How is it that America was invaded by the British but our accents are so different? How'd that happen?

Question

I understand that not all Americans or all Britons sound the same but what I'm wondering is where did the American accent come from?

Answer 1

First, a few general observations and corrections:

a) though there were certainly ways in which Americans sought to demonstrate their independence from Britain this did NOT extend to trying to change their accent. That's hardly the sort of things the Americans were concerned about (And even if they TRIED it would be almost impossible to carry off.)

b) language, including accents, changed on BOTH sides of the Atlantic -- in some cases one side 'preserved' older forms, in other cases it was the opposite. So be very careful about the idea that American English was once something like MODERN British English, then deviated while the British variety did not (or not as much). In fact, some MAJOR changes in the dominant British dialects took place from the late 18th through the 19th century (that is, AFTER American colonization)

c) the languages of other immigrant groups had SOME effect, esp. on smaller, sub-regional dialects, but the MAIN distinctives of the major dialects, and of "General" or "Standard" American English are almost entirely of BRITISH origin

Here's a bit of the general historical picture that may help --

In colonial times there were already FOUR main regional dialects -- and these became the foundations for the main regional dialects we have today. Contrary to some popular ideas, the differences were NOT mainly due to the influence of other groups (immigrants from other nations, Native Americans). Instead, each of the regions was primarily populated by people from a DIFFERENT region of England.

That is, there were four distinct migrations of English speaking people to America during the colonial period (1607-1775), each coming mainly from a different part of the British Isles. Thus each of these groups brought their OWN culture, including ways of speaking.

Here are those four migrations:

1. New England - Puritan Migrations (1629-40) from East Anglia
2. Coastal South (Virginia to Florida) -Cavalier Migrations (1642-1675) from South England
3. New Jersey, Pennsylvania - Quaker migrations (1675-1725)from the Midlands area of England (near Wales)
4. Appalachian English - Scots-Irish migrations (1715-1775), mostly English people from Britain's Celtic fringe (North England, Northern Ireland)

For a nice summary of each of these and how their language affected modern American English, as well as some of the other factors that helped to shape the dialects, check out the notes at this link:
http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test3materials/AmericanDialects.htm

Compare also the following article. It oddly only mentions three of the dialects, but the explanation is helpful:
http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US1/REF/bgnotes.html

Answer 2

interesting question i dont really know the answer but id like to hazzard a guess and say it has to do with a couple of things. firstly when the americans broke away from british rule there where changes made in the pronunciation of letters in words and some words where spelt differently. id aslo say the changes in accent could be attributed to identity, as the americans broke away they strived to create an identity unique to themselves. you can also see this in the african american community a large part of their accent can be attributed to desire for an independant indentity to that of their captors. they placed their own take on the language establishing their own identity. non of what i say is fact i just think it is an interesting question as i have also wondered where accents come from. and i think this could be a reasonable explanation or at least part of one.

Answer 3

Accents just drift away from each other. I'm sure todays Brits don't sound like the Brits of the 1600's, and the American colonies existed back then.

Answer 4

Things change overtime. Brits, Americans, Canadians, Austrailians all speak differently. Even people within London have various accents. Go to Mexico and Spain. They speak 2 different dialects of Spanish.

Answer 5

America consist of people from countries all over the world.
American Indians were here first then people started coming over from Germany, Africa ,China , Spain , Ireland etc.....So with so many different people living together we adapted their language and ways of saying and doing things.

Answer 6

It sounds like it came from an Irish accent

Answer 7

i think it's probably because a lot of Irish migrated to the USA during the 1900's and there were probably more Irish than British people who settled there

Answer 8

Corruption of the english language

Answer 9

evolution
time
melting-pot