Why did Americans lose the British accent, while Australia, S. Africa, etc., maintain a form of it?

Question

I know that the U.S. has been independent for much longer, but it seems that even in the 1800s the speech had changed in the U.S. I have some ideas as to why but would like what others have to say...

Answer 1

There been some suggestion in recent research that has brought to light the idea that some American's may speak a form of english that is closer to what British used to be, because of the of the way the puritans spoke when they where kicked out of England. So maybe your statement is not as true as it might seem. Maybe we did retain the accent, just an earlier version of it.

That said, there are many different accents in the U.S. now. California alone as several: Pacific Coastal (Washington to Central California), Southern Californian; and Central Valley/San Jaquin Valley (kinda southern sounding)

Answer 2

Someone could write his/her dissertation on this. If you study linguistics, you will find that all languages have regional dialects. By far the main difference is in the vowels sounds. If you listen closely to "proper" British accent, then you will note the difference between those born in different regions of Britain and Ireland. If you trace the evolution of English in the US, you can see that some people from New England (a mesh of British and Irish English with Dutch vowel influence) --note how Bostonians still maintain /er/ instead of /u/ sound at the end of words that end with a schwa or A-- still sound more "British" than Midwesterners.
But the accent probably began to die when the first Native Americans assimilated to the language and when the Brits came in contact with other explores, namely Dutch.

Answer 3

First of all it is wrong to say british accent. Britain is made up of dfferent cultures. There is Scotland, Wales and the Isle of Man in Britian. Each has its own accent. Therefore you can not describe something as British accent. english accent is what you are looking for. One person also mentions Irish as haveing the same accent as english which is very unture. We have a seperate accent to english and we speak hiberno english which comes from the Irish language. For example Whats on you which means whats wrong with you. This is directly from Irish. Also Australia and South Africa have very different accents to english people. It is very easy to tell the difference. Americans seem not to be able to do this where as the rest of the english speaking world can. Americans are made fun of because of this. It is possible that it was because of immigration and its possible Native Americans may have had an influence. There are many words in American engligh that come from native american such as squat. I hope this helped you somewhat!

Answer 4

It's because English speakers in Australia and S. Africa are mostly descendents of settlers from England. They do have their own distinct dialects, their standard English doesn't differ much from the British standard though.

America is the melting pot, people from so many places...
It has been established that more whites in the USA claim Irish descent than English or Scottish, and influences of Irish English is still obvious, especially the way 'a' is pronounced in most of the words (Americans and Irish like to pronounce it as 'eh', while Brits pronounce it as 'uh'), while we can't say it's close to Irish English either. Most of Americans are of German origin and German almost became US official language back in late 18th century.

Large numbers of German settlers also contributed to the American accent, although the way Arnold Schwarzeneger talks it's a bit too German. Why they've changed spelling of some words (analyse -> analyze, color -> colour...) remains a mistery to me...

Answer 5

If you pay close attention to the accents of Tidewater Virginia and the coastal regions of the Carolinas, you might hear traces of British accents remaining. The British people who settled in those regions were not Londoners, and so would not display either the Cockney-tinged speech of the Aussies or the S. Africans, but I believe, if memory serves, these people came from the West of England, and have a different dialectic base.

Answer 6

Well, for one thing, we're not all decended from the English -- we're a melting pot of different ethnicities and cultures.

And, Americans are very independent. We don't WANT to sound English.

Plus, Australians and South Africans actually have their own, subtly different accents than the traditional British one. I know I can hear the difference.

Answer 7

I have always been curious about this. As well as the different accents that have developed, for instance in the South there are different variations of the same southern drawl. I know it has to do with the origin of the settlers, but how does that account for so many Canadians having no accent, like so many Americans? I mean to hear them speak one couldn't tell them apart. Interesting question.

Answer 8

Many of the accents that broke down the english accent came from immigrants from other countries .... you cannot compare australia and south africa with the usa because the massive immigration from all parts of the world led to the dissolution of the original english accent

Answer 9

I wonder that too... I do remember hearing a prominent Shakespearean actor talking about how Shakespeare and many of the Globe actors back then would have come from a particular area of England (wish I knew where) and they didn't use a typical British trilled 'R', they used a gliding American style 'R'. And many of the colonists (he said) came from this same area.

Answer 10

Maybe the Americans wanted to differentiate from the English, to be their own country. Also, many Americans moved westward and did not have much contact with proper English speakers. The accent could have been lost here.