Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Did Americans In 1776 Have British Accents?
Common Sense Evaluation ^

Posted on 12/02/2017 9:17:33 AM PST by gaggs

Have you ever wondered if the Founding Fathers spoke with a British accent? I know I have. Well here is the answer.

The typical English accent didn’t develop until after the Revolutionary War, so Americans actually speak proper English. Here comes the science.

(Excerpt) Read more at commonsenseevaluation.com ...


TOPICS: History; Reference
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 141-155 next last
To: Larry Lucido

Gunner loves grief. It is a rare day he shares opinions. Usually pretty good actually, but don’t tell him I said that. Would not want to ruin the cloud on his silver lining.

Seriously, blogs and news is what FR is all about...


41 posted on 12/02/2017 10:35:32 AM PST by American in Israel (A wise man's heart directs him to the right, but the foolish mans heart directs him toward the left.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: Yaelle

African influence in the south for whites is some words mostly about food

More than accent

Except wiggers

French accent in South is of course north central gulf coast and remnants maybe from Huguenots in the Carolinas

Higher southern accents in Deep South morphed from second and third son folks wanting to sound more Gentry and others following suit

Country southern just didn’t bother

Country accent and southern overlap but are largely class or self motivation defined

Mathew McConahey or Sela Ward is higher southern accent

Billy Bob Thornton or Waylon is country

Elvis is higher thanks to momma


42 posted on 12/02/2017 10:35:36 AM PST by wardaddy (As a southerner I've never trusted the Grand Old Party.....any questions?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: SoCal Pubbie

Re The Californians: Agreed!! They NAILED us on the constant freeway route conversations. I died laughing. But not everyone speaks that Valley speak or Kardashian vocal fry (still enough doing the latter to annoy me terminally). Their accents didn’t quite get it.

Probably none of the early film stars were from here. Probably few of the grips, best boys, secretaries, and hookers were from here. But it’s hard to hear what people sounded like back then except for recorded interviews of famous people.


43 posted on 12/02/2017 10:42:10 AM PST by Yaelle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: wardaddy; gaggs

There’s linguists who believe that some American Southern accents are closer to 1776 British speech than modern British accents are.


44 posted on 12/02/2017 10:42:27 AM PST by Pelham (Rope. Tree. Journalist.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 37 | View Replies]

To: Redbob
Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America (America: a cultural history)
45 posted on 12/02/2017 10:45:25 AM PST by Pelham (Rope. Tree. Journalist.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: gaggs
Cockney Star Trek
46 posted on 12/02/2017 10:47:07 AM PST by P.O.E. (Pray for America)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: wardaddy

Thanks for those delineations. I just don’t have enough exposure to know. I love the Southern accent and it (generic) gets such a bad rep up here. I don’t know what accents prevail in Charleston but going there 4x a year really exposed me to that delightful speech. It is the only city I’ve ever felt I might be rude in. I check myself and wonder if I was nice enough. Doesn’t happen anywhere else.


47 posted on 12/02/2017 10:48:41 AM PST by Yaelle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 42 | View Replies]

To: Yaelle

John Wayne was born in Iowa but moved here pretty early and graduated from Glendale High. Fellow Trojan Buster Crabbe was born in Oakland but grew up in Hawaii before going to USC. There were so few people here in those days that almost everyone was from somewhere else.


48 posted on 12/02/2017 10:52:05 AM PST by SoCal Pubbie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: squarebarb

That is very cool. I bet you are right. That amount of distance, they were both more isolated populations, so that identical sound came from whence they both came!

I watched the Harrison Ford movie The Witness (about a murder in Amish country) before and after I lived a decade in Switzerland. I was stunned the second time I saw it to actually understand the Amish. They are still speaking Swiss German!


49 posted on 12/02/2017 10:53:22 AM PST by Yaelle
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 39 | View Replies]

To: Fiji Hill; laplata

Washington grew up where the Tidewater/Piedmont Virginia accent was found. Still is in pockets. “You all” is common there rather then “y’all”.


