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Where does the American/Canadian accent get it's twang? Logically the accent itself
must come from the various European/native influences, but does that unique twang
sound come from the American/Canadian natives themselves? With the Australian/New
Zealand accents you can hear a distinct British influence; With the South-African
Accent you can hear the Dutch influence.
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perhaps this might help. This was a response given by Carl Mills of the University
of Cincinatti regarding the origins of North American accents on another forum
How did all this come about? Well, to untrained American ears, the
pronunciations of Australians tend to sound like those of the lower classes
of London from about a century ago. Perhaps, a clue? It appears that
transplanted varieties of a given language depend crucially on what part of
the mother country the bulk of the original colonists came from--and when.
Thus, it should not be surprising that most American dialects sound a lot
(but not completely) like Irish dialects. Initial big settlements in both
North America snd Ireland by English settlers began in the 16th Century, for Ireland,
and in the early 17th Century, for the US. In addition, colonial
dialects tend to be conservative with regard to language change compared to motherland
dialects. Hence, it is not surprising that the English of most
Americans sounds more like that of Elizabeth I than that of Elizabeth II.
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Also, American/Canadian English developed earlier than Australian and NZ English.
Hence, maybe one of the reasons why Australian and NZ sound closer to British English
in pronunciation.
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I would like to recommend David Hackett Fischer's "Albion's Seed" . It discusses
how the four basic accents of the East Coast of the United States relate to the 4
different parts of England the original settlers came from. Order it on Amazon.
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A lot "Americans" who've done "research" on this subject, have come up with a conclusion
that the Americans sound like the English of the past.
When basically, if you take an Irish accent, and an accent from South West England
(cornish).....get people from Holland and Germany. Give it over 200 years of isolation,
get them talking out of their nose.....you'll get something like sounds like an American
accent.
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Oh JAH VEE ZOUND LIEK DEUTSCH . AHR JU OHN KRAHK OR ZOHMZING, Fraulein Ade . And
it is not just American scholars who say so but British linguists agree also. Besides,
it was a british linguist who came up with the idea in the first place that American
sounds more like the English of Southern England from 300 years ago than "ENGLISH"
English does today .
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It was 226 years ago that America got it's independence wasn't it? You telling me
that the American accent with so many many many immigrants over 200 years didn't
change one bit, while the British accent was the only one that changed?
Give me a break.
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It isn't that the accent hasn't changed, but rather that it has changed in different
ways. The 'twang' was a feature of English speech in the past, but was subsequently
lost everywhere else. In the same way Americans have lost some features that modern
British speech maintains.
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Ok give it a break. Whoever is the owner of this website should make us create accounts
so we can register and that way no one can impersonate us.
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Rosalind, there is someone impersonating me also, but I but think that accounts should
be created. This would make a lot of people not write in here. To the person who
is doing the impersonating, please stop.
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Twnag...what does this mean. I guess as a speaker of the American West Coast dialect,
I cannot here this twang. When I think of "twang" I think of someone from Oklahoma
or Kansas. Other than that, I do not think of any English-speakers with a twangy
accent.
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I think it is the nasal sound.
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J, do Americans sound nasal to the British? I do not understand this as I speak French;
if you want to talk about nasal, then talk about French.
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Ever heard Bob Dylan? Sounds like his nose is going to fall off (I think he is pretty
good though). Americans pronounce everything in at least a slightly nasal way, the
French only nasalize certain vowels.
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