Did you know…
…that before the American Revolution, both America and Britain spoke like the Americans do today?
I am not kidding about this.
All these period movies where everyone speaks exactly like the British today are wrong!
Scandalous, I know.
Turn out “(i)t is the standard British accent that has drastically changed in the past two centuries, while the typical American accent has changed only subtly.” (source)
Apparently there were a lot of folks from lower birth ranks in and around London around the time of the American Revolution, who became quite wealthy thanks to the Industrial Revolution. In an effort to distinguish themselves from other commoners, they cultivated a newer pronunciation. It caught on well and soon tutors were teaching everyone to speak like the British speak today.
This, for some reason, turns my entire world upside-down.
I just cannot imagine King George grumbling about the troublesome colonists—in an American accent. It’s just wrong.
Am I the only person who didn’t know this?
(For further reading, this was an interesting article.)
Hi Janice,
As I would have said before I moved away from the East End of London, ‘what a load of old cobblers’. Which American accent is the article referring to? There are nearly as many accents in various arts of the states as there are in various parts of Britain. I have not noticed many of them sounded like the Scots or Irish, where many of them originate, (or Germans and Scandinavians) Meanwhile in Britain, there are still a wide range of accents from different areas. Received pronunciation, which used to be standard for the BBC, is heard very rarely outside the landed gentry. I must admit that much of the South-East, where the population is more concentrated, tend to use what is known as ‘Estuary English’ but elsewhere the remain great differences. I have lived in various arts of the country and have had to modify my Cockney accent to be understood. however, while in the North I am recognised as a Southerner, in London I am thought to have an accent from ‘somewhere in the country’.
Interesting. I assume you refer to the standard “radio broadcast” American accent, since it bends the mind to think of the British speaking with New Yorker or Georgian inflections.
Although it does make an amusing mental image. I can just picture King George III, sitting down to his silver dish of grits, saying, “So what do y’all reckon we should do about these pesky colonists?” 🙂