This is a question I've had all my life - How did the English language change from say from when the Mayflower landed to modern times?

For example, how come when people settled in Boston, English was spoken one way and when people settled in Richmond, they spoke with a drawl? You get the point.

Same thing with Canada and Australia. Why did the language change in those countries. How does living in a different part of the world change the dialect?

I'd be very interested to hear some answers on this.

[brooklynbabe]

Dialects were influenced by the origin of the early settlers, i.e. English, Dutch, Irish, German, etc. I was raised by a mother who had a thick Irish brogue, but my Brooklyn accent persists. Go figure.

Here's a site you might find interesting:

http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/1906/dialects.html

Brooklynbabe,

Thanks very much for the website link. I checked it out. Found it very interesting. I never realized some many factors influenced one language. Fascinating stuff.

Regards,

Dennis

Hi, I think alot had to do with hanging around street corners watching all the girls go by in my neighborhood. That definitely had a language into itself. Thanks D, Joe....

[Leanne]

To me, the Australian accent is close to a London, or Cockney accent. Not that I would ever get them mixed up, but I hear similarities. That might be down to the convict transportation that went on between Britain and Australia, mostly London-based from what I can tell. I don't know.

I also hear some vague similarities between the Irish and American accent. I know there are many American accents, but broadly speaking, I think the American accent is Irish based. This might be due to the potato famine, where many Irish people moved out to the USA, and I'm sure many people in here can claim some Irish heritage.

In the UK, we have very distinct local accents. I can clearly perceive accent changes within 10 miles of my home. I would suspect that Marty, who lives maybe 150 miles from me, will have a distinct Liverpool accent and it will sound very unusual to me. Newcastle (Geordie) is even more strange to me.

But, the world is getting smaller, and we hear accents all the time. We move around more, and I wonder if in the future, accents will gel into one. I hope not. Also, I hope English doesn't become the international language. It's already the international second language, just ahead of French and Spanish, but I wouldn't want us all to be speaking English as our first language.

Diversity is so important.

Lee.

A couple of years ago, I was watching a movie from Scotland, and I swear, I was only understanding one out of maybe every 10 words. Fortunately, it had subtitles. It was actually a decent movie, but I found the dialect in the movie very difficult. I hope to God I never get a witness like that in the courtroom. I'd be out of a job quick.

[Leanne]

Scottish people speak with a guttural accent, based on a German dialect. Gaelic (say Gallic) is the national language of Scotland, and it is still spoken in the north. I think that's why they have this guttural accent. Glasgow is quite strong, but go 30 miles southwest to Ayr (Burn's country), and even Brits will struggle to understand. Scottish Islands have even stronger accents, but their partial isolation, at least up until about 30 years ago, would account for that.

I would be interested to know how different accents are within other countries. I'm sure Gerald will have many accents in his home, Brazil. Are accents and dialects common in non-English speaking countries?

[Leanne]

I almost forgot. Click on my name in my sig if you want to hear a lovely Scottish accent. It's Ivor Cutler, an amazing octogenarian Scottish poet who is well thought of by students in the UK. I think you will understand him OK.

[johnofphilly]

to a Philly drawl again. Short vowels sound almost like long ones, long ones sound longer. When I lived in San Francisco for over 20 years, by about the second year relaxed short vowels and shorter long ones delivered in a laid back way.
But now once again I speak faster and more gutteral.

I think it has to do with the weather/humidity and the ruboff of other people.

I think Spanish is another good example of how languages have changed somewhat. For instance, I can definitely tell a person from Argentina. I find their Spanish accent very distinct. Of course, dialect is different say for someone from Puerto Rico or Cuba. I guess as people have traveled, their language had many other influences.

When I started working in the court system, the most common accent I had from witnesses was Spanish, which I got used to. Of course, black people from the south are very difficult to take down. In the last several years, some of the toughest accents I have taken are Indian, Haitian (almost impossible). It's called Creole. I had an attorney the other day from Nigeria. I was barely able to get his appearance down on the record. And plus in the courtrooms that I work, the acoustics are horrible with the high ceilings.

