When did Americans lose the British accent?

Originally posted by Skyfloating

Originally posted by Astyanax
Of course French is much easier to read than speak...but theres also something in the French mentality that doesnt WANT to understand a foreigner...

Tell me about it. I play in a band that's all French except for me and the rhythm guitarist (who's Welsh). They're really decent and civilized and polite and speak English as much as they can because they've got two English speakers in the band -- but Llyn's and my French has improved a hell of a lot more in the last nine months than their English has. Fact.

[edit on 23-10-2007 by Astyanax]

Originally posted by wigit
Sometimes when I hear the Irish accent I think for a minute I'm listening to an American. I'm Scottish and if you heard me you would probably have no idea what I'm saying and I am speaking English BTW.

I can easily believe it.

My wife's from the Lake District - I could understand her 100% from the start, but a Geordie or a Scot just puzzle me. We had to have a translator for some Scot engineers once - he swore we were both speaking English but I wasn't getting one word in four at first.

OTOH I have no problems with Irish, probably because we're only about three generations removed from the "ould sod" and I have living relatives who mostly speak Irish at home.

I'm Danish. and the fact English is my second language, I contribute to American massmedia, the Vietnam war, and that films, soup or anything on television don't get synchronized. We just have to learn it, if you don't wanna read subtitles.

My desire to learn English -more than they taught us in school- originated in wanting to know what Elvis was singing, and more critical what Bob Dylan actually sang. That coincided in time with all the draftdodgers fleeing the VN war, seeking asylium in Denmark and making quite a scene there. I've learn any American accent to desre, but most of all I've dug, tried to imitate the Mid-west accent of Bob Dylan. Americans have been my closest friends throughout the past 40 years.

Do other contries have varying accents? Australia for instance. Can you immediately tell where someone is from?

Becker

Even a small country like Denmark, in size equal that of Conneticut, Massachsets and Rhode Island, has its distingt dialects from Copenhagen to far West Jutland.

My old geography teachers was good at anecdotes, and one was about Juttish fishermen going on the North Sea were able to speak their dialect tongue to their Scottish counterparts, and be understood, as they would understand the Scottish dialects spoken. No one outside the region in Denmark would hardly understand a word.

Nowadays telly is the great equalizer, making sure in another generation we'll all understand eachothers devaluated dialects.

For myself I always had an ear for language and music. I can tell from one word spoken, like "Maybe!" if its a Scandinavian, German, French or Latin speaking the word, as the distinction beetween a Brit, a Yankie, or an Aussie is all to prominent.

I've been singing and playing guitar for 40 years, and what I first thought completely impossible, to sing in Danish with a 'bluesy' feeling is perfectly well possible. For my English singing I started out imitating Dylan and the hillbilly slang, but today I find when I sing those songs I do it in a tongue that's my own. Partly Western accent with a pronuanced ozzie flair and some vocal connotations in single words from the swamp added in for effect.

My old English teacher would spank me for the English I speak today. Sometimes I can stop and think: the only English I don't speak, is English English.

Fact, on a BA flight I have a hard time to understand the stewards - as they have me.

Philadelphian here.
So, we get the cross walk, Ne Englanders and Southerners.
I am told I talk "white" whatever that mean. I figured out that it mean I speak correctly.
I have been told I sound English..
But I am pretty sure I don't
Living where I do now, there is a stronger Dutch influence, even though Philadelphia has it's "Germantown" it has been a while since it was a town of Germans.
The only areas that have "accents" (aside from the ghettos, which I attribute to laziness.. "scrimp = shrimp".. shudders" are University City.. Think straight Valley.. Du-uh, not Like, San Fernando. Hello, like.. DELAWARE Valley.
The North East, (large Slavic contingent there) And South Philly.. Lots and lots of stereotypical Italians.
Oh, and Society Hill. I think you can imagine how THEY sound, lol.
But as for accents.
I think we all have one.
I am pretty good with accents and languages. I can tell if you are Ozzie/New Zealand or British, though I can't tell the difference between NZ and Ozzie.. I haven't been exposed to enough of them.
I am pretty good with the Eastern European languages, though I confess, telling the difference between Russian and Ukrainian is impossible for me, though a friend tried to slip me up with a friend of her, and I knew on the nose.. Romanian, lol.

