I highly recommend the History of English Podcast for anyone interested in this topic:
When did Americans lose their British accents?
101–110 of 110 posts
Re: When did Americans lose their British accents?
#102Tldr: rhoticity was the norm, but the prestige dialect became non-rhotic at a certain point.
Re: When did Americans lose their British accents?
#103Earlier 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…
also by Danish..where do you think Anglo came from? yes, the term is Roman for what they called brits but the actual group that was not Saxon(Saxon ie German Saxony) came from the middle of Denmark..
Anglia (which is currently in Germany) wasn't a Danish speaking region until well after the Angles settled in Britain. Which was well after the Roman period. They spoke Old English.
Re: When did Americans lose their British accents?
#104Original 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 would imagine that they're not talking about general North Carolina English so much as the dialect of the island of Ocracoke, which has a number of conservative features that date back to Shakespeare's day.
Re: When did Americans lose their British accents?
#105Erm. OK, but there is at least one Irish accent which is obviously similar to "generic American", but of all the UK accents none persist in the US, nor vice-versa.
Re: When did Americans lose their British accents?
#106I highly recommend the History of English Podcast for anyone interested in this topic: https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/
That is a delightful and informative podcast that gives historical trends and context to the exploration of the language.
Re: When did Americans lose their British accents?
#107[deleted]
Re: When did Americans lose their British accents?
#108I 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 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…
A modern example of English aristocracy speaking French is that English uses Anglo-Saxon words for animals, but French words for prepared food--which was very expensive. cow/beef pig/pork sheep/mutton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_with_dua...
Re: When did Americans lose their British accents?
#109While there were obviously many colonials who were English speaking and thus had an accent to lose, this article like many about that time and place in history fails to observe that English was by no means the only language in use and the reason we do not have an official language in this country today. My German-speaking family arrived on this continent before the revolution and only switched to English around 1898, as near as we can tell.
Re: When did Americans lose their British accents?
#110Earlier 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.
That's only one of the English accents in SA. There are many others including an RP-like accent (which I and my friends use), the Cape Coloured accent, and the accent which most of the country's people use (as seen initially in this video https://youtu.be/KfIvbVLuCh8?t=3)