We know that George Washington was the great grandson of a Brittish immigrant, and that he affected many of the ways of an English gentleman. From this, can we assume that he spoke with some sort of Brittish accent? Or would he and his family have begun to take on the drawl we now associate with Virginia? Is there any way of making a good guess? xo, C.
There have been several threads on the question of which accents Americans had at the time of the War of Independence (though not specifically regarding George Washington):
You can call my former father-in-law and he’ll talk to you all you want. He was born and raised about 100 yards from Washington’s birthplace in Westmoreland County, VA and probably sounds right much like what Washington did. The area is still fairly remote and I doubt that there’s been much change in the accent due to outside influences. Maybe some, but not much.
The Northern Neck VA accent isn’t the drawl you might expect - instead think of Cornwall, England.
Languages aren’t static entities. Even absent outside influences, they change over the course of time.