Lee,

Thanks for the link. I listened to Ivor Cutler. I listened to Making A Friend. He had a very nice, soothing voice. I had no problem understanding him. It was a realy nice reading he gave.

[Leanne]

I think I would know a Texas accent, and maybe a New York one too. Fivelive carries an ABC newscast at 2.05am. There is a chap called Chuck Severson (sp). I love his accent, but is it real?

Are there any American accents that are considered too strong to be used on national broadcasts? Are people on television generally encouraged to have fairly 'neutral' accents?

Lee,

I believe the answer to your questions:

Are there any American accents that are considered too strong to be used on national broadcasts? Are people on television generally encouraged to have fairly 'neutral' accents?

would be YES! New York and Deep South accents, Oklahoma and Texas accents are not desirable for newscasting. I am sure students are required to take a diction type class when pursuing a television journalism degree.

I was taking a practice SAT and one of the articles we had to read was about languages.

It said in the future, of the 6,000 languages the world currently speaks, 200 of them are going to go extinct. I believe that the number of languages that we speak is going to keep decreasing.

English has become the language of prosperity and so that will be around forever. Many of the European languages will stay too. So will Chinese, Hindi, and Arabic.

The languages that are in most danger of going extinct are the tribal languages of Africa, South America, and Asia.

James

[Yvonne]

Language, especially English develops into new forms and sub dialects very quickly, in areas of concentrated immigration, in order for people to understand one another then distinctive accents develop by necessity, for example in the north west of England, the difference of a few miles mean a very different accent, some would say even sub dialect exists here on Merseyside than in surrounding areas such as Lancashire or Cheshire. The reasoning behind this being the concentration of Irish, Welsh & Lancastrian workers coming into the city during the industrial revolution which was added to by European migrants in the late 19th early 20th centuries (many New York bound though many stayed) again adding to the mix. At the moment in the UK and I expect in many other places around the world too, the written form of the language is changing at a pace formerly unknown as a result of SMS text messaging and the increased use of mobile phones which has a written "dialect" all its own which evolves almost daily.

Marty (alright i'm not at home)

Ragazza-

I did some research on this for a paper I had to write in college. One of the books I read said that the southern accent is very similar to the irish accent. I 've never heard the similarity but I just thought I would tell you that it has been studied and we do sound like Irish people.

As far as the T.V. people and their accents, when a newscaster goes to broadcasting school they are taught to speak with a midwestern accent. I don't what that means but that is what they call it. I think this is silly as their are so many different accents in the midwest. But that is just the way it is.

I have moved back and forth between St. Louis and Springfield Missouri so much over the last 10 years that I have an odd accent. My friends in St. Louis think that I sound like a southern hick, and my friends in Springfield think I sound like I am from St. Louis. I don't know where that really puts me. I don't think I have an accent at all but that is just me. I think that that is the way a lot of people feel about the way the talk.

[Ace917]

Friends would come over to my house in Illinois and comment on my mother's wonderful southern accent. I'd think what accent? She sounds normal to me!

I notice differences in northern and southern Ireland. Northern may have some Scottish influence? whereas the southern is more lilting... what we Americans may think of as traditional Irish.

We move around more, and I wonder if in the future, accents will gel into one.

Been tried already. Some little town called Babel. Didn't work.

[Nancy]

bump

[Taylor]

Originally Posted by Ace917

Friends would come over to my house in Illinois and comment on my mother's wonderful southern accent. I'd think what accent? She sounds normal to me!

I notice differences in northern and southern Ireland. Northern may have some Scottish influence? whereas the southern is more lilting... what we Americans may think of as traditional Irish.

Been tried already. Some little town called Babel. Didn't work.

I don't think I have a southern accent, but several of our Yankee forum members think otherwise. I say Yankee in a nice way, of course.

[voice1]

Trying to figure out how the Brits bastardized the American language is difficult. They keep adding letters we don't need and changing "z" to "S". The Brits have totally ruined everything. If only everyone could speak as eloquently as we do in the western suburbs of Philadelphia.