If the Britsh colonized the US, how did we lose the english accent?

Answer 1

We stoped communicating with the english... on top of that, the USA is know as a melting pot, so the english in the USA that we know today came from the different influences from languages all over europe.

Answer 2

Though other groups (native and other immigrants) did play some role, the BASIC regional accents of the major American regions still reflect the regional dialects of the parts of Britain from which they emigrated.

An overview:
The main dialect areas of the US can be traced to the four main migrations of English speaking people to America from the British Isles during the colonial period (1607-1775).

1. New England - Puritan Migrations (1629-40) from East Anglia
2. Coastal South (Virginia to Florida) -Cavalier Migrations (1642-1675) from South England
3. New Jersey, Pennsylvania - Quaker migrations (1675-1725)from the Midlands area of England (near Whales)
4. Appalachian English - Scots-Irish migrations (1715-1775), mostly English people from Britain's Celtic fringe (North England, Northern Ireland)

The various factors in the developing of the dialects of American English, and why they differ from modern British English:

1) the language spoken by emigrants who first established the colony was a particular variety of British English--the so-called founder's effect

2) this may have mixed with some non-English language in the colony--the so-called substrate effect

3) there may have been further mixing with other English dialects in the colony--the leveling effect of dialect mixing

4) innovations in British English that did not occur in the more conservative overseas dialect, or conversely, innovation in the colonial dialect (for any of the three previous reasons) which did not occur in Britain.

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test3materials/AmericanDialects.htm


Note the LAST of these -- BRITISH English has ALSO changed in since the 17th century. At times features of American dialects (accent, vocabulary, grammar) may reflect something that has since been lost in British dialects.

Finally, when you speak of "the British accent" you are probably thinking of the standard "Received Pronunciation" of British English. But this only became the 'standard' in recent centuries. The wide variety of dialects in Britain (much more variation than in American English!) goes all the way back to OLD English


More on the history of the BRITISH dialects in the "prelimary facts" at:
http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test3materials/USdialectsoverhead.htm

Answer 3

Most of the people who populated this land were not English. Spanish influence in the Southwest, Scottish settlers in the back-country, Millions of immigrants, and the native tribes, all have contributed to our language.

Just think how children of immigrants usually have little or no accent. They pick up the language, accent, and nuances of the community majority. The Cajuns in Louisiana do not carry the French accent of the Acadians that settled there. The foreign students in my classroom sound little like their parents but do have our New York twang.

The answer is simple - we, as a people, are NOT English.

Answer 4

Thats like saying all English people have the same accent, they don't. As an example, you can take it from the top of England and go down the East coast from Newcastle to Kent and hear the differences in pronunciation. The accents are regional, wherever you are in the world.

Answer 5

In a sense, you didn't lose the accent. Most of the original American colonists were from what is known in England as the "West Country," (Devon, Cornwall and Somerset). To this day, the West Country accent sounds very much like the standard American accent.

This accent, then, became the dominant accent in America. As later groups arrived in America, and settled in particular areas (like the Scots settling primarily in the South) they brought their own accents which blended into the local sounds, creating the varieties of accents that Americans now have today.

Hope this helps.

Answer 6

We weren't only colonized by the British. There were Dutch, Germans, French, Irish, everyone you can imagine. By the time all the languages commingled, you pretty much got what we have now. And the British weren't necessarily the majority by the time the country was founded. When Congress was deciding which language we should use (yes, it was a question even then), English only won out over German by 1 vote.

Answer 7

There were a lot of accent due to many country's.The southern accent is a mixture of Irish and African language.The American north is English but they slowly came into their own accent of today .In 200 years these will slowly change again over time.If you go back 500 years you would not understand and the English accent.Due to Ebonics and other influences.

Answer 8

Where did the Auzzie, Kiwi, Canuck, Newfie, Bretoner, Texan, Southerner, and New York accents all come from. None of 'em fit you're dicotomy of British vs American accents. Isolation creates and modifies accents. Besides, how do you know they ever sounded the same?

Answer 9

Accents change because of the contact between people of different cultures and countries. The US has received several waves of inmigration, and through that, the accent has changed.
Language is like a living thing. It does not remain static, but changes constantly.

Answer 10

Lots of good answers to this. My take on it is that this is an example of evolution at work. Any time you have a physical separation you will have differential evolution, and that applies to languages and accents as well as to genes. The addition of different terms on the two sides of the pond has, of course, done nothing to help: you say bonnet, we say hood; you say geyser, we say water heater, et cetera. Perhaps the improved communication in our era will help. And then again, perhaps it won't -- three cheers for My Fair Lady.

Answer 11

The US happened to be a british colony, but ethnically they were composed of people from many different backgrounds, who just were not able to reproduce the english accent. So, something new grew from that: american english. The british tend to despise it and think it's horrible, but personnally I prefer it to so-called oxford-english which sounds posh and phony to me. Also, climate in the US is very different from UK, except maybe the north-western areas. Climate seems to have an impact on accents as well. You can see that in may countries.