How long will the American accent as it is in 2010 last? (how much, movies)

[Trimac20]

I think the American accent as it's heard today - the standard Hollywood/Newscaster's Western/Midwestern generic accent - begin about the late 1930s, although the American accent probably dates back to the early 1800s. Accents and languages change all the time, so I think eventually American will sound noticeably different to how it does now. How long do you expect this to last?

My guess is another 80-100 years, then who knows what it'll sound like! (it'll still be the 'American' accent, but it might sound different).

[HtownLove]

I think our accent will gain a sort of hispanic influence based on the rate of growth of latin population.

I say by 2027 we will be talking like Ricky Ricardo.

so less than 25 years.

After that we will ease into a George lopez accent

[northstar22]

It will change over time. How much and when? We can only guess.

Think about how much (British) English changed in 1,200 years:

This:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLJGTYkEKLI

To this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKCsH1k73nw&feature=fvst

[waronxmas]

Originally Posted by Trimac20

I think the American accent as it's heard today - the standard Hollywood/Newscaster's Western/Midwestern generic accent - begin about the late 1930s, although the American accent probably dates back to the early 1800s. Accents and languages change all the time, so I think eventually American will sound noticeably different to how it does now. How long do you expect this to last?

My guess is another 80-100 years, then who knows what it'll sound like! (it'll still be the 'American' accent, but it might sound different).

The funny thing is that only a very small minority of Americans have ever spoken with that "generic" American accent with Southern and Northern accents always dominating since forever.

Even in Hollywood, where this seems to be the preferred faked accent, most of the top actors are Southerners.

But shhhh, the sheeple aren't supposed to know that.

With that said, the accents of America are an ever changing thing and are very fluid due to large influxes of foreign residents on a fairly regular basis.

[bchris02]

Millennials have a slightly different accent from baby boomers, who have a noticeable difference from the GI generation. It changes a little bit every generation. The Southern accent is disappearing from the urban areas even in the South.

[Trimac20]

Originally Posted by bchris02

Millennials have a slightly different accent from baby boomers, who have a noticeable difference from the GI generation. It changes a little bit every generation. The Southern accent is disappearing from the urban areas even in the South.

The inter-generational change in the American accent is small compared to the one I observe here. Only 30 years ago most of the voices on TV sounded British . Now the young'uns are starting to sound American.

[missRoxyhart]

If you're interested in the evolution of language, I think we live in a real special time. With TV and the internet everywhere in our lives, words and language and different ways of talking are introduced to us and change really fast. Much faster and spreading much farther than before the 20th century before popular radio, movies, TV, and internet.

But I also think it helps to preserve language at the same time too, everyone sees pretty much the same stuff on TV and online, and everyone everywhere starts to say the same stuff the same way when they do. Personally I think our current "sound" has at least 70-100 years to go.