There was a fascinating documentary on the history of English that ran on PBS a few years back.
It traced the development of English from Chaucer’s England to the present day, and made some predictions on the future.
The regional dialects in England are VERY pronounced. Often the local accent shifts markedly if you go just a few miles. The East Cost of the United States started out in a similar way (Boston, NY, Philly, Baltimore, etc.) But as populations moved west they intermixed, until the dialects on the West Coast were fairly homogenous.
The final episode predicted that the future of English will be determined in India, due to the sheer number of speakers (1.3 billion). So someday we may ALL be doing the needful.
I remembuh...the first time I visited the state of MAINE....
the accent I had never heard befoh.
Thanks!
English in England is odd. Your accent carries a lot of class and status markers that just don’t apply in the same way in America. With the exception of Ebonics and extreme backwoods southern accents, we just don’t assign class and status by accent the way the Brits do.
So when we watch a British TV series, a lot of the undercurrents of interactions between characters are based on their accents, which goes zooming right over our heads. They all just sound “English” to us. With probable exception of Cockney, which most Americans can spot.
Interesting point. Australians sound like Americans to Brits, and like Brits to Americans.