When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents?

[guitarguru777]

Still funny as FUCK!

 

[jipchen]

Maybe because USA citizens are a results of years of immigrations from many parts of the world..and every people carries his own accent. Mixing people from different countries mixes also the 2 language etc...

+1. Interesting how the article managed to ignore this.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries-by-County.svg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries.jpg

You'd think it has at least some influence on how the language developed

 

[SocialNumb]

Probably cause most of what you watch is all the shit thats on BBC America, 98% of that is comedy based. Watch some real Brit TV and its very different.

I'm talking about shows like Skins, Psychoville, Peep Show and so on. According to IMDB stuff like on Channel 4 [uk].

 

[ratsapprentice]

"Innit" is more of a London/SW thing, it's generally (In a tv drama/fiction setting) used as a way of stereotyping a character.
In this case young urban people, usually to try and make them seem stupid.
I generally think of "Right?" as a US thing though.

 

[Uladyne]

+1. Interesting how the article managed to ignore this.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries-by-County.svg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries.jpg

You'd think it has at least some influence on how the language developed

That makes a lot of sense! I always figured (with no formal education on the matter) the American accent was more of a hodgepodge of different cultures influencing it through immigration, and I can definitely see German immigrants having a heavy influence on the rhotic nature of most American accents.

Edit: I also figured (again with no formal education on it) that in a culture with a lot of immigrants learning a new language in a new country, that words might hold a bit closer phonetically to their written form, (keeping the "R" sound in "car" for example) because someone learning a second language would likely be taught a more "standardized" pronunciation of each word, devoid of slang and "embellishments". A culture with fewer immigrant would probably have more "freedom" to embellish their shared language with different styles regionally, like Boston accents, ebonics, etc.

I'm probably totally wrong on this though, as many regional accents in the U.S. are obvious by-products of their immigrant population. (Creole sounds French, Some Northern Midwesterners sound, I dunno, Dutch or something, and some Mexican immigrants soften some consonants, like "Manayur" instead of "manager").

 

[Skinny Viking]

+1. Interesting how the article managed to ignore this.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries-by-County.svg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Census-2000-Data-Top-US-Ancestries.jpg

You'd think it has at least some influence on how the language developed

how the fuck is "American" listed as an ancestry?

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

Yeah, certain of us 'murrcans are hardly any better with the "every sentence is interrogative" thing, know what I'm sayin?

 

[SocialNumb]

Yeah, certain of us 'murrcans are hardly any better with the "every sentence is interrogative" thing, know what I'm sayin?

You're right. Specially in the hood. Personally, I don't ask a question unless I want an answer. I guess I don't need confirmation every time I say something.

 

[Uladyne]

how the fuck is "American" listed as an ancestry?

At first I was going to say it's for Native Americans, until I saw American Indians listed further down. So I have no idea, haha.

Maybe it's for all the REAL AMERICANS, who were here waving the Red White and Blue before the Injuns started squatting on their land being savages until reinforcements came in on the Mayflower and helped us put up some Walmarts.

 

[jipchen]

how the fuck is "American" listed as an ancestry?

I have no idea either hahaha. Mel Gibson and Chuck Norris perhaps?
Or it's just the people who are too stupid to figure out where their ancestors are from

 

[Skinny Viking]

^ yeah, I'm going with option #2

even funnier is seeing where they are most concentrated

 

[ratsapprentice]

Nice, we can shovel the blame on the Germans then

 

[StefTD]

come on, we fucked ourselfs more than once

 

[ratsapprentice]

come on, we fucked ourselfs more than once

Watch what you say about our Royal Family.

 

[vespiz]

OT Question: Why does it sound like there's an "r" at the end of "idea" in BE? I've noticed this only recently (in the last 5-10 years). "I have no idear."

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

The only way we'll know the truth on this stuff is with a time machine.

 

[ratsapprentice]

OT Question: Why does it sound like there's an "r" at the end of "idea" in BE? I've noticed this only recently (in the last 5-10 years). "I have no idear."

Again. There is no such thing as a British accent.
The first accent I can think of that would pronounce it that way is West Country.

 

[Boerboel666]

There are two accents that have always seemed to my ears at least to sound like they have had an impact on the American accent , Irish and West Country English . Australian accent on the other hand I have no idea .

 

[Soundlurker]

OT Question: Why does it sound like there's an "r" at the end of "idea" in BE? I've noticed this only recently (in the last 5-10 years). "I have no idear."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linking_and_intrusive_R

 

[Mattayus]

this.

Over a very small geographical area accents in the UK can change to the extent where people have to make a conscious effort to speak in a way that will be understood[1]. This is the byproduct of a 1000 years of relative stability and minimal movement allowing local speech to diverge. By contrast, american history is a relatively short history, dominated by movement and population mixing, creating a more uniform accent.

Quite simply, to refer to the so-called British accent is a misnomer.

[1] The ability to do this is a byproduct of modern education, you don't have to look far in to the past to find literature describing conversation being impossible between people with particularly distant accents in the UK.

In a nutshell, this ^
I find it amazing how I can drive half an hour up the A1 (that's a road, by the way) and it's a different accent to my home town.