How do different nationalities get their accents?

Question

Australia was discovered by the British, yet we don't talk like them. The same with the US. It was discovered by a western country, so why do most people in the US talk with a 'twang'?

Answer 1

Accents are generally influenced by the languages originally spoken in an area and/or by the origins of the populations that have migrated into an area. An examination of the history of the source of early immigrants will reveal a great deal about where the accents came from. Different environmental isolation's will cause accents to change slightly from one region another. For example, living in Ireland, I've noticed at least 5 different accents within the surrounding 20 miles.

So, Southern accents, while having a few things in common, are obviously going to start to deviate from one another, from the strong Texas accent, to the breathy Georgia accent. However, in listening to their commonalities, I've always thought they had many similarities to the Mexican/Spanish accents that populate the border, with their prominent "ah" sounds in their speech.

The east coast accents, from New York to Chicago to Boston are all related to each other again, and find their roots from the English colonies, and can be heard in their common "oh ah" overtones, with New York borrowing a bit from the many other cultures that have landed there, such as Italian, Jewish and even Irish.

Beyond that, it just boils down to community development over time. =)

Answer 2

David Platt

You've already hit on one component of it: immigration of different groups into different geographical areas. There are several others, though:

Contact with other speaker groups- if one group consistently comes into contact with another group (say at the edges of a boundary between two different groups) pronunciation changes can be shared between the two groups. Eventually, the changes can work their way into the heart of an area, leading to a change for the entire group.

Geographic isolation of a region- in areas that are hard to reach geographically (mountainous, for example), speakers don't come into contact with as many groups that have different language features than their own, leading to less language change than in other groups. Thus, they may tend to remain 'closer' linguistically to their original pronunciations.



As it's early in the morning and my brain isn't fully functional yet, I'm having trouble articulating any others. I'll come back and edit this message later today! :)

Answer 3

Accents in English are exceptionally distinctive to me. you could hear the beginning place of the guy in his or her accessory. The Kansas accessory is the only that is utilized in radio and tv right here distinctive the time. The Texas accessory is ordinary the worldwide over. The California and manhattan accents are copied by employing comedians lots. in simple terms as you could actually frequently comprehend the Cockney accessory of england and the Australian accessory, each and every state of u.s. has a diverse accessory, some greater marked than others, of path. we've relaxing attempting to guess the beginning place of persons by employing their accessory.

Answer 4

I've also wondered that, but I'm guessing after we've split from the source it begins to go in a different direction! But I've listened to the Australian accetn, and I've noticed it still somehow sounds the same to one particular English accent! But don't ask me which one, maybe the Cockney!

Answer 5

merry christmas

Answer 6

that is a good question

Answer 7

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Answer 8

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