why do americans talk with american accent when it was english people who were 1st white settlers there?

Question

i dont understand how the american accent came about when it was english speaking people who first went there and spoke in english accents, same for australians.

Answer 1

Languages evolve regionally.
English people 300 yeas ago probably spoke quite different of the way they do now.

Answer 2

Modern American is more like the English of 250 years ago than modern British English. There are some places in England where the accent still sounds very American. There's a definite vowel shift that took place in England, I'm guessing in the 1700s because it was carried over into Australia.

Also, the groups that migrated to America from England and Australia weren't a representative cross-section of English speakers at the time. Lot's more Scottish people went to America and more Irish settled in Australia, for example.

American English has been developing independently from British English for some 300 years, and American culture is distinct from that of England today.

Answer 3

the English accent changed over time, too. the modern English accent became the norm because of the BBC.

THe closest things we have to the English accent of 2-300 years ago can be found in Kentucky and Newfoundland.

The northern US accent was influeneced by immigrants, and also because geography impacts language. The southern accent was very influenced by the large African population.