[Stoat]

Thought that this might be of interest :-)

From the article:

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The New York accent, with its dropped Rs, is "absolutely from British English," says Kara Becker, a Ph.D. student at NYU who is writing her dissertation on New York City English. Londoners began to drop Rs around the end of the 1600s, according to Michael Newman, associate professor of lingusitics at Queens College.

The East Coast is referred to as the "R-less corridor" by linguists, and other coastal cities have accents with features in common with New York, like Boston and Charleston, S.C. Those cities "were settled around the same time, and the speakers came from a certain place" — South London — "using a certain type of British English," Becker says.
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Do you think that dialects and accents in the U.K. have been going through similar changes as what the article refers to as occurring in New York?

[manc]

yes I do .most certainly.

In Salfor when I was growing up the generation before me spoke with a more Lancashire accent and still do.
That is to say they would speak more things like up yonder and have more of a drawl.

Now I have a more of a salford /manc innner city accent and now the kids have more of a scouse accent where there’s a k is more pronounced.

As for the R, well in Manchester it is known that we do not pronounce them like other parts of the UK, for instance I manchesta , new orda.

When I had to live in Boston there were folks saying in Boston that I was getting a Boston accent when in fact we never said the R in the first place

that is about the best I can describe the change

In London or east London the pakisatni’s there have changed the accent to more of a pakistani cockney accent which is quite bizarre to how a Englishman cockney speaks

[manc]

also I think that accents are fading due to more and more folks moving on mass.

for instance in FL in the southern part there is hardly a southern accent due to the mass migration by yankees where as the part of FL I am in St Augustine is much more southern and so is the north part of the state, though some gated communities which popped up over the last 10 years have seen some migration into this area now too .

Sadly I say that as I hope this part of the state keeps it southern charm as best as it can and not become another south FL which is all manicured, , all the same look alike ,all houses are 5 ft from each other with no space or garden gated communities.