# When did the American accent become dominant? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 3, 2017, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449 "2017-12-03T15:42:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/21 "2017-12-03T23:56:57Z")
> [@NineToTheSky](#): > > In every Hollywood Western movie I have seen - no matter when it is set - everyone speaks in an American accent. I presume that that is probably not quite accurate? You give the answer in the question - Hollywood. For decades Hollywood churned out movies in which everyone spoke with a recognisably American accent. This gets picked up by the young as ‘cool’ and those speech patterns became English. Acting and directing have improved now and characters are more likely to make an attempt to reproduce an appropriate accent for their characters. Anyone who saw/heard Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins will know what I mean. ---
**Author:** ![GMANCANADA](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gmancanada/32/2837_2.png) [@GMANCANADA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GMANCANADA)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/22 "2017-12-04T00:56:00Z")
To weigh in as a non-American: I’m struggling with the concept of what the OP considers an “American accent”. The only place I hear a generic “American accent” is in the media, so is it a “media accent” being discussed? From a my perspective, I hear a Boston / New England accent, a Louisiana accent, a California accent, a southern accent and a myriad of others. To my ears they’re all very distinct in their pronunciation of words and a portion of their vocabulary. I was chatting with a woman at a dinner a few days ago and correctly identified that she was from NYNY immediately from her accent. I listen to A Way with Words podcast: [https://www.waywordradio.org](https://www.waywordradio.org) and about 90% of every show discusses the variations and differences in the way Americans talk. These differences are quite often based on the euro-origins of their ancestors. Given how consistent the media’s accent is _and_ that it’s existed in the US since radio & talking movies have been around (+100 years), I’m amazed at how much regional diversity still exists in American accents. I think the better question is “Given how long media accents have been around and how pervasive media culture is in America, why is there still so much regional variation in accents?” ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/23 "2017-12-04T01:18:01Z")
Thomas Jefferson and George Washington would have spoken in neither a modern Virginia accent nor in the modern accent of whatever part of England their ancestors came from. Suppose we want to know what accent Jefferson and Washington (and other politicians of that era) used in the year 1776 (to pick an arbitrary year). That’s 241 years ago. 241 years before 1776 is 1535. That’s well before the ancestors of Jefferson, Washington, etc. arrived in America. So their time is clearly closer to the time that their ancestors arrived in America than it is to 2017. But the accent spoken in England in 1535 is as different from a modern English accent as it is from a modern American accent. The English language has been changing as fast in the U.K. as it has in the U.S. Having American characters in a movie set in 1776 speaking with a modern American accent is arbitrary, just as having British characters in a movie set in that year speaking with a modern British accent is arbitrary. In general, movies don’t make an attempt to reproduce old accents. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/24 "2017-12-04T01:29:29Z")
> [@GMANCANADA](#): > > To weigh in as a non-American: I’m struggling with the concept of what the OP considers an “American accent”. The only place I hear a generic “American accent” is in the media, so is it a “media accent” being discussed? I think so. Johnny Carson spreading the Nebraskan North Western plains accent on the Tonight Show. Driving from Arkansas to New Hampshire, the only serious language problem I had was in Pennsylvania. I walked into a rural gas station and said, “Twenty dollars on pump number two, please.” The guy responded, “Hunga gunga wanna what.” I laid a twenty down on the counter, and repeated, “Twenty dollars on pump number two, thank you.” and backed out of the station. He replied, “Hunga gunga wanna what.” ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/25 "2017-12-04T02:15:57Z")
Many movies from about 1940 had American actors speaking with distinctly British accents. About the time it became popular to take the arrow-plane to los angle-eez. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/26 "2017-12-04T06:28:40Z")
As recently as the 1940’s, there was an accent usually referred to the Transatlantic or Mid-Atlantic which you could hear in movies. > **[Language Mystery: When Did Americans Stop Sounding This Way?](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/08/language-mystery-when-did-americans-stop-sounding-this-way/243326/)** > > A film clip brings back the lost language of pre-World War II America > **[Mid-Atlantic accent](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Atlantic_accent)** > > The Mid-Atlantic accent, or Transatlantic accent, is a consciously learned accent of English, fashionably used by the late 19th-century and early 20th-century American upper class and entertainment industry, which blended together features regarded as the most prestigious from both American and British English (specifically Received Pronunciation). It is not a native