How can Americans retain an English accent and dialect?

Which lead me upon something called "Linguistic Purism", which I would have suspected as a minor hobby but not as the sort of movement it seems to be among some people, and some very prominent people.

Has any Non-Norman England TL focused on language (as a quick aside to this topic)? If not, they should.

Anglo-Saxon linguistic purism? I admit, I'm an open fan of it. It's generally fascinating to see how the language would've played out as a more Germanic one, and I sometimes come across Dutch, German, or Scandinavian speech clippings and feel like I ought to understand them from my habitual studies of this and actual Old English. :D
 
I would say that Newfoundland English is actually a multitude of separate accents/dialects, some fairly close to other Maritimes accents, and others quite distant indeed. I once spent a summer working in a resort, and shared a two-person room with an outport Newfoundlander. When we first met, he talked for around 20 minutes, but I did not understand a single word he said. After a while, I learned to get past the very different cadence and stress, not to mention actual phonemes, he used, and suddenly I could make sense of what he was saying. On the other hand, the St John's natives I have spoken with were perfectly clear and understandable.

That makes a lot of sense. Overall, though, Newfoundland English is different because it is older than most of North America, so it had time to develop in relative isolation. The only real intrusions came in post-1949 (which is why the St. John's native were probably understandable to you, as they are probably among the closest to native Canadian English speakers you can get on the Rock).
 
How can Britons retain an English accent and dialect?

To my knowledge the West Virginia-Virginia border region has the most unaltered conservation of the English language.

Recently had a new coworker join (I teach English in China) and immediately insist on "correcting" our "nonsensical" American pronunciation. Thank heaven I studied history, or I would have been annoyed with no recourse. ;)
 
I'll piggy-back on most of the commentary so far, the current American sets of English are "truer" to British English of the colonial period than current mainstream British English (outside of a few outliers like the wonderful West Country or Lancashire dialects, of course), at least compared to RP.

Anglo-Saxon linguistic purism? I admit, I'm an open fan of it. It's generally fascinating to see how the language would've played out as a more Germanic one, and I sometimes come across Dutch, German, or Scandinavian speech clippings and feel like I ought to understand them from my habitual studies of this and actual Old English. :D

As am I, albeit not nearly as finicky about borrowing as some folks are. I do find having a healthy amount of varied vocabulary to be a good thing, I just find the damn-Norman additions alone an utter eyesore.

Just drop English in general and go for French. It works better.

Heresy! Anyone who's anyone knows that Spanish is a much prettier, classier and more poetic Romance language than that Gallo-Frankish runoff any day of the week :)p).
 
Impossible, it goes against the intrinsic properties of how language works. People separated by geography, distance, etc are always going to have diverging dialects, because languages are always changing slightly.
 
Impossible, it goes against the intrinsic properties of how language works. People separated by geography, distance, etc are always going to have diverging dialects, because languages are always changing slightly over time.
 
The Virginia/aristocratic southern accent is basically a slowed down aristocratic British accent from the 1700s. The southern accent in general is a very close, if slowed down, version of 18th-19th century English accents, if not vocabulary
 
The Virginia/aristocratic southern accent is basically a slowed down aristocratic British accent from the 1700s. The southern accent in general is a very close, if slowed down, version of 18th-19th century English accents, if not vocabulary

One could argue that the entire East Coast "old school" non-rhotic dialect continuum from Boston to Savannah is in the same category. Of course, cultural and economic differences between the two sides of the Mason-Dixon means changes in terminology and certain sounds (no real equivalent of Southern vowel-stretching up north, Boston's distinctive nasal short-a, etc.) that muddy the picture up a bit. If we're going by phonology, though, you'd be hard-pressed to find a closer equivalent to the English variant of old as described.
 
Heh. I'm Welsh but I've lived most of my life in London plus my wife is American. My accent's odd enough as it is, whilst my wife uses British terms all the time (much to her brother's bafflement when he calls from Oregon). That said I did once catch her pronouncing tomato properly. :D
 
Talked this over with a couple of my friends. Here in west central Indiana we identified two distinct local accents. One of course is the Amish. That one is wrapped up in the retention of a few quasi German grammar forms. ie: "You are from where?" vs "Where are you from?". My Bavarian friend tells me they "sound like the Swiss". The other local accent is a little odder and appears very restricted. On the western side of Benton County many of the folk have a reputation for "having trouble with their consonants" as one individual put it. Where this came from & why it has persisted I've not a clue. It existed in my childhood when I live in the eastern half of the county. Recently I've found it has persisted among individuals from that area, despite that they are under age 25, moved away since age 18, and grew up in the era of cable TV, internet, consolidated county school, and frequent travel out of the area.

Any one who knows what is going on with this last please speak up.
 
One problem is there as so many different English accents.
and with all the Irish Scots Germans etc it is going to be hard all the other non English accents influencing language and accents how people speak.
 
I do wonder if in a timeline where there was no American Revolution, North American and British English would remain at least slightly closer together because there would be stronger cultural ties. British-American aristocrats might self-consciously echo aristocratic accents from the mother country, and the influence might start flowing in the other direction as well as the colonies rose to equal Britain in power. For the non-aristocratic, a larger percentage of the immigration to British North America might be from Britain itself, leading to more commonality among accents.
 
I do wonder if in a timeline where there was no American Revolution, North American and British English would remain at least slightly closer together because there would be stronger cultural ties. British-American aristocrats might self-consciously echo aristocratic accents from the mother country, and the influence might start flowing in the other direction as well as the colonies rose to equal Britain in power. For the non-aristocratic, a larger percentage of the immigration to British North America might be from Britain itself, leading to more commonality among accents.

I think distance and ease of commutation would be more important.
An early radio service that people in England and America listen to would help.
 
Top