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There is no such thing as "American English". That term refers to the MANY dialects spoken within the United States.
The program I saw, on PBS some time ago, concentrated on the uppper southern east coast, especially in the carolinas. The measure was rhyme. Shakespeare used rhyme commonly in his work, but there are sections where the rhyme seems absent, especially in official English English. The 'general' american pronunicaiton is closer to flowing, but the areas where the more archeic dialects in the carolinas are still spoken the words flow almost perfectly.
I think what was being refered to is the 'standard' pronunciations you hear every ancorman use no matter if its California or Oklahoma.
I think what was being refered to is the 'standard' pronunciations you hear every ancorman use no matter if its California or Oklahoma.
But even those differ.
Listen to Tom Brokaw vs. Brian Williams.
My guess is Harry Chickpea can tell the difference easily. If you are keyed into regional differences it's quite easy.
You're from So Cal. I'm not sure when you were there but for REAL fun think about the difference between Linda Alvarez and Pat Harvey and how they pronounce So Cal place names. Alvarez is a huge example that the "standard broadcaster pronunciations" are long gone.
Brian is easy to peg from New Jersey - likely northern NJ. Brokaw is upper midwest, but I had to look up a bio to get closer than that. South Dakota ... Brian... Middletown, yeah, sounds right. Jeanne Moos is an interesting one. Although she is from Pittsburgh, her Syracuse NY (college) accent is much stronger. I remember her first day on air at WPTZ - I still cringe when I think back on it. Within a week she had pulled things together.
This is interesting. I've always wondered this too. The Tidewater/Old Virginia accent sounds so much different than the Arkansas/Texas/Tennessee/Kentucky Western South type accent. I wonder where that one came from? I've always assumed it was more influenced by a Scotch-Irish type sound than an old English accent, like in Virginia. It just doesn't sound like it could've came from the same source.
Brian is easy to peg from New Jersey - likely northern NJ. Brokaw is upper midwest, but I had to look up a bio to get closer than that. South Dakota ... Brian... Middletown, yeah, sounds right. Jeanne Moos is an interesting one. Although she is from Pittsburgh, her Syracuse NY (college) accent is much stronger. I remember her first day on air at WPTZ - I still cringe when I think back on it. Within a week she had pulled things together.
I have a name for you: Shepard Smith. He's got a terrific ol' Miss dialect. And he frequently uses the colloquialisms on air during his broadcasts.
This is interesting. I've always wondered this too. The Tidewater/Old Virginia accent sounds so much different than the Arkansas/Texas/Tennessee/Kentucky Western South type accent. I wonder where that one came from? I've always assumed it was more influenced by a Scotch-Irish type sound than an old English accent, like in Virginia. It just doesn't sound like it could've came from the same source.
The Arkansas, Kentucky, etc. accent evolved primarily from Protestant Scots and northern English who had settled in Ulster, then later continued to America.
With them came settlers from Germany, France and a few other countries. What they had in common were their Calvinistic religious beliefs.
The term Scotch-Irish came into use in the latter part of the 19th century, to distinguish these earlier settlers from the Roman Catholic Irish who started coming to America in droves after the potato famine in the 1840's.
Good thread. First of all, I always laugh when I hear anyone say that American's "don't have accents" or "don't have regional accents". It's ridiculous, since everywhere I go I hear people here in the U.S. speaking so many different ways. Sometimes, I can't even pinpoint where someone is from due to a strange (to my ears, at least) accent, and I've travelled all over the country. Just to give you one example, I was in Boston last summer (great city, but that's another thread), and I heard the specific Boston accent spoken by many people there.
Back to the OP - how the American accent that we've been hearing for the past 60-70?! years evolved is something I've always wondered about.
I'm a big movie buff, and if you watch a movie from the 1940's - 1950's, you sometimes hear American actors/actresses speak with the slight traces of a British accent. So, I'm suspecting that the British accent was still evident in American speech in the early 1900's (and obviously earlier), and possibly started to dissapear - to some extent - in the 1940's/1950's....Obviously, I have no way to prove this.
When I was in high school (late 1980's), I remember asking a history professor the very question in the OP, i.e. when was it that Americans started speaking English with a different accent than the British, and why this started happening?! The response was, "You need to ask a linguist that question".
Good thread. First of all, I always laugh when I hear anyone say that American's "don't have accents" or "don't have regional accents". It's ridiculous, since everywhere I go I hear people here in the U.S. speaking so many different ways. Sometimes, I can't even pinpoint where someone is from due to a strange (to my ears, at least) accent, and I've travelled all over the country. Just to give you one example, I was in Boston last summer (great city, but that's another thread), and I heard the specific Boston accent spoken by many people there.
Back to the OP - how the American accent that we've been hearing for the past 60-70?! years evolved is something I've always wondered about.
I'm a big movie buff, and if you watch a movie from the 1940's - 1950's, you sometimes hear American actors/actresses speak with the slight traces of a British accent. So, I'm suspecting that the British accent was still evident in American speech in the early 1900's (and obviously earlier), and possibly started to dissapear - to some extent - in the 1940's/1950's....Obviously, I have no way to prove this.
When I was in high school (late 1980's), I remember asking a history professor the very question in the OP, i.e. when was it that Americans started speaking English with a different accent than the British, and why this started happening?! The response was, "You need to ask a linguist that question".
This article discusses the fake accents of actresses and actors in the early days of movies, in the whole first half of the 20th century:
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