How did different regional accents develop?

Question

Why such really significant differences for relatively small distances apart.

Answer 1

Have you ever noticed, that almost every family has its own peculiar mannerisms and ways of putting things? I know some words, expressions and gestures only members of my family and our very close friends would understand. They would seem queer and nonsensical to most ousiders.
Not only that, but even ways of pronouncing certain sounds in certain ways, when talking, run in families. You will notice this, if you are careful. And it's not only between children and parents, but even husband and wife influence begin to influence each other after a certain period of time.
Now, one of the first human communities, known to anthropology is a tribe or clan - a large family, in essence. It was even forbidden to breed inside such communities, to prevent incest.
So imagine, what happens, when a tribe lives for several hundreds of years in relative isolation. No roads, not even carriages. Only occasional travels to intertribe meetings. Naturally, small idiosyncrasies in language will compound not only to accents, but even dialects or even, separate languages.
In essence, you may be right to say, that most European languages are accents, that have strayed very far from and original common Indo-European tongue.
Now, consider even modern small communities. Small cities and towns in the US are also rather closed societies where said linguistic and cultural idiosyncrasies easily compile, whose representatives meet with each other only on special fares etc.
Also, note, that many people who have strong regional accents, begin to gradually assimilate their way of talking to that of others, when they move into large cities.
Finally, note, that people, who work in large companies also may come to use a sort of dialect.
People are just like that - social animals who mimic each other almost automatically and when a community is relatively closed i.e. relatively easily delimited (such as - a city, a village, a firm, a family etc.) there is only a limited number of models, to mimic, so after a short time everybody is mimic-ing everybody else and an accent or jargon arises.
P.S. Ergo, distance does not matter as much as delimitation of the community from outside world. Your next door neighbours may, in their private family life be using words and expressions, which would seem alien to you

Answer 2

Usually different dialects develop much in the same way that different species of plants develop. People are seperated either

geographically; such as living in different cities being seperated by hills or rivers,
economically; they earn different amounts of money, therefore get different educations and live in different areas,
racially; face it, we tend to hang out with our own race more then with others and it is not discrimination, it is just the way it happens
religiously; (based on their religion, moral and ethical beliefs)
and by age; dialect disparities between different age groups are common.
Anything that seperates also unites and the people in one group will over time develop words, expressions and accents which are different from the other groups just based on the fact that people all think and speak differently.

I hope this makes sense and helps you!

Answer 3

regional accents first developed in a time before tv, radio when people only really met the people that lived near them. so new words or phrases might only be used within a few miles. so someone that lived over the next valley might have totally different meanings for common words.

this still happens even in our modern age, just the words travel further and faster

Answer 4

I don't know if I can say my idea about it in English:we grow cotton in this part of Turkey and people grow cotton in Uzbekistan,but each cotton has different properties just like the two peoples because they both speak Turkish and they hardly understnd each other.I mean a language develops in accordance with where it is spoken and what people who use it a means of communication do.

Answer 5

Social anthropology. in case you bypass to international places like Italy dialects exchange thoroughly city to city, whether located next to a minimum of one yet another. it is by using the Medieval circumstances whilst each and each village had its partitions to cut up from others. ultimately era after era human beings of a similar community ended up conversing a diverse dialect. comparable applies for English. US and Australia have been geared up especially with tips from Irish workmen, this clarify the similarity in accessory with Irish born human beings.

Answer 6

I've always suspected that climate may have something to do with it - try talking properly when you've got an icy cold wind blowing in your face!

It could also be something to do with invading ancestors.

Or, even so that neighbouring settlements couldn't understand.

Answer 7

Question of ability to move our tongue while eating regional different food and regional sorts of cooking.

Answer 8

they distance was not so small before the internal combustion engine came along...worlds apart

Answer 9

A better question would be why do they pesist in the age of mass communication.

Answer 10

Cos us Scots didn't want anyone else hearing our dastardly world-domination plans!