Is GAE accent a blend of non-english accents?

Miguel   Wed Mar 25, 2009 1:49 pm GMT
Many immigrants went to America and influenced many things including that language. What parts of the american accent are influenced by other languages? When I hear it I try to listen for sounds of Spanish, Italian, Russian, african languages and so on, but I don't hear the blend that I expect. Where did the Americans' accent come from and why can't I hear "hints" of other languages in there pronunciations?
wk   Wed Mar 25, 2009 3:15 pm GMT
Just because there are lots of immigrants in all the English speaking countries does not mean that English is influenced to any great extent by there accents. General American English contains little or no influence from foreign languages. Some places in North America do have some foreign influence, such as German and Scandinavian influence in parts of the Midwest, and a little bit of Spanish influence (on native speakers of English not part of Spanish-speaking cultural groups). Also some ares of New York City. But General American is fairly immune to this. Remember the children of ESL parents speak with no trace of their parents' accent, but rather that of their peers--who are usually native speakers of English.
EU boy   Wed Mar 25, 2009 3:24 pm GMT
Could all these Immigrants and their Influence be the Reason why AE (Grammar, Spelling and Usages) is simpler than the more complex BE that we learn in Schools in Europe?
wk   Wed Mar 25, 2009 3:45 pm GMT
The grammar is no simpler. In fact in some aspects it retains archaic constructions that no longer exist in most dialects of English outside of North America, such as the use of "gotten", and the subjunctive mood: "We ask that you remain here for 60 days."Besides we ask that you remember that there are also many immigrants in Britain as well.
Lazar   Wed Mar 25, 2009 5:36 pm GMT
I agree with wk: I think it is very doubtful that there is any significant foreign influence in the phonology of GAm.
Jasper   Wed Mar 25, 2009 6:05 pm GMT
"We ask that you remain here for 60 days."

How would an Englishman have worded this question?
t   Wed Mar 25, 2009 6:42 pm GMT
We ask that you should remain....
Uriel   Thu Mar 26, 2009 2:16 am GMT
American English has its roots in 17th & 18th century British accents. We sound very close to old West Country and have a lot in common with Irish. The reason we don't sound like many modern Brits is because we retain a lot of old-fashioned features like the heavy R's and the flat A's that are no longer common in the more popular dialects of British English. It has nothing to do with immigrants from other countries. We simply sound more like our original settler ancestors in many ways.

The spelling variations have nothing to do with immigrants, either. Some are simply alternate versions that also existed in Great Britain at the time that we split away from them, and others were popularized by Noah Webster, who had a personal pet peeve about complicated spellings and tirelessly promoted his reforms. For the record, though, only a few of his simplifications were adopted; the rest were too radical even for us.
John   Thu Mar 26, 2009 9:54 am GMT
"We sound very close to old West Country and have a lot in common with Irish"

I have never thought of AE as having much in common with Irish. Can somone elaborate on this?
wk   Thu Mar 26, 2009 3:01 pm GMT
Post4
It really depends on the dialect of Irish English. Some don't sound much like AE, but lots do. Sometimes an American can go for a while listening to what sounds like an American accent, and then suddenly realise that it is Irish. I can't find any good examples at the moment, but here's a sort of good example:

http://accent.gmu.edu/searchsaa.php?function=detail&speakerid=135
Travis   Thu Mar 26, 2009 5:31 pm GMT
That's the thing - I myself at least do not really think that most (rhotic) NAE dialects actually are all too much like West Country and like. It is just that NAE and the likes of West Country have a range of shared conservatisms (rhoticism, certain vowel qualities) which make them superficially similar at times. Rather, most of (rhotic) NAE is most likely really just descended from southeastern (English) English before many of the innovations that we think of today as characteristic of southeastern English English came to be.
Travis   Thu Mar 26, 2009 5:33 pm GMT
(Remember, once you get over the differences with respect to non-rhoticism, a few vowel shifts and mergers, and like, GA and RP are actually very close together, especially compared to the internal dialectal variation in North America and England, respectively.)
Uriel   Fri Mar 27, 2009 3:41 am GMT
If I listen to a variety of differtent accents, West Country and Irish sound the closest to my own. Don't see what's so superficial about shared rhoticism and vowel qualities -- they're usually the defining characteristics I'm listening for! Other differences pale before them.
Travis   Fri Mar 27, 2009 5:06 am GMT
The most important thing, for starters, is that most of the English people who settled in North America came from, well, southeastern England, which makes it unlikely that NAE is genetically more closely related to anything other than southeastern English English.

But that aside, the matter is that there are very fundamental differences between NAE and West Country, for instance, which are not present between NAE and RP. Take, for instance, the voicing of fricatives in onsets in West Country or the completely different conjugation of GA and RP "to be" (I/A be; thee bist; he/she/it be rather than I am; you are; he/she/it is); these are differences that I would guess could likely date back to the days of Old English, or at least early Middle English.

Likewise, Irish English has features that clearly indicate that it is not ancestral to NAE, despite any superficial similarities. First is the clear Irish substratum present in it, which shows up in features like the use of a consistently clear [l] for /l/ or the consistent use of monophthongal [eː] and [oː]; in the latter case, while the use of such is present in various NAE dialects, it is clearly a later innovation (often motivated by other clear substrata) and not ancestral to NAE.

The other thing is this - there is a very large amount of Anglic dialect diversity in the British Isles. If NAE had been descended from anything other than southeastern (English) English, why would GA be so close to RP relative to that great amount of dialect diversity?
Kendra   Fri Mar 27, 2009 3:56 pm GMT
In Kate Winstlet's hometown Reading (Redding) it's not uncommon to find unrounded realizations of word like ''hot, Don, John'' [A].