[net.nlang] American Accent

don@allegra.UUCP (10/03/83)

It is interesting to note that the deep South is the most strongly
English part of the country.  I have always wondered how their accent
relates to English accents.  Anthony Burgess (sp?) claims that
Americans today still talk like the British did three hundred years
ago.  He bases that claim on the fact that some Shakespearean companies
in England have attempted to preserve the classic Elizabethan accent,
and they in fact sound like Americans with a slight Irish accent.

The Encyclopedia Britannica also claims that American is anachronistic,
and Americans use many idioms that have disapeared in England (like the
phrase "I guess so" which appears in Chaucer, but not in modern
British.)

A British friend of mine says that the most obvious attribute of the
American accent is "our horrible 'r' sound".  We draw it out much more
than anyone else in the world.

dyer@wivax.UUCP (Stephen Dyer) (10/03/83)

I was never so aware of how heavy an American accent is, until I spent
a month in Poland this summer.  As you might expect, there are few Americans.
After several weeks of this sensory deprivation, I was amazed to hear a group
of American students walking down the street behind me.  It might as well have
been "quaaack quaack quaack" as natural as it sounded then!

/Steve Dyer
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budd@arizona.UUCP (tim budd) (10/03/83)

when I was a grad student at Yale several years back I once went to a
lecture where they played recordings of some of the very first cylinder
recordings made by edison when he was trampsing around europe trying to
sell his machine.  (actually, i now don't recall if it was edison himself
or someone who worked for him).  Anyway, there was one recording in
particular I remember by Alfred Lord Tennyson.  In addition to calling it
a mer-ak-a-lous machine, his accent was most unusual.  It sounded very
unlike modern english accents, and several englishmen in attendance
claimed it sounded quite american.  makes me think the modern english
accent is of VERY recent origin (perhaps they got it from watching american
movies).

jsq@ut-sally.UUCP (John Quarterman) (10/04/83)

It's well known that at least one major feature of French, the r in the
throat that earned them the affectionate nickname of frogs, is only about
fifty years old (and has not penetrated to any great extent into
francophone areas outside of Europe, especially Africa, but not to
forget Acadiana).  So it wouldn't be surprising if modern English
accents were of equally recent origin.
-- 
John Quarterman, CS Dept., University of Texas, Austin, Texas
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