O.k. I hope this doesn’t sound like a completely retarded question but I was just wondering at what point in history did Americans start to lose the accent? I assume that when the european immigrants landed on american soil they still had their accents. So what gives?
Probably as soon as they landed, and the process took a long t. Accents devellop slowly over time in any population.
And the accent the immigrants had was probably different from the accent one could hear now in their country of origin. There too, the accent has most probably changed over time.
This has been discussed several times. Here’s the most recent thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=86413
In that thread you’ll find links to other threads on the subject. Please do a search before you ask a question.
Thank you, W.W. I was looking for that thred and couldn’t find it for some reason. Since this topic has been discussed so recetnly, I’ll close this thread and direct any remaining unanswered questions to the earlier one, linked to above.
bibliophage
moderator GQ