# When did the American accent start to deviate from the English accent? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 21, 2011, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639 "2011-11-21T13:49:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/21 "2011-11-21T16:27:57Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I always though that everyone spoke with regional accents back in the 18th century. It was before there was any national media to provide a standard model for how to talk. So people in England spoke differently than people in America. But people in Philadelphia spoke differently than people in Manhattan and people in London spoke differently than people in Sheffield. There wasn’t a “royal court” or “public school” or “Oxbridge” or comparable non-regional accent in the 1700s? ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/22 "2011-11-21T16:32:41Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I always though that everyone spoke with regional accents back in the 18th century. It was before there was any national media to provide a standard model for how to talk. So people in England spoke differently than people in America. But people in Philadelphia spoke differently than people in Manhattan and people in London spoke differently than people in Sheffield. Pretty sure they still speak differently, apart from those that grew up elsewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/23 "2011-11-21T16:34:25Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > There wasn’t a “royal court” or “public school” or “Oxbridge” or comparable non-regional accent in the 1700s? There is almost always a “prestige” dialect, one which is linguistically equal but socially superior. For a variety of reasons, the speech of upper-class Englishmen from the area roughly between London, Cambridge, and Oxford has been that dialect for English for a long, long time. Then as now, there are other prestige dialects within reduced contexts. I’m no expert, but I’d strongly suspect there was a similar triangle based on the upper-class speech between Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. It isn’t a matter of consciously studying speech in the media, but of more or less subconsciously imitating the speech of those you want to accept you—local peers or wealthy patrons or university professors or what have you. Most people can manage to modulate their accent when moving between different speech communities (e.g. not talking posh at home on the farm, not saying “pigshit” too often in front of the queen). ---
**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:** [November 21, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/24 "2011-11-21T16:39:21Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > There is almost always a “prestige” dialect, one which is linguistically equal but socially superior. For a variety of reasons, the speech of upper-class Englishmen from the area roughly between London, Cambridge, and Oxford has been that dialect for English for a long, long time. Then as now, there are other prestige dialects within reduced contexts. I’m no expert, but I’d strongly suspect there was a similar triangle based on the upper-class speech between Philadelphia, Boston, and New York. Don’t you think the larger distances between your latter triangle would have made the analogy not a good one? Especially since travel in England was a whole lot easier than travel in the colonies. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/25 "2011-11-21T17:09:30Z")
Though we can glean a lot from written records, it’s still all very speculative. Things like misspellings, etc., as well as rhyming in poetry, were much more susceptible to inconsistency, lack of education, regionalism, etc. than they are now. You can never get a complete and true sense of a language through writing alone. Language is just too complex for print. ---
**Author:** ![Sister\_Vigilante](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@Sister\_Vigilante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sister_Vigilante)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/26 "2011-11-21T17:47:31Z")
I was taught that rhymes such as prove and love were visual rhymes, in that since they were spelled similarly, you could “rhyme” them even if they weren’t pronounced the same. And I was an English major. Now I’m questioning some of those professors… ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/27 "2011-11-21T17:53:03Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Don’t you think the larger distances between your latter triangle would have made the analogy not a good one? Especially since travel in England was a whole lot easier than travel in the colonies. Maybe not that specific set, and it doesn’t have to be a triangle, but the point is that there would also have been a prestige dialect among Americans, as well as within specific regions, etc. ---
**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:** [November 21, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/28 "2011-11-21T18:58:36Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > Maybe not that specific set, and it doesn’t have to be a triangle, but the point is that there would also have been a prestige dialect among Americans, as well as within specific regions, etc. Not to nit pick this to death, but I would suspect there were a number of prestige dialects, since there were a number of different power centers in the colonies. Virginia and Massachusetts being the prime centers, with other places like NY and PA as secondary. ---
**Author:** ![svd678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@svd678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/svd678)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/29 "2011-11-21T19:29:31Z")
I understood that publication of the King James Bible brought a measure of uniformity to English regional and class dialects, at least to written forms? ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2011, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/30 "2011-11-21T23:16:23Z")
> [@svd678](#): > > I understood that publication of the King James Bible brought a measure of uniformity to English regional and class dialects, at least to written forms? Well, by definition dialects are for all practical purposes a spoken phenomenon, so that’s kind of like mixing apples and oranges. Moreover, at the time of that publication most people in rural populations couldn’t read anyway. But I bet that for those who could read, such a publication at least helped to standard spelling, though I guess it’s hard to tell how much. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/31 "2011-11-22T00:47:33Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Well, by definition dialects are for all practical purposes a spoken phenomenon Any written form of a language comprises a dialect of that language. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/32 "2011-11-22T00:53:23Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > When did the American accent start to deviate from the English accent? I have read a piece from a linguist stating that colonists accents (in general) tend to diverge strongly from the mother tongue in the very first generation, and that the first generation born in the colony sets the tone for the new accent. I will try to track that down. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/33 "2011-11-22T01:14:48Z")
