The Dialects of the Independent American Republics

[Foushoo]

In an ATL where the Articles of Confederation collapse into a domino effect of independent republics and confederations of former US states, how would each nation's dialect develop by today? Is slightly more than 2 centuries enough time for dialects to form notably different from the OTL dialects?

For the sake of this discussion, lets set the time of rapid de-confederation at around 1790 +/- a few years and the major confederacies at PoD being, roughly, New England(MA, CT, RI, NH, ME(most of it)), New York, Pennsylvania(PA, DE, MD), New Jersey, Vermont, Virginia(VA, WV, KY), Carolina(SC, NC, TN, GA, (MS, AL)(northern half)), and the Old Northwest would likely be a smorgasbord of Canadian and American claiming.

 

[Sevarics]

I mean maybe we see some states trying to mirror posh British society and their dialects.

 

[ramones1986]

The rhotic shift in English had started during this period, right?

 

[Foushoo]

I know Louisa May Alcott(a born and raised New Englander) was known to have her characters refer to their mothers as "Marmar" or "Marmee". Though it is currently believed that these were pronounced how most Americans pronounce "Mama" or "Mommy", Alcott likely spelled them this way because Massachusettsan have a non-rhotic dialect and "Mar-" would make a "Mah" sound. Though this is a small dialectic difference, I feel if this rule was able to proliferate without influence from the rest of the US, it may form an important part to a distinct New Englander way of writing out words.

 

[Nagisaki]

Any likelyhood of any of these new states returning to the Empire?

 

[Foushoo]

Any likelyhood of any of these new states returning to the Empire?

Since it would nearly be the 1800s(well into the loyalist diaspora) by the time these confederations settled in I'd say it is very unlikely for any of them to return to Britain though they may seek some sort of alliance.

 

[Foushoo]

The rhotic shift in English had started during this period, right?

"By the 1770s, postvocalic /r/-less pronunciation was becoming common around London even in more formal, educated speech. The English actor and linguist John Walker uses the spelling ar to indicate the long vowel of aunt in his 1775 rhyming dictionary.[2] In his influential Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language (1791), Walker reported, with a strong tone of disapproval, that "... the r in lard, bard, [...] is pronounced so much in the throat as to be little more than the middle or Italian a, lengthened into baa, baad...."[10] Americans returning to England after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 reported surprise at the significant changes in fashionable pronunciation.[11] By the early 19th century, the southern British standard was fully transformed into a non-rhotic variety, though it continued to be variable as late as the 1870s.[10]"(from the Wikipedia article, Rhoticity in English)
This should answer your question.

Also, in the same article, there's an interesting insight into how and when non-rhotic dialects formed in coastal cities of the soon to be American Republics. This makes me think of how non-rhotic dialects like those in New England and New York would cohabitate with a much smaller and sparser populated rhotic hinterland. Perhaps this may lead to something similar to Sevarics' suggestion at least in the city but perhaps inspiring the hinterland's dialect slightly.

I mean maybe we see some states trying to mirror posh British society and their dialects.

"The adoption of postvocalic /r/-less pronunciation as the British prestige standard in the late 18th and early 19th centuries influenced American port cities with close connections to Britain, causing upper-class pronunciation in many eastern and southern port cities such as New York City, Boston, Alexandria, Charleston, and Savannah to become non-rhotic.[12] Like regional dialects in England, the accents of other areas in America remained rhotic in a display of linguistic "lag" that preserved the original pronunciation of /r/.[12] Non-rhotic pronunciation continued to influence American prestige speech until the 1860s, when the American Civil War shifted America's centers of wealth and political power to areas with fewer cultural connections to the British elite.[13]"

 

[Foushoo]

On a similar note on to the English histories of the Republics, Germans were also quite more concentrated in some states more than others. For example, states like Pennsylvania, New York, and Virginia, had large German-speaking populations in their hinterland very early on and IOTL these areas were used to as fertile grounds for future German settlement in these states. I've been pondering on if and how this would affect how the dialects of each of these republics would form, and also how dialects would form in the surrounding non-german saturated republics.
For example, I read an article that discussed several similarities between American English and German but not between German and British English.
Though there is simple similarities, like use of "already" as an intensifying adverb and how numbers and time are expressed. One larger difference is how "adverbs of manner" are expressed as their adjective forms in a sentence(ex. Johnny drives slowly(BE) to Johnny drives slowly(AE)).
The states of Minnesota and Wisconsin are also good models for how an English could be affected by a large group of German speakers(since both these states were founded first primarily by New Englanders than was saturated by large waves of German immigration). One dialectical difference of this region is how prepositions are treat at the end of a sentence. Unlike most of the US this region shares the omission of a pronoun at the end of a prepositional phrase(ex. Are you coming with us(AE) to Are you coming with(MN/WI)).

 

[Foushoo]

I've found an even better model to go by(I don't know why I didn't think of it before).
Pennsylvania Dutch is a German dialect native to Pennsylvania. However, there's also an English dialect, called Pennsylvania Dutch English, which remains heavily influenced by Pennsylvania Dutch. This is exactly what I was looking for.

 

[Petros >Peter Fergus<]

I came here looking for the dialectics of the Independent American Republics.

 

[funnyhat]

"The adoption of postvocalic /r/-less pronunciation as the British prestige standard in the late 18th and early 19th centuries influenced American port cities with close connections to Britain, causing upper-class pronunciation in many eastern and southern port cities such as New York City, Boston, Alexandria, Charleston, and Savannah to become non-rhotic.[12] Like regional dialects in England, the accents of other areas in America remained rhotic in a display of linguistic "lag" that preserved the original pronunciation of /r/.[12] Non-rhotic pronunciation continued to influence American prestige speech until the 1860s, when the American Civil War shifted America's centers of wealth and political power to areas with fewer cultural connections to the British elite.[13]"

And the irony is that today that r-less pronunciation seems to be stigmatized in the USA.