Why don't Americans have English accents anymore?

Answer 1

Britain has many different accents, so if people from different regions settle together, their accents will eventually blend into something different. Regional accents in America are partially a result of British people from one region settling in one American region and then changing over years of isolation. An important thing to remember is that when English people first settled in America, the English accent was not what it is today in Britain. The standard English accent continued to develop in Britain, while that accent took a different turn in America. Some words or figures of speech died out in Britain and remained in American usage. Americans incorporated new words and terms because of their environment that were never used by the British. Americans have also had large numbers of people from other countries, so non-English speakers affected the accent. Just look at New York City!

Answer 2

Actually, it is the accent of British English that has changed the most in the last 250 years not the American accents nor the Irish and Scottish accents. The last three still reflect some 17th and 18th century English pronunciations.

The English language used to have many different accents. They developed during the Middle Ages when transportation was slow, serfdom and feudalism still existed and peasants were not allowed to leave their manors. An Englishman in one English village often never heard an English speaker in another village just twenty miles away during his entire life.

However, in the latter 18th century, the London dialect began taking over and replacing various regional dialects in England. The accent of the London dialect was non-rhotic and also had a tendency to drop the h sound. Today, London English is even replacing the older Scots English of Scotland, and since it is the language of government, commerce and the news media in Great Britain, most Scots are going over to it.

Yet, America was colonized between 1607 and 1775 before the London dialect began spreading in England. So, some older accents and pronunciations survived in North America that were later erased or at least diluted, in England.

In the Western hemisphere, French, Spanish and Portuguese have also retained some 17th and 18th century features that have disappeared in the European varieties of these languages.

Answer 3

Partly because we don't have a Queen.

No, seriously. The mixture of different linguistic influences makes any language what it is. England didn't have all the Scandinavian/southern European/African American/native American influences that we have had.

Also, the majority of the English people who came here, in the first place, came from places where the accent was different from what we usually think of as typically British.


Interesting Trivia: To the British, we Americans and Australians sound so alike that they have trouble identifying us, unless they have a lot of experience with the accents.

I'm from New York, and the first time I met someone from New Orleans, I was surprised to note that they sounded just like they were from Brooklyn. It seems there is a part of New Orleans (Jewish neighborhood) where the linguistic influence is very similar, in that many of the European Jewish immigrants from around the early 1900s were the same.

Answer 4

In England there are a lot of accents anyway - and the accent has changed over the years.

In the US, there was a mixture of people from a lot of other countries as well, and their accents got mixed in, too.

Answer 5

Because we don't like the English accents.

Answer 6

Actually there is a neighborhood in Boston where the residents speak with perfect British accents.Discovered this when I spent a summer in Massachusetts.

Answer 7

Because they don't speak english anymore either, but a dialect

To slickpap:
Well, in the usa there are large gay manifestations. So ?

Answer 8

because in the US we have other types of accents i.e Massachusetts, (pak your ca) the south (y'all) brooklyn ( joisey people)

Answer 9

moi aussi je voudrais bien le savoir!

Answer 10

because we decided that those accents were pretty gay! and if we were to be the greatest country in the world we could not sound like pansy's!