Why do americans have american accents?

Question

This might sound like a stupid question but im serious.

The red indians did not speak english. So when the europian settlers came to America how did the american accent come about.

Answer 1

All languages change over time. When the first settlers came to America from England, they had English accents. The people living in America, however, did not go back, and over the course of generations the language (and their accent) changed a great deal. This is how all languages have evolved. If you take a group of people who all speak the same and split it into two groups, then check back in fifty years, each group will speak differently. This is also why people in different parts of the United States have very different accents, dialects, and ways of speaking in general.

Answer 2

You've got a good point!

For example, the people of India who speak English sound just like Britishers, but Americans don't. And American English is truly like a dialect, with old forms of the language from around the time of the American Revolution.

After the Revolution, the Patriots tried to distance themselves from Britain in as many ways as possible, like rebellious teenagers. They adopted using a fork with the right hand, just because England uses the left, set up driving on the right, simply because Britain drives on the left, etc.

Similarly, they adopted the Spanish dollar and got rid of the British pound, set up their own Wall Street, Broadway, and other cultural/political/financial norms.

Daniel Webster wrote the first definitive dictionary for the United States, and he made his best effort to define and accent everything differently than the British forms.

So, yeah, Americans have 'American' accents, which sound totally different than the British

Answer 3

There are a huge number of accents in Great Britain. Many of the original colonists came from England, but some were from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Groups tended to settle in one region of the US. That resulted in the original dialect of a region. Then settlers moved (usually west) and spread dialects out over regions. Successive waves of immigrants picked up the local dialects, and modified them to some degree.

There was a great disparity in dialects throughout the US until the radio came along. American English was fragmenting into new languages. The radio broadcasts tended to stabilize the dialects. This continues through film and television.

In short, most American accents were picked up from local accents existing around Britain in the 1600's and 1700's.

Answer 4

Don't know but you might say the same thing about English accents and, of course, regional accents. For example, I come from Yorkshire and have a broad Yorkshire accent. Similarly, people from London speak with a Cockney accent. Certainly this applies to Americans and a New York accent is very different to the Texan twang. Oooooh, all this thinking about accents has made my brain ache!

Answer 5

I've asked myself the same question. I pretty much came to the conclusion that it had a lot to do with who settled in different areas of the country after they came from Europe.
Speaking English with a German accent brought about a lot of the New York and New Jersey area accents. Same with the people that settled in Virginia. Think of how a Polish person might have spoken English or a Frenchman. I've personally never heard of an "American" accent. There's North Philly and South Philly-the Bronx-Brooklyn-etc. Each one is different and easily detected. I love the variety.

Answer 6

Every country has it's own "accent" and there are different variations of it from region to region even within the same country (think New York vs. Mississippi). What you hear now and call an "american accent" is really a combination of all the original inhabitants of America as well as everybody who has come since.

Answer 7

It's just like you said, everyone came from different parts of the universe and each of us brought an accent with us, and the ones that came later adopted that accent and so on .This is why every state and province all have a different accent ,it's just like a trade mark ! This is what makes all of us unique!

Answer 8

Because we are Americans?

Language evolves, it was only natural that the European settlers who colonized North America took on different dialects and accents being separated from Europe.

Answer 9

Personally, I think it sounds a bit Irish, especially the East coast accent.
The only people who don't have an accent are those who speak the Queens English, like the Queen.

Answer 10

I think it's because as more immigrants came to the country, each new language affected the American accent.