Did American English pronunciation come from Britain? Did George Washington sound more British or American?

Answer 1

Well, no one here was around to listen to Washington, but I suspect that after 150 years of settlement, our pronunciation had already diverged significantly from the Brits. Languages are living things that change constantly. Isolation speeds up change. Look at what happened to Latin: today it's become Italian, Portuguese, French, Romanian, Spanish.

Early colonists came from different regions of England and brought their own dialects with them. And in the U.S. there are hundreds of dialects, which you may not notice unless you travel around the country. Both vocabulary and pronunciation vary from place to place. There are areas in Appalachia that still speak a dialect dating back to the time of Shakespeare.

We tend to think of "American English" and "British English" and yes, it's possible to make those generalizations if all you hear are radio or television accents. But in reality there are still many dialects and accents in both countries.

Once, driving in England, I overtook an articulated lorry on a dual carriageway. That's an extreme example - but as one wit said, England and America are two countries separated by a common language.
;-)

Answer 2

All languages and accents replace over the years. What we call a "British accessory" immediately did not exist on the time the first waves of English settlers got here to u . s . of america, at Jamestown (1608), Plymouth Rock (1620), Rhode Island (1636) and Pennsylvania (1681). The British accessory seems to have began arising in London contained in the 18th century, exceptionally the latter portion of the 18th century. steadily, it began spreading to different aspects of england. immediately, it really is even commencing to modify older Cornish, Welsh and Scots sorts of English spoken on the island. though, there are nevertheless some lines of an early British accessory on the american English dialects of Philadephia, lengthy island and Boston in case you pay interest carefully. case in point, you'll locate they pronounce words like "theater," "Alexander," "concept" and "Cuba" a similar way the British do: "theatuh, Alexanduh, ideer, Cuber etc." historic linguists have a concept that it is because American colonists contained in the northeastern u . s . were in closer contact with England through commerce and commerce than American colonials living in places extra south and extra inland like Pittsburg, West Virgina or Albany. hence, they did a extra constructive interest of protecting with countless the linguistic adjustments that were happening in England.

Answer 3

Like everything else, language evolves too. I've never actually heard George Washington speak, so I'm not sure on that point.