Posted on 10/09/2010 8:08:47 AM PDT by prisoner6
The typical English accent didn't develop until after the Revolutionary War, so Americans actually speak proper English. Here comes the science.
Reading David McCullough’s 1776, I found myself wondering: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents? If so, when did American accents diverge from British accents?
The answer surprised me.
I’d always assumed that Americans used to have British accents, and that American accents diverged after the Revolutionary War, while British accents remained more or less the same.
Americans in 1776 did have British accents in that American accents and British accents hadn’t yet diverged. That’s not too surprising.
What’s surprising, though, is that those accents were much closer to today’s American accents than to today’s British accents. While both have changed over time, it’s actually British accents that have changed much more drastically since then.
First, let’s be clear: the terms “British accent” and “American accent” are oversimplifications; there were, and still are, many constantly-evolving regional British and American accents. What many Americans think of as “the British accent” is the standardized Received Pronunciation, also known as “BBC English.”
The biggest difference between most American and most British accents is rhotacism. While most American accents are rhotic, the standard British accent is non-rhotic. (Rhotic speakers pronounce the ‘R’ sound in the word “hard.” Non-rhotic speakers do not.)
So, what happened?
In 1776, both American accents and British accents were largely rhotic. It was around this time that non-rhotic speech took off in southern England, especially among the upper class. This “prestige” non-rhotic speech was standardized, and has been spreading in Britain ever since.
Most American accents, however, remained rhotic.
There are a few fascinating exceptions: New York and Boston accents became non-rhotic, perhaps because of the region’s British connections in the post-Revolutionary War era. Irish and Scottish accents are still rhotic.
If you’d like to learn more, this passage in The Cambridge History of the English Language is a good place to start.
Sources:
■American English, Rhotic and non-rhotic accents, Received Pronunciation - Wikipedia
■The Cambridge History of the English Language - Google Books
I was born in Texas, but we left when I was a baby. After that, I never ventured below the Mason/Dixon line.
When we moved to Georgia in the mid-90’s, I was horrified to find that I couldn’t understand *anybody*. For the first two weeks, my mom took on the role of translator as I tried to get our electricity turned on, phone hooked up, garbage collected, etc.
It only took me a couple of months to get the hang of it, now I can barely hear a difference. Weirdly, I occasionally slip and let loose a Southern accent myself. Without even realizing it, I was involved with “language immersion”.
“But then, if you had gotten the point, you wouldn’t have changed into Captain Spellcheck...would you?”
Touchy, touchy, your humor meter is not turned on this morning, is it. Are you suffering from the Obama thin-skinned syndrome?
I pronounce it in the good ole American way - Julius Caesar. Not with a hard C. But like most Americans I tend to pronounce foreign words as they are said in the language of origin, although I tend not to use Latin pronunciation.
My favorite Brit-speak: the Italian film director Pasolini (Pass-O-Lini) is pronounced Pass-AHL-oni in Great Britain. Truly dreadful.
But think of all the translator’s jobs that would be lost!
Ebonics translators or, something this classic “accent” translator from “Bananas”
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF-AcR14Km8
The problem in all “proper” English definitions is the “useage” in dictionaries. It’s like people using the word
“floundering” when they mean “foundering” Because it’s used it’s there- due to social purists in the dictionary world. Doesn’t mean it’s very intelligent per se, just commonly used. Ebonics unfortunately could become “useage”
and trash talk accepted. I regard all of this like entering a foreign country.
That's exactly the way I describe South African English.....very tough to understand.
Largely the result of mass media. There are still certainly pockets with deeply rooted accents, but we all watch the same TV shows.
American actors now do brilliant British accents; just check out all the David Hare plays that come to B’way with American actors playing Brits. The training for accents in both the USA and Great Britain has improved drastically over the last few decades. We’ve come a long way, baby since the days of Dick Van Dyke (Mary Poppins) and Laurence Olivier’s awful American accents!
Unfortunately, in my past actor days I was truly terrible at accents. No ear.
Ahhsss hooole! BBC twitlet personage
Maggie Gyllenhaal in "Nannie McPhee Returns" did fairly well.
That’s because it’s Dutch Boer accented English. Like listening to German expats who haven’t spoken German in a while, speak English.
The article makes the mistake of assuming there was/is a single British accent and a single American accent.
The pirate accent (heavy on the “r”) is alive and well in the small towns of Devon and Cornwall, UK. (Well, 20 years ago it was).
Hear various English accents recorded from the 1950’s through the ‘70s:
http://sounds.bl.uk/Browse.aspx?category=Accents-and-dialects&collection=Survey-of-English-dialects
I once heard a radio interview with the British actor Patrick Stewart. They asked him something about his younger days and he said, "Ah, yes, I was an assle then."
I once heard a radio interview with the British actor Patrick Stewart. They asked him something about his younger days and he said, "Ah, yes, I was an assle then."
Beat me to it.
I have no clue what the author means by an American accent. Cross state lines, or for that matter from inner city to suburbs, and you're listening to a different accent.
If you don’t pronounce it ‘Yoolius Kayser’ you are guilty of perpetuating one of those English mispronunciations you are railing against.
The only way I can think of that this mispronounciation could have come about is if some English person who had never heard Latin being spoken just read the name as he thought it looked and passed this error on to others. The change in pronounciation could only have come about as a result of confusing the hard and the soft uses of the written letters ‘j’ and ‘c’...
And BBC types and humorists like to make fun of internal regional accents as well, as in this bit of fun from the old
UK TV’s the Fast Show-—”We’re Cockneys!”
Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BV8KfpE3BA
LOL!
The United States of America, and the United Kingdom, two nations separated by a common language.
Where opportunities for confusion abound.
The reference in the article about the upper classes adopting the non-rhotic speech makes me think of NPR. Why do they use so many people with “British” accents? Do they think it lends credence to their propaganda?
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.