How long does it take to develop a distinctive accent?

Question

I've often wondered, when watching movies about the American Revolution, how long does it take to develop a distinct accent. The Americans always talk like modern Americans in these movies. Wouldn't they have had a British accent?

I'm from Alberta, and people from back east comment on our accent, even though we've only had European settlement here for the last 90 years or so.

I think George Washington would have sounded like a limey!

Answer 1

Regarding how long it takes to develop an accent--it varies from one individual to the next, and is somewhat age-related, with older people picking up new regional dialects more slowly. Sometimes people in a new environment will quickly adjust their way of speaking, consciously, to make themselves understood.

Regarding the movies. This is very true of movies made nowadays. The reason is the bottom line: if it costs money, takes time, and has no effect on box office, why do it?

For an American to read lines in a different accent, and do it without sounding absurd, takes weeks or months, and some coaching, in most cases. Acting schools and bookstores sell CDs with instruction books on this.

Young movie actors are often almost incapable of reading and memorizing lines, let alone studying accents. They're cast for their looks, not their brains.

Anachronisms such as your're pointing out would go way over the heads of American moviegoers.

And yet, you are correct. Americans of the Revolutionary period did have an accent that would sound "British" to us, but would sound odd to the British.

That's why Midwestern Americans think people from eastern Massachusetts sound "English." They still do, a bit.

Answer 2

honestly all of us ameliorations their accessory reckoning on the place they're and what venture they're in. it extremely is quite organic for a similar man or woman to have distinctive accents for various contexts. changing one's accessory is extremely an subconscious technique, so i do no longer think of that something you're saying or do no longer say on your daughter will impression what happens. human beings use language to become attentive to themselves as aspects of particular communities. My wager is that your daughter will in all possibility % to be like the youngsters round her, and could for this reason initiate conversing like them. yet i do no longer think of this would be a unsleeping technique, in common terms a organic area of langauge use and progression. it extremely is quite plausible that she would be able to maintain an American accessory which she would desire to apply at residing house or alongside with your American kin. in fact, you will desire to discover your accessory changing after residing in England for a time as nicely. i'm an American and that i won a clean accessory as quickly as I lived in Canada approximately 5 years in the past.

Answer 3

I am from Australia and we seem to have developed a distinctive accent in about 100 - 150 years. It is an interesting point.

Answer 4

Only a few days. I have a deep voice with a slight "southern Texas" accent. Anywhere I go..in a few days the people around me start talking like Texans. They start saying "y'all" and "ain't". Makes me feel at home.

Answer 5

just bad actors that cant do a accent simple as that . i lived in italy 6 years learned italian and french i never got a accent unless i was talking to a person that tought me how to speak i was listening to how they spoke so it was learned . im from texas and ive been told by people here in virginia i have a deep southern draw but people in texas think i talk like people from up north. been in virginia most of my adult life.

Answer 6

depends on the person, my sister starts talking with an english accent after she watches a harry potter movie and she doesn't even notice she's doing it until her husband and i start making fun of her for it. she's just always been like that with picking up accents.