About the adding R.. I DRIVES me crazy. I came close to banning Angelina Ballerina, because of the AngilinER, ballerinER Queen SerafinER, WTF!!
I will say that any one who has read James Herriot's books will have an appreciation for the myriad dialects of the United Kingdom. Though most of his clientel were from Yorkshire, there was a host of other's.
All of that being said, I love it when my friend of St Paul calls. I simply can't get enough of her accent, and I just HAVE to hear her say Minnesota. Which comes out MeeniSsooda.. I blame the Swedes, lol.
My spanish, I have to say is pretty good, but it would seem that I speak SPANISH spanish, and my Puerto Rican friends will say in a heart beat, you talk like you rich. I am guess it is the spanish version of talking white.
But here is what is interesting, my Mexican, Cuban, and Dominican friends all say the same thing, lol.
I once picked a Frenchman off the highway. He spoke little English, and my French is now shot so we talked in a mix of French, English and Spanish, lol. He said I have a beautiful accent. He was lying.
I have been around far too many Haitians for me to have a pure French accent anymore. Especially since most of the Haitians I talked with were not from Port Au Prince, but back up in the mountains.. creole at it's most patois-ish.
I do know that if I spend time with someone with an accent I am the one that walks away sounding more like them. I have decided it is my way of trying to make them feel more comfortable.Though I do confess, I find accents to be fascinating, even when I can't understand a word they saying, lol.

Well Welsh is a Brittish accent and is another language, I have cousins who live there and speak Welsh. You have no idea what they are saying and it's only 200 miles away (although they all speak English too). Gaelic is another Brittish language, I think that we have a huge range of different dialects here too, all in the space of a few hundred miles. The ("general") American accent is most like the irish one here (GB) imo.

Originally posted by wigit
Hilarious stuff. Let me know if you need a translation.

He's saying something about needing more power for the warp engines.

Or was it something about wanting to swim through his gold coins?

Perhaps he'd like to eat a baby?

I stink

I'm at least a 5th generation Georgian, on my mother's side.
and I have an accent.
I'm part Scottish, German, Irish and Cherokee and probably British.
(Not too much of any of those)
Every generation picks up new ways to say things, and adds that to thier vocabulary.
My mother still says "Fiddle!" when she gets mad.
I listen to myself on a recording and I'm shocked by my thick accent,
but I am not ashamed of being from the south.
I told this to many people, There's a difference between White trash and a Redneck, I don't care what Jeff Foxworthy says about it!
Whitetrash won't work and a Redneck has a redneck from WORKING outside!
I was watching a show on discovery channel, and
they were showing some fishermen from Nova Scotia, or somewhere close to that, and they sounded just like people from Georgia!

reply to post by FalseParadigm


Ive always wondered why I feel an urge to imitate accents, why I derive such joy out of it. You being similar...what is your explanation? Joy of shapeshifting? Making others feel more comortable?

Also...do you believe in the myth that us language-enthusiasts lack in other areas?

For anyone saying Americans are dumb since they can't fake other accents, look at the movie Grease. They had to change the script to make Olivia Newton John's character come from Australia since she was never able to make a convincing American accent, and she's a trained actress. Many American actors/actresses have been able to do other accents very well.

[edit on 10/24/2007 by djohnsto77]

reply to post by Skyfloating

I think it is a bit of making someone feel a little more comfortable, because we all feel better when are around people that remind us of home.. It is an animal instinct thing..
But I also know it is a joy of shape shifting thing. I like to be "not me" sometimes, and that takes many forms within me, from role playing, to actual acting. Sometimes I am on stage, and my audience is the general public.. I have embarrassed my friends so badly by acting completely "ghetto", or thoroughly posh at their neighborhood super markets, for example.
I also write, and putting on an accent helps me to understand the person that I am writing about. Once I was writing a story based out of the West Indies, and so I had this Brit islander thing going on.. I was mentally working through a part, and was deep in the characters head, when this guy asked me a question, and I responded in my characters voice, lolol.

I don't know what those myths are, and what we are supposed to be lacking. I can honestly say I DO have self confidence issues, and being able to put on a character, role play, whatever.. They help me to deal with that,
I think that being a language enthusiast also helps me to get out of a ME mind set, to see better where someone else is coming from. It helps me to understand someone else, I think. Especially when that person comes from a vastly different background and upbringing than I do.

[edit on 10/25/2007 by FalseParadigm]

Heh, this is such an interesting topic. On one of my six-month loops traveling around Europe I spent my last two weeks in London and I was surprised that I had developed some kind of strange amalgamated European "accent" (temporarily) because people acted shocked when I told them I was from Miami (Fort Lauderdale, really, but nobody's heard of it abroad.) So I can definitely agree with the point someone made about picking up an accent during a long trip! Heh, I also have a friend who speaks in what I can only describe as a strange Australian accent when he's had too much to drink.

Oh, and just to be clear, people in South Florida don't have anything resembling a southern accent - we like to say about Florida - "the further south you go, the further north you get." Probably because everybody from New York comes down here to retire . Which is also kind of interesting because you get a much more mid-westerner accent in the southwest because that's where they tend to go to retire.