or regional accent; rather, according to voice and drama professor Dudley Knight, "its earliest advocates bragged that its In the... > > **[That Weirdo Announcer-Voice Accent: Where It Came From and Why It Went Away](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/06/that-weirdo-announcer-voice-accent-where-it-came-from-and-why-it-went-away/395141/)** > > Is your language rhotic? How to find out, and whether you should care. It was an accent taught by many tutors in public speaking and acting. It was common among certain public figures. (FDR’s accent was similar.) It was used by certain movie actors. It was neither quite the accent that an American or a Briton would acquire at home though, although it was vaguely similar to certain British accents and certain American accents. Tutors quit teaching it and it was forgotten. There was no sudden change in the way Americans spoke at home in the mid-1940’s, although you could think that if you listened to the radio or watched movies a lot. It’s just that a certain affected accent disappeared. Among the few well-known people who still spoke that way after the 1940’s was William Buckley (who, weirdly, actually spoke Spanish and French before English). ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/27 "2017-12-04T07:36:38Z")
Broadcasting had a powerful influence in the UK too: the BBC deliberately set out to favour a particular sort of RP for most of its first 30-40 years. The introduction of commercial TV through regional franchises in the 1950s revalorised regional accents and dialects. In the longer history of change among immigrants, though, don’t forget that children very often develop two modes of speech, one for home and dealings with adult authority, and one for their friends. In the UK that"s not just among immigrants, but across class differences too. But I’d assume it wouldn’t take much exposure to a broader community for accents to change - as early as the second generation and certainly the third, unless the children were kept in a wholly enclosed community. Railways and other improved transport would have encouraged mixing too. As the old joke here would have it, “Grandad had a bicycle”. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/28 "2017-12-04T10:32:17Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > In general, movies don’t make an attempt to reproduce old accents. There is a good reason for that - if they did, then a great deal of it would require subtitles so that a modern audience could understand it. It’s not just “accents”, it is dialect, which is sometimes so far from the basic, that it almost becomes another language. How many of you can follow the dialogue on this TV drama from the 70’s? You should understand that it is toned down for a British audience. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4TT3VtR8o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY4TT3VtR8o) ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/29 "2017-12-04T13:07:30Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > My Dad said the same thing: the USA was multi-lingual up until the introduction of broadcast radio (1920’s). It took a while: my older realatives remembered non-english-speaking enclaves, and I’ve seen 1940’s features that feature non-english-speaking rural enclaves. Although my evidence is only anecdotal, I have to dispute this. My maternal grandparents both emigrated at early ages (1 for g’father and 13 for g’mother) and spoke only English at Home (unless they were keeping secrets from the kids). My mother didn’t learn any Yiddish until she got married and then only to be able to talk to … my paternal grandparents who emigrated as adults and never spoke any but halting English. My father was totally bilingual (you could not have imagined from speaking to him that his first language wasn’t English) and we kids learned no Yiddish. I think this is pretty typical. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/30 "2017-12-04T13:18:50Z")
> [@markn\_1](#): > > There’s an urban legend that the Appalachian accent in the US has not changed over the centuries and is identical to the Elizabethan English spoken by Shakespeare. This is not true, but there’s a germ of truth in it – at least some features of American English today are unchanged while the corresponding features of British English are what changed. On the flip side, if American/Atlantic English is a fossil, what is the hip new Accent of the Future? ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/31 "2017-12-04T14:31:11Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > On the flip side, if American/Atlantic English is a fossil, what is the hip new Accent of the Future? Singlish or Chinglish, I suspect, la. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/32 "2017-12-04T16:55:33Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I think so. Johnny Carson spreading the Nebraskan North Western plains accent on the Tonight Show. > > Driving from Arkansas to New Hampshire, the only serious language problem I had was in Pennsylvania. I walked into a rural gas station and said, “Twenty dollars on pump number two, please.” > The guy responded, “Hunga gunga wanna what.” > I laid a twenty down on the counter, and repeated, “Twenty dollars on pump number two, thank you.” and backed out of the station. > He replied, “Hunga gunga wanna what.” I didn’t hear regionality in Johnny. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/33 "2017-12-04T20:11:30Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > I didn’t hear regionality in Johnny. That is the point for the argument that almost everyone sounds like Johnny Carson. ---
