Accent of colonial 1700s? Virginian if possible?

Question

For a simulation tomorrow I need to use an accent of 1780, im a guy from virginia... so if you have any idea whatsoever, its better than what I know already, maybe you can direct me to a youtube video or just explain the accent
thanks

Thanks, I think the accent won't be as hard as my costume.. I can't think of anything to wear besides just soccer sucks with my slacks rolled up with some type of coat and dress shoes

any ideas?

Answer 1

I think they would have still spoke with an English accent or close to it. The revolution would have still been going on, so the English accent would have probably still been strong or at least a variation of it.

Answer 2

It's a MISTAKE to think a Virginian like George Washington would have spoken with anything like a MODERN British accent. What they spoke was based on an English accent of the 17th century (when the colony was founded), so a Tidewater accent would be far closer.

Note that there were four main migrations from different regions of Britain to different regions of North America in the 17th century. ONE of these four was of the Cavaliers from South England (migrated in 1642-1675). This group eventually dominated the coastal region from Virginia to Florida. Their speech laid the foundation for the development of American Tidewater speech, or Coastal Southern English.

THAT"s the group you're after.

summary of the linguistic features of the four regions
http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/test3materials/AmericanDialects.htm

Hope this is of some help