and old English. Just like you'll hear a lot of Iowan accents in Atlanta but not if you drive 80 miles outside of town. Believe it or not, there is an entire field called linguistics that studies human language and how it evolves.
In terms of lexicon, much of the archaic flavour is actually the result of 19th-century language reformers trying to restore old words. In the meantime, Icelandic had borrowed heavily from Danish.
Indeed, there is the field of linguistics, and scholarly treatments of Icelandic (as opposed to pop-sci presentations of the language as a time capsule like yours) point out that Icelandic has undergone a great deal of innovation like any other North Germanic language.
This is an interesting read but the article cites no sources for its claims. Even the claims that refer to linguistics debunking other theories have no citation. It also makes some suspect statements. I live in New England and saying that it is hard to find someone who does not have an accent that links them to some New England locale is just silly. Then there is the claim that the “general American” accent heard on…
My accent has faded in the ~two decades I've been away from Minnesota. But if you spoke to me in person you could identify where I'm originally from inside 3 seconds unless I was very careful in my word choices.
I suspect you're deaf to New England accents. I used to think people back home in the Twin Cities didn't have an accent. To me they sounded like the people on TV. It seemed like only the older folks or folks from rural areas had the Minnesotan accent. When I travel back to Minneapolis, I hear the accent. It's not "Fargo" level (although I've known people who talk like that), but it's clear and unambiguous.
Original pronunciation Shakespeare is a good example of this. It's performed with the sorts of accents people had in 16th/17th century England. To my ear as an English person, it sounds like a Westcountry accent, an example of an English accent which is still rhotic today. But other people might perceive it as being slightly American or Irish sounding.
When I first learned about these OP (Original Pronunciation) productions of Shakespeare, from a BBC news article on-line, they commented that it sounded like the English of North Carolina! If you are interested in this, I recommend "Pronouncing Shakespeare" by David Crystal. It documents how he worked with the Globe company on an OP performance of "Romeo and Juliet".
I read somewhere that the American accent is closer to what British was like in the 1700-1800s. Later the Queen's family, which came from a corner of England, established its accent as the norm. So the American pronounciation is original, and the British one changed in the meantime. Not sure if this is true.
This was because Bristol in particular was a major sea hub in colonial-era England, much moreso than London. As an interesting side note, Americans know the West Country accent as the "pirate accent" thanks to the 1950 adaptation of Treasure Island, where Robert Newton played Long John Silver and managed to convince the director to let him use his native Dorset accent because he thought it would be more historically accurate than the RP accent the director originally wanted him to do, and his portrayal was so iconic that pretty much every pirate story since has used some variation on Newton's accent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> and do it in a totally different accent from the original Take William Blake's The Tyger: Tyger Tyger, burning bright, In the forests of the night; What immortal hand or eye, Could frame thy fearful symmetry? How are we to know how the word "symmetry" was supposed to be pronounced by Blake? No-one has recorded his pronunciation. Did it rhyme with the word "eye" (as such words must have done several centuries prior)…
That's what professional students of linguistics are for. Presumably when you see multiple instances of a word or family of words being rhymed in a particular way by different authors of a particular place and time, you start to get a reasonable idea of how it was originally pronounced. Sometimes people also directly comment in writing about contemporary pronunciations.
Professional students of linguistics will say that the terminal -y was pronounced as "eye" in the time of Shakespeare; but by the time of Blake such pronunciation has already become obsolete. However, this doesn't help us distinguish between two possibilities:
- Blake's -y rhyme is purely visual and is no more than a nod to the tradition; it is not intended to be pronounced as /ai/, or
- Poems of that time used to be delivered in an archaic pronunciation, in which case "symmetry" actually rhymed with "eye".
I don't think linguists have an answer that would convincingly point to either of the two possible pronunciations.
Original pronunciation Shakespeare is a good example of this. It's performed with the sorts of accents people had in 16th/17th century England. To my ear as an English person, it sounds like a Westcountry accent, an example of an English accent which is still rhotic today. But other people might perceive it as being slightly American or Irish sounding.
Related, it's such a farce that people will recite and listen to some of the best-regarded _poetry_ in history, and do it in a totally different accent from the original, ruining its auditory aesthetic, and then say that people who don't like it are boorish and low.