**Author:** ![Urbanredneck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ea5d25/32.png) [@Urbanredneck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urbanredneck)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/34 "2017-12-04T20:57:33Z")
My sources say it was John Wayne movies. The American west was just cool and inspiring for other countries. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/35 "2017-12-04T21:11:44Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > I didn’t hear regionality in Johnny. > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > That is the point for the argument that almost everyone sounds like Johnny Carson. That’s because the [“General American”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American) accent is mostly based on the speech of the Midwest and West. It’s originally a regional speech that is now regarded as not being specifically regional. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/36 "2017-12-04T21:56:47Z")
As many have said “The” American accent does not exist. Here’s an example of [New Hampshire, where my Dad grew up.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=selUoq-poTM) Here’s one from [Georgia, where my Mom grew up.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vk-7CMpT38E) But if you really want to get interested, there are remnants of [Edwardian and even Elizabethan English](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxVOIj7mvWI)in some more isolated communities. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/37 "2017-12-04T21:58:29Z")
> [@GMANCANADA](#): > > To weigh in as a non-American: I’m struggling with the concept of what the OP considers an “American accent”. The only place I hear a generic “American accent” is in the media, so is it a “media accent” being discussed? > > From a my perspective, I hear a Boston / New England accent, a Louisiana accent, a California accent, a southern accent and a myriad of others. To my ears they’re all very distinct in their pronunciation of words and a portion of their vocabulary. I was chatting with a woman at a dinner a few days ago and correctly identified that she was from NYNY immediately from her accent. > > I listen to A Way with Words podcast: [https://www.waywordradio.org](https://www.waywordradio.org) and about 90% of every show discusses the variations and differences in the way Americans talk. These differences are quite often based on the euro-origins of their ancestors. > > Given how consistent the media’s accent is _and_ that it’s existed in the US since radio & talking movies have been around (+100 years), I’m amazed at how much regional diversity still exists in American accents. I think the better question is “Given how long media accents have been around and how pervasive media culture is in America, why is there still so much regional variation in accents?” You’d be hard pressed to identify a Californian by his or her accent, though (other than the old-style valley girls or surfer dudes). It’s really just the “Braodcast American English” accent that you hear here. Although that accent is often referred to as mid-west, many folks from the mid-west have distinctive accents that give them away-- Chicago, for example. The “standard American accent” is something you can hear pretty much anywhere these days, but I’d say it’s real home is the west, not the mid-west. Much of the mid-west is home to those elongated vowel sounds. The one thing you hear out west that you rarely hear elsewhere is Nevada and Colorado with the “ad” pronounced like “ad” instead of “odd”. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/38 "2017-12-04T22:28:50Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > I think so. Johnny Carson spreading the Nebraskan North Western plains accent on the Tonight Show. > > Driving from Arkansas to New Hampshire, the only serious language problem I had was in Pennsylvania. I walked into a rural gas station and said, “Twenty dollars on pump number two, please.” > The guy responded, “Hunga gunga wanna what.” > I laid a twenty down on the counter, and repeated, “Twenty dollars on pump number two, thank you.” and backed out of the station. > He replied, “Hunga gunga wanna what.” I live in Pennsylvania (rural) and I have never heard this hunga gunga that you speak of LOl! Where in PA was this? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/39 "2017-12-04T22:58:15Z")
> [@Ellecram](#): > > I live in Pennsylvania (rural) and I have never heard this hunga gunga that you speak of LOl! > > Where in PA was this? Christ, I don’t remember. There was a gas station in the middle of miles and miles of corn fields. I will gladly replace “hunga gunga” with “something not understandable that sounded like a foreign language”. I do think he said the same thing both times. It had sharp sounds in it like what little German I learned in under graduate school. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449/40 "2017-12-04T23:04:25Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Although my evidence is only anecdotal, I have to dispute this. My maternal grandparents both emigrated at early ages (1 for g’father and 13 for g’mother) and spoke only English at Home (unless they were keeping secrets from the kids). Your g/p were not part of a rural enclave speaking a language other than english. Assuming your g/p were born around 1901, they were listening to broadcast radio around the time they got married. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-become-dominant/803449.md?page=3)