There is a principle in linguistics, simply stated, that languages tend to
differentiate as they are isolated. Since the colonists were separated from
their English speaking cousins across the pond there tended to be a
differentiation in the pronunciation. This is seen in other languages as
well, re Old World Spanish, with the lisp, and New World Spanish without the
lisp)

Interestingly enough, there is a secondary principle which states that if a
language group is so isolated so that it is not touched by other linguistic
influences, the language can tend to become static. The deep dialect in
some areas of Tennessee, for example, is the closest surviving remmnant to
Elizabethan English. It