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Did Americans in 1776 have British accents? (Suprising answer)

Posted on by prisoner6

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

Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?

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



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To: cripplecreek

“I’m a lifelong Michigan redneck. This is where my roots are and this is where I’ll die. Don’t ask me to leave because I’m too happy to play the role of bleeding hemmoroid on the butt of the liberals of this state. Its the greatest place in the world and I’m not giving it up.” I like your attitude!



by 161 posted onby BnBlFlag (Deo Vindice/Semper Fidelis "Ya gotta saddle up your boys; Ya gotta draw a hard line")

To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla

Actually, I almost flunked Latin in High School,lol!



To: Lucius Cornelius Sulla

I find him a total bore on both fronts! But then I’ve been forced to sit through a lot of Shaw...to me just a yakky old man.



To: dr_who

Don’t say that too loudly. Them’s fightin’ words. Seriously though, most Texans consider themselves Texans first, Southern second and American third.



by 164 posted onby Peanut Gallery (The essence of freedom is the proper limitation of government.)

To: JouleZ

Ain’t that the way you’re spose’d to say it? LOL!



by 165 posted onby BnBlFlag (Deo Vindice/Semper Fidelis "Ya gotta saddle up your boys; Ya gotta draw a hard line")

To: bboop

Glad you liked my home county. Yes, we are a bit of a Heinz 57....part Celtic; part Anglo-Saxon; part Viking. Never truly appreciated the beauty of Northumberland till I moved away...same with lots of folks I suppose. FRegards,



To: Churchillspirit

“Glad you liked my home county. Yes, we are a bit of a Heinz 57....part Celtic; part Anglo-Saxon; part Viking.” My family, the Sheffields, had always thought were were the ultimate Anglo - Saxons until we did DNA tests on many of our male family members. The results showed that we were actually descended from Vikings that had settled in England.

But I’m mostly Scots-Irish (due to intermarraige) or as you would say Ulster-Irish.



by 167 posted onby BnBlFlag (Deo Vindice/Semper Fidelis "Ya gotta saddle up your boys; Ya gotta draw a hard line")

To: Peanut Gallery

Maybe, but the last Bush presidency demonstrates that swagger alone isn’t enough.



To: Forward the Light Brigade

I think the accent from the area of Farmington Maine has the a pure and undiluted older New England accent. Not too many of them left alive



by 169 posted onby Chickensoup (There is a group of people who suck off the productive. They make rules then find infractions.)

To: BnBlFlag

Aint that the way youre sposed to say it? LOL! *********** Yup, that’s right and the beauty is we still understand each other. I love the twang and drawl. Someone should write a C&W song about that alone.



by 170 posted onby JouleZ (You are the company you keep.)

To: SunkenCiv; All

Re Ressians, years ago when we lived in NJ, my father told me of a group of people living on the north Jersey/PA or NY border called the Jackson “Whites”. He said these were AWOL Hessian soldiers who hid in the back woods and ended up marrying/? Indians and escaped/owned? Black slaves. Family history, my grandfather was a marine engineer in Bismarck’s navy. Apparently he did not like what he felt was the direction of Bismark’s policies, so he and my grandmother emigrated to the US, probably later 1880s. Here he served as chief engineer on several major ocean liners, and in WW1 had an important role in converting a big liner into a troop carrier. Bismarck may have kept peace for 40 years, but his aftermath resulted in the horrible bloodbath of WW1, which then resulted in WW2. Rather ironic that my grandfather in leaving what he thought was a bad situation, acted against it decades later.



To: prisoner6; SunkenCiv

I read somewhere, perhaps in a biography of a Duchess of Devonshire, that the English upper class was acquiring a drawl about the time of George III.



To: colorado tanker

That may explain some of the stagings I’ve seen of Shakepeare’s plays.



by 173 posted onby SunkenCiv (The 2nd Amendment follows right behind the 1st because some people are hard of hearing.)

To: gleeaikin

Bismarck also gave us the welfare state. As German Chancellor he wanted to head off the socialists’ calls for nationalization of industry. His idea was to found a welfare state provided health care, accident insurance and pensions if the socialists would leave the ownership of industry in the hands of the industrialists, his allies.



To: mjp

Yes, the source of the American accent is based on various regional accents in England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. Some of those regional elements still exist in the UK but they are not “BBC English”, so people don’t think of them as an “English accent”. What’s also interesting is that using “aks”/”ax” for “ask” can be found in Old English as well as Chaucer’s Middle English (it can be found in The Canterbury Tales).



To: FrankR

The "prone" position for proper typing that I learned in 1962 in Mrs. Johnson's typing class using a manual Underwood typwriter no longer applies in this modern world of computers You were in that typing class too?

The Remington's kicked ass, Underwoods were scrap metal, imo.



by 176 posted onby ARepublicanForAllReasons (Darn, lost my tagline... something about boarders, in-laws and bad language.)

To: ARepublicanForAllReasons

It was those little round typewriter erasers with a little green brush on them, and, correcting 4-layer mistakes using carbon paper that I hated the most.



Later in business when someone invented the IBM self-correcting Selectric typewriters with the little round element(s), and then copy machines that life got better. And now computers, where you can cut and past, is heaven for writing.



by 177 posted onby FrankR (You are only obligated to obama to the extent you accept his handouts.)

To: FrankR

where you can cut and past, ...cut and paste... LOL! When my mom brought home a spare IBM Selectric from her job at McDonnell-Douglas, I was in Heaven (well, sort of) when typing up term papers.



by 178 posted onby ARepublicanForAllReasons (Darn, lost my tagline... something about boarders, in-laws and bad language.)

To: ARepublicanForAllReasons

LOL I should have cut and PASTED that line, huh?



I used to do a newsletter using an IBM Selectric and typed directly onto memeograph stencils; having a complete set of 8 elements made it nice to have font changes...that was back in the late 60's.



by 179 posted onby FrankR (You are only obligated to obama to the extent you accept his handouts.)

To: prisoner6

Here is a link to many links of English- both English-English and American-English and a few others too (some Irish, Welsh). I was disappointed with the Lib of Congress’ though...



by 180 posted onby PghBaldy (Like the Ft Hood Killer, James Earl Ray was just stressed when he killed MLK Jr.)

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