50 posted on 12/02/2017 10:57:13 AM PST by Pelham (Rope. Tree. Journalist.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Pelham

Several years ago it was a documentary about the development of the English language throughout history. I think it was this one:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_English

There was a mention of an island I believe in South Carolina where there had been more limited interchange with surrounding areas over the years and the accent stated pretty much the same in the last couple of hundred years. The narrator said that this accent was probably closer to what the British spoke during the revolution than the British themselves today. I did not see this shown on the episode list, but I’m pretty sure that this was the series I remember.


51 posted on 12/02/2017 10:58:51 AM PST by SoCal Pubbie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 44 | View Replies]

To: Pelham

Thanks.

There are still at least one area where British English is still spoken. I can’t remember where but think it’s in the area you mention.


52 posted on 12/02/2017 11:01:34 AM PST by laplata (Liberals/Progressives have diseased minds.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: Fiji Hill
Many of the first settlers of Southern California were Southerners. There was a good amount of pro-Confederate sentiment in Los Angeles and San Diego. However, the New England and New York settlers in Northern California were more numerous, and the Golden State stayed in the Union. These migration patterns persisted after Appomattox. Clint Eastwood’s ancestors came from New York to the Bay Area after the Civil War. General George Patton’s grandfather migrated from Virginia to Orange County, California in 1877.

The Midwestern predominance in California occurred after the railroads developed fully. Good self promotion by Southern California chambers of commerce attracted huge numbers of Midwestern people looking for a new life in a better climate. The parents of John Wayne and Richard Nixon came to the state from Iowa and Ohio, respectively, for that reason in the early 1900s. Sam Yorty, the last conservative mayor of Los Angeles, came from Nebraska. Waves of Northeasterners after World War II, blacks, Asians, and most notably Hispanic, changed the character, and unfortunately the politics of California again. Orange County, where a 1960s era GOP candidate once joked he joined the John Birch Society to get the middle of the road vote,was carried by Hillary Clinton last year. Barry Goldwater carried the county in 1964.

53 posted on 12/02/2017 11:01:51 AM PST by Wallace T.
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: SoCal Pubbie
You’re an SC fan right?

Yes, I am--I have a master's degree from there.

54 posted on 12/02/2017 11:03:23 AM PST by Fiji Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: Pelham

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxVOIj7mvWI&t=112s


55 posted on 12/02/2017 11:07:52 AM PST by laplata (Liberals/Progressives have diseased minds.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: SoCal Pubbie

You are probably thinking of Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay.

There’s also the Gullah dialect of the South Carolina-Georgia coast, it’s a black dialect that preserves some very old English forms.


56 posted on 12/02/2017 11:12:09 AM PST by Pelham (Rope. Tree. Journalist.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 51 | View Replies]

To: laplata

I detected what sounded like a British Cockney accent in some of the people in the video I sent you.


57 posted on 12/02/2017 11:13:06 AM PST by laplata (Liberals/Progressives have diseased minds.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: Pelham

I detected what sounded like a British Cockney accent in some of the people in the video I sent you.


58 posted on 12/02/2017 11:13:56 AM PST by laplata (Liberals/Progressives have diseased minds.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: WMarshal
Try listening to the epic poem Beowulf spoken in Old English. It sounds epic but I cannot understand a damn word of it. Listening to it it makes me feel like I had a stroke and lost my English, it sounds so familiar like you should understand it but you cannot.

The same goes for the Lord's Prayer in Anglo-Saxon, which is available on several Youtube sites. Even though Anglo-Saxon is an earlier form of my native English, I understand the Lord's Prayer less in that language than I do when reading it in Italian, which I have never studied.

59 posted on 12/02/2017 11:15:15 AM PST by Fiji Hill
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 27 | View Replies]

To: outofsalt
I like to remind people that if George Washington had not defeated Lord Cornwallis in Yorktown in 1781 we would still be speaking English in this country.

And we'd all have bad teeth...

60 posted on 12/02/2017 11:16:57 AM PST by COBOL2Java (John McCain treats GOP voters like he treated his first wife)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-80 ... 141-155 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson