When did Americans lose their British accent? (2012)

mentalfloss.com

5 points·jwdunne··4 comments

Other sources claim that Americans never lost their British accent. It is the standard British accent that has drastically changed in the past two centuries, while the typical American accent has changed only subtly.

See: https://www.livescience.com/33652-americans-brits-accents.ht...

It's a shame this article focuses on received pronunciation. If the British accent is the accent of the 1%, then yeah.

The real British accent has so much variation, there isn't one. There's a stark difference between my accent and someone's accent just 10 miles away (the Salford and Bolton accents are quite distinct).

Game of Thrones shows a good mix of real British accents if not a bit mishmash (Sean Bean business as usual accent for Ned Stark, plus a Manchester accent from Robb Stark and God knows what from Arya, with a fairly decent mock one for Jon Snow).

I heard the USA has the English of Shakespeare age. That England changed the spelling of some words as well as how they pronounced them. The Queen's English vs Traditional English. Is that correct?

This is interesting:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

Pronunciation in 1600s sounds like a mismash of northern and Scottish accents. The 1600s "mate" is literally how someone from Lancashire would pronounce it. Boat sounds like a mild Scottish accent.

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