what separates the U.S. from Britain linguistically?

[freepcrusher]

What I've wondered is why the British accent isn't really apparent in the states. One would expect since America was founded by people of British extraction, that there would be an accent of sorts.

[Warren 4 Secretary of Everything]

Rednecks

EDIT: & Freedom

[Lief 🗽]

A lot of the features of the "British" accent only emerged after we won our independence, iirc.

[dead0man]

The way I understand it is:there are different dialects in Britain.  Most English immigrants to the US came from only a couple of those places (specifically not the places that had most influence on English English moving forward).  Since then English English and American English have been influenced by different things leading to where we are today.

Thankfully with mass media, everybody is (slowly) converging.  We might still be speaking slightly different in 200 years, but we might not be.

[dead0man]

Indeed.  It's much easier for this American to understand the BBC than it is for me to understand most people in Louisiana.  We don't get subtitles on Top Gear, but we do on those "gator hunting" shows.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There is no such thing as 'the British accent'.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Do you mean "Received Pronunciation" that you hear on BBC and movies? Because that's only really in the London area.

RP is a class accent rather than a regional one.

[ilikeverin]

A lot of the features of the "British" accent only emerged after we won our independence, iirc.

This.  Many visitors to the "early" US (1700s, early 1800s) from the UK mention how they find the speech of colonial America to be pleasantly "refined" and "proper", because the features we now stereotype as "British" and therefore refined and proper were new introductions to varieties of English spoken in the British Isles and were thus seen as annoying.

Thankfully with mass media, everybody is (slowly) converging.  We might still be speaking slightly different in 200 years, but we might not be.

False.  Mass media is not accelerating linguistic convergence.  Regional dialects may be getting somewhat less apparent in the UK, but that's largely a result of increased geographic mobility.  Meanwhile, dialects are becoming increasingly more distinct in the US, by and large, with the continued decrease in speakers of some East Coast dialects (e.g., Charleston) being more than balanced by large changes in the Rust Belt and California.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A lot of American 'dialects' aren't really much more than accents, though.

[dead0man]

False.  Mass media is not accelerating linguistic convergence.  Regional dialects may be getting somewhat less apparent in the UK, but that's largely a result of increased geographic mobility.  Meanwhile, dialects are becoming increasingly more distinct in the US, by and large, with the continued decrease in speakers of some East Coast dialects (e.g., Charleston) being more than balanced by large changes in the Rust Belt and California.

I was under the impression that TV (and to a lesser extent, films) desire to have most "normal" characters speak with a flat, midwestern accent was having a rather large impact on our "lesser" accents.  Hence why people in California and the Rust Belt now sound like they just got off the bus from Des Moines.

[patrick1]

False.  Mass media is not accelerating linguistic convergence.  Regional dialects may be getting somewhat less apparent in the UK, but that's largely a result of increased geographic mobility.  Meanwhile, dialects are becoming increasingly more distinct in the US, by and large, with the continued decrease in speakers of some East Coast dialects (e.g., Charleston) being more than balanced by large changes in the Rust Belt and California.

I was under the impression that TV (and to a lesser extent, films) desire to have most "normal" characters speak with a flat, midwestern accent was having a rather large impact on our "lesser" accents.  Hence why people in California and the Rust Belt now sound like they just got off the bus from Des Moines.

The linguist Labov showed that, counter-intuitively, accents were becoming more defined. They are fluid and changing, but I think he showed a diverging pattern.

Here is a link to some of his work.  He was featured in a pretty good PBS documentary on American accents
http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/home.html

[dead0man]

Best way to learn Brittish accents is naturally watch BBC Election night program.  The so called returning officers have "interesting" accents.

That's my third favorite show on the BBC!

[ingemann]

There is no such thing as 'the British accent'.

Do German, Swedish, French, Russian etc. accent exist?

[Хahar 🤔]

False.  Mass media is not accelerating linguistic convergence.  Regional dialects may be getting somewhat less apparent in the UK, but that's largely a result of increased geographic mobility.  Meanwhile, dialects are becoming increasingly more distinct in the US, by and large, with the continued decrease in speakers of some East Coast dialects (e.g., Charleston) being more than balanced by large changes in the Rust Belt and California.

I was under the impression that TV (and to a lesser extent, films) desire to have most "normal" characters speak with a flat, midwestern accent was having a rather large impact on our "lesser" accents.  Hence why people in California and the Rust Belt now sound like they just got off the bus from Des Moines.

Accents in the western part of the country are just less distinct because those areas are more recently settled and have fewer natives.

[King]

The Welsh, Scots, and Irish becoming English speakers probably had an effect on the way it was spoken in the motherland, no? America didn't have those influences until much later.

[All Along The Watchtower]

False.  Mass media is not accelerating linguistic convergence.  Regional dialects may be getting somewhat less apparent in the UK, but that's largely a result of increased geographic mobility.  Meanwhile, dialects are becoming increasingly more distinct in the US, by and large, with the continued decrease in speakers of some East Coast dialects (e.g., Charleston) being more than balanced by large changes in the Rust Belt and California.

I was under the impression that TV (and to a lesser extent, films) desire to have most "normal" characters speak with a flat, midwestern accent was having a rather large impact on our "lesser" accents.  Hence why people in California and the Rust Belt now sound like they just got off the bus from Des Moines.

Accents in the western part of the country are just less distinct because those areas are more recently settled and have fewer natives.

+1

[ilikeverin]

A lot of American 'dialects' aren't really much more than accents, though.

Eh, there's no commonly accepted definition for such words.  The most frequently used ones are that accents are what non-native speakers of a language have and dialects are what native speakers have.

False.  Mass media is not accelerating linguistic convergence.  Regional dialects may be getting somewhat less apparent in the UK, but that's largely a result of increased geographic mobility.  Meanwhile, dialects are becoming increasingly more distinct in the US, by and large, with the continued decrease in speakers of some East Coast dialects (e.g., Charleston) being more than balanced by large changes in the Rust Belt and California.

I was under the impression that TV (and to a lesser extent, films) desire to have most "normal" characters speak with a flat, midwestern accent was having a rather large impact on our "lesser" accents.  Hence why people in California and the Rust Belt now sound like they just got off the bus from Des Moines.

Accents in the western part of the country are just less distinct because those areas are more recently settled and have fewer natives.

And California's trying to catch up! (although I don't know about how true the latter representation is... but I've heard Californians speak of it appreciatively)

[memphis]

I don't have any evidence beyond the anecdotal, but older people around here definately have a much stronger Southern accent. Most young people don't want to sound like they just fell off the turnip truck. There is a small but notable suburban redneck by choice minority, however, that tries very hard to push things the other way.

[dead0man]

I don't have any evidence beyond the anecdotal, but older people around here definately have a much stronger Southern accent. Most young people don't want to sound like they just fell off the turnip truck. There is a small but notable suburban redneck by choice minority, however, that tries very hard to push things the other way.

That was my experience in the south too.  Hell, even in rural southern Illinois old people talk "funnier" than young people.  Like, nobody under 60 says "warsh" when they mean wash or "ole" when they mean oil, but every old person does.