TTL News 313 Posted October 23, 2021 Quote English colonists established their first permanent settlement in the New World at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, sounding very much like their countrymen back home. By the time we had recordings of both Americans and Brits some three centuries later (the first audio recording of a human voice was made in 1860), the sounds of English as spoken in the Old World and New World were very different. We're looking at a silent gap of some 300 years, so we can't say exactly when Americans first started to sound noticeably different from the British. As for the "why," though, one big factor in the divergence of the accents is rhotacism. The General American accent is rhotic and speakers pronounce the r in words such as hard. The BBC-type British accent is non-rhotic, and speakers don't pronounce the r, leaving hard sounding more like hahd. Before and during the American Revolution, the English, both in England and in the colonies, mostly spoke with a rhotic accent. We don't know much more about said accent, though. Various claims about the accents of the Appalachian Mountains, the Outer Banks, the Tidewater region and Virginia's Tangier Island sounding like an uncorrupted Elizabethan-era English accent have been busted as myths by linguists. Read the rest here. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Andy 70 Posted October 23, 2021 That’s a question I can say I’ve never ever thought of 1 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
MsKreed 1,199 Posted October 23, 2021 1 hour ago, TwinTiersLiving said: As for the "why," though, one big factor in the divergence of the accents is rhotacism. The General American accent is rhotic and speakers pronounce the r in words such as hard. The BBC-type British accent is non-rhotic, and speakers don't pronounce the r, leaving hard sounding more like hahd. Before and during the American Revolution, the English, both in England and in the colonies, mostly spoke with a rhotic accent. If I'm reading this correctly, this makes it sound like they believe it was the Brits whose accent changed, not Americans. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Chris 2,200 Posted October 23, 2021 5 hours ago, MsKreed said: If I'm reading this correctly, this makes it sound like they believe it was the Brits whose accent changed, not Americans. That’s how I read it as well. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Kevin 342 Posted October 24, 2021 A YouTube video by a linguist is so awesome when it talks about this topic. I will find it and post it below. It is just s small portion of a bigger presentation and I would like to find the full one, but never have. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites