As for unroundedness, many British isles accents have /A/ instead of /Q/, for example in ''pop, rock'', the traditional Dublin accent has /A/ in these words, many people in Reading (read: Redding) have unrounded /A/ here as well, and in Southwestern England both /A/ and /Q/ are used interchangeably ;) in some Scottish accents /A/ is used in words like ''long, song'' (like in Eastern Canada and Southwestern US).
American sounds less native English than English or Aussie
Previous page Pages: 1 2
It is all to do with 'time' - literally.
The American accent first surfaced in New England/New York & northern Virginia.
The accent is an amalgamation of 17th century regional English dialects - chiefly: rural East Anglian (Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex).
East of England (Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, East/West & South Ridings i.e Yorkshire incl Humberside),
West of England ( Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire & Gloucestershire),
Southeast England (Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Middlesex (now Greater London).
Eastern England and the West of England were the primary shipping points to America (Bristol, Yarmouth, Boston etc, plus Gravesend in Kent and of course, London).
The Virginian accent (from England's first colony in America), remained - through the 17th century - very much "English" in tone. However it was the mass movement of pilgrims, opportunists and convicts from eastern England in particular, that had a fundamental change to how the New World colonists accent would be altered forever.
Today there are only a few nations other than the USA, whom use grammatical American English spelling.
Even the US' closest neighbour Canada uses 'British' English.
A footnote to this, is the fact that there is actually no such thing as 'British' English.
Standard English is the term and is spoken and written globally - regardless of which nation that you are in or from.
American English was deliberately and wittingly devised by Noah Webster (an American nationalist) post independence - at the behest of Congress, who simplified words and subsequently deemed the 'new' language "American".
Insofar as American accents having more in common with parts of Asia, that is utter nonsense.
It remains very much an Anglo-Saxon extension of England's old rustic English and little else.
The American accent first surfaced in New England/New York & northern Virginia.
The accent is an amalgamation of 17th century regional English dialects - chiefly: rural East Anglian (Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex).
East of England (Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, East/West & South Ridings i.e Yorkshire incl Humberside),
West of England ( Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, Wiltshire & Gloucestershire),
Southeast England (Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Middlesex (now Greater London).
Eastern England and the West of England were the primary shipping points to America (Bristol, Yarmouth, Boston etc, plus Gravesend in Kent and of course, London).
The Virginian accent (from England's first colony in America), remained - through the 17th century - very much "English" in tone. However it was the mass movement of pilgrims, opportunists and convicts from eastern England in particular, that had a fundamental change to how the New World colonists accent would be altered forever.
Today there are only a few nations other than the USA, whom use grammatical American English spelling.
Even the US' closest neighbour Canada uses 'British' English.
A footnote to this, is the fact that there is actually no such thing as 'British' English.
Standard English is the term and is spoken and written globally - regardless of which nation that you are in or from.
American English was deliberately and wittingly devised by Noah Webster (an American nationalist) post independence - at the behest of Congress, who simplified words and subsequently deemed the 'new' language "American".
Insofar as American accents having more in common with parts of Asia, that is utter nonsense.
It remains very much an Anglo-Saxon extension of England's old rustic English and little else.
Canadian English uses a combination of AE and BE spellings: both are technically correct, but there are many preferred spellings: for example "realize" is preferred over "realise" (you'll have to really hunt around for the spellign "realise", and it's usually from something written by someone from Britain or Australia.) "tire" is also preferred.
-Even the US' closest neighbour Canada uses 'British' English. -
1. the pronunciation and syntax is American
2. word usage (lexicon) is American
3. as for spellings, 90% are the same as the ones used in the US, in 10% of cases both UK and US forms can be used:
color . colour
honor. honour
both are possible although colour, honour is preferred in Eastern Canada,
but many Canadian universities have an HONOR degree not an HONOUR degree
In Western Canada (Alberta, BC) American spellings are preferred.
1. the pronunciation and syntax is American
2. word usage (lexicon) is American
3. as for spellings, 90% are the same as the ones used in the US, in 10% of cases both UK and US forms can be used:
color . colour
honor. honour
both are possible although colour, honour is preferred in Eastern Canada,
but many Canadian universities have an HONOR degree not an HONOUR degree
In Western Canada (Alberta, BC) American spellings are preferred.
Previous page Pages: 1 2