# The Americans who still have old British accents

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-who-still-have-old-british-accents/808864>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [February 15, 2018, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-who-still-have-old-british-accents/808864 "2018-02-15T12:10:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-who-still-have-old-british-accents/808864/1 "2018-02-15T12:10:35Z")

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Found this on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxVOIj7mvWI). An Island off Virginia, where people still use the old East Anglian accent.

Sounds like a Southerner and an Aussie had a bastard child, fell out and the kid spent six months a year with each.

Interestingly, I learnt recently that several Amercian accents became non-rhotic in the 19thy century, (like in the UK) but reversed in the mid 20th. A recording from the early 1930’s, with [older men talking displays that.](https://www.smithsonianmag.com/videos/category/history/what-did-the-rebel-yell-sound-like/)

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**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2018, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-who-still-have-old-british-accents/808864/2 "2018-02-15T23:23:43Z")

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Yeah, the stereotypical Boston “Hahvahd Yahd” is non-rhotic, as well as older New York and southern accents. And England has some rhotic regions (and the UK as a whole; Scotland and NI are mostly rhotic).

I don’t know if it’s fair to say British accent though? Those aren’t static, either, and while the Virginia accent was holding on, English accents got more or less rhotic.

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**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\
**Post date:** [February 18, 2018, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-americans-who-still-have-old-british-accents/808864/3 "2018-02-18T23:30:36Z")

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According to the history of the English language course I took in college, people in New England and the Appalachians sound the most like the British settlers who arrived in the US did in the 1600-1700s (the author did not explain, but we took this to mean the settlers in these two regions were originally from different parts of England). Even compared to modern-day Brits, if that author is to be believed.