Ah, here we go. It came up earlier in this thread: [When did the American accent develop?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=382411&page=1&pp=50) My memory of the linguist’s take was not perfect, but [here it is](http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/accent.cfm): > [@](#): > > When groups become distinct, the way they speak becomes distinct too. This happens socially and geographically, but is easiest to illustrate by geographical differences. If a single group splits into two (imagine that one half goes to Island A and one half to Island B), then once they have separated, their accents will change over time, but not in the same way, so that **after just one generation the accent of Island A will be different from the accent of Island B**. If they stay completely separated for centuries, their dialects may become so different that we will start wanting to say they are speaking two different languages. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Mondegreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/91b2a8/32.png) [@Lord\_Mondegreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Mondegreen)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/34 "2011-11-22T01:18:41Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Some are, of course, Scotch or Welsh (or Irish) in origin Nitpick: Scotch is a drink, Scottish refers to things from Scotland. (And the people are Scots.) ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/35 "2011-11-22T01:24:17Z")
An identifiable Southern accent was established fairly early and wouldn’t seem that out of place even today in some areas. There is a phenomenon that I like to call “generation jumping” that lets people go back through several centuries through second or third hand accounts alone which can happen under the right circumstances. John Tyler, the 10th President of the U.S, still has two living grandsons for example and his family can say for certain that one type of Virginia accent was fairly stable from his birth in 1790 until today. My great-great grandfather was one of the last surviving Civil War vets (Confederate) and my grandfather who is still living and doing quite well mentally knew him until his death in 1949. I asked my grandfather about this an there was no big difference between his current Texas/Oklahoma accent and that of a Civil War vet from the same area. There are also some very early recordings from the late 1800’s of very old people at the time that let you listen to people that learned to speak much earlier in the 19th century. For Southern accents, it is perfectly understandable and identifiable even today. That isn’t to say that there aren’t any differences. The vocabulary is different but the base accent is roughly the same. Other American accents have changed at different rates due to lots of influences. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/36 "2011-11-22T01:31:05Z")
I left out an important part of [the linguist’s take](http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/accent.cfm): > [@](#): > > The first generation of children will draw on the accents of the adults around them, and will create something new. If people move to a new place in groups (as English speakers did to America, Australia and New Zealand) that group usually brings several different accents with them. The children will draw on the mixture of accents they hear and create their own accent out of what they hear. The modern accents of Australia are more similar to London accents of English than to any other accent from England – this is probably because the founder generation (in the eighteenth century) had a large component drawn from the poor of London, who were transported to Australia as convicts. The accents of New Zealand are similar to Australian accents because a large proportion of the early English-speaking settlers of New Zealand came from Australia. > > The mix found in the speech of the settlers of a new place establishes the kind of accent that their children will develop. **But the first generation born in the new place will not keep the diversity of their parents’ generation – they will speak with similar accents to the others of their age group. And if the population grows slowly enough, the children will be able to absorb subsequent children into their group, so that even quite large migrations of other groups (such as Irish people into Australia) will not make much difference to the accent of the new place.** Most parents know this. If someone from New York (US) marries someone from Glasgow (Scotland, UK), and these two parents raise a child in Leeds (England, UK), that child will not speak like either of the parents, but will speak like the children he (I know of such a child!) is at school with. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/37 "2011-11-22T01:32:46Z")
> [@Sister\_Vigilante](#): > > I was taught that rhymes such as prove and love were visual rhymes, in that since they were spelled similarly, you could “rhyme” them even if they weren’t pronounced the same. And this isn’t something you see only in centuries old poetry, or in later work that emulates it. IIRC even popular musicians in more recent times, e.g. the Beatles, have used visual rhymes like “again” and “pain”. ---
**Author:** ![UDS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecae2f/32.png) [@UDS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/38 "2011-11-22T03:14:24Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > And this isn’t something you see only in centuries old poetry, or in later work that emulates it. IIRC even popular musicians in more recent times, e.g. the Beatles, have used visual rhymes like “again” and “pain”. “Again” and “pain” are aural rhymes (or close enough to it) in many northern varieties of English including, I think, that spoken in Liverpool. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/39 "2011-11-22T03:45:51Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Any written form of a language comprises a dialect of that language. Yes, but anything in written form is replicated through different channels. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2011, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639/40 "2011-11-22T03:54:40Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Yes, but anything in written form is replicated through different channels. How is that different from spoken language and how does it relate to your assertion that dialects exist only in spoken language? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-the-american-accent-start-to-deviate-from-the-english-accent/603639.md?page=3)