I think it's a big simplification to say we lost our "British" accent at any particular time. The country wasn't founded solely by Britons. People came from every country in Europe - heck, "New York" was originally "New Amsterdam." So you're also combining non-English English speakers' accents into the eventual mix. Not to mention "spelling" as we know it didn't exist until fairly recently, so you come up with all kinds of non-standard usage.

Great topic!

ive just read this thread and there are lots of interesting ideas on here!
firstly, im from england, a town called wolverhampton and we speak with a black country accent (think similar to ozzy osbournes brummy accent).
i think the nearest accent to the average american accent is a dutch person speaking english-but without the shh in certain words! i dont think the irish accent is represented in the american accent as there are so many irish accents that are very coarse (ulster, dublin).
again, when i hear a new england accent, i dont hear any irish-i think it sounds more english. the new york accent is a strange one, maybe thats what you get when you mix a large irish and italian group of people together and throw in some dutch!
aussie/new zealand accents sound similar to me, but why didnt they go on to sound american? both countries had a lot of british and irish settlers there just like the usa but ended up with a different accent!
in britain alone, there are hundreds of different accents and dialects so how many are there around the world?
my fave accents are from the southern states of the usa, when i hear a southern belle speaking i go weak at the knees!
on the other hand, i hate any accent when people speak and the pitch of their voice goes higher the longer the sentence goes on
regards
stellamanna

The way english was pronounced in the united states morphed over time due to the inclusion of pronunciation techniques of various languages all over the world.

There were so many europeans and others that came into the mix that the overall sound of the language adopted a flavor that was kind of a mix between the way classic english is pronounced, and how people who spoke english as a second language pronounced it.

reply to post by Becker44


august 11th, 1811

reply to post by Becker44


i used to wonder this too but i came to the conclusion that it's just harder to distinguish in many cases with singers. i have heard a few singers that are clearly british. listen for words like "all". the thick uk accents might make the short 'a' sound more like a long 'o'. this example tends to be more noticeable in song.

I went to England for a year. When I first got there, everyone knew I was from America. A coupe months into it, it was never mentioned. I talked to my family back home and they said I picked up the accent. To me I sounded normal, they thought I Was faking it, but being around it, you pick it up.

When I went back to america, for a few months everyone though Iw as from England, I had the accent, but eventually lost it being here again.

I do not think it is that far fetched. America had people from all over.
Not just England. So they could have intertwined to form what we have today.

Ama

I think the answer is simply this.
As 1st generation Americans learned to talk, they picked up on the mixed accents of British, German, Irish and so on. By the time the 2nd generation was born, i.e George Washington, they were talking with the typical "broken" accent.
As they had kids the accent stabilized into something more regional.

It happens today. Just ask your Grandfather to tell you a story. Compare your accent and his. It's similar, but not the same. Like Brits and Yanks, close but still not the same. Now compare your kid's accent to your Grandfathers.
Now its now so hard to imagine how the American accent began.

Also, this might help. If you're the child of British parents and you were born and raised in America, you will NOT have a British accent. You'll have the accent of the region you were brought up in.

I'm Scottish and yet find it easier to sing in an 'American' accent than in my own tongue. These guys (link below) are from Fife (about half an hours drive from me) and I have to really concentrate to sing along in a Scottish accent.

uk.youtube.com...

My sister moved to the US 26yrs ago and within 6mths had an American accent.

When I took my kids to Florida on holiday, we'd just got off the plane and my oldest asked me why I was talking to the custom's guy like his auntie in Michigan.

On my way home from Germany, a girl presumed I was German and struck up a conversation with me, I didn't speak German and she didn't speak English but we talked for hours while our flight was delayed. There were a lot of hand gestures but I was amazed at how many German words were almost identical to the Glaswegian dialect.

After a 20 min phone conversation with an Austrailian BT operator, I was apparently talking in an Austrailian accent...

Language is really interesting


[edit on 2-9-2008 by cazzy2211]

Originally posted by an0maly33
reply to post by Becker44

 

i used to wonder this too but i came to the conclusion that it's just harder to distinguish in many cases with singers. i have heard a few singers that are clearly british. listen for words like "all". the thick uk accents might make the short 'a' sound more like a long 'o'. this example tends to be more noticeable in song.

It must all seem that you don't know you have an accent, as I have never heard any British accent turn the 'a' into an 'o'.

Just as I would presume Americans don't realise that to alot of British people (and supposedly others of course) The thae word 'all' often comes out as 'al'. Depending on whihc part of America the speaker comes from.

So we also hear our own accents, and accents which we are used to speaking with different.