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 decvax!wivax!dyer decvax!genrad!wjh12!bbncca!sdyer
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 {ihnp4,kpno,ctvax}!ut-sally!jsq, jsq@ut-sally.{ARPA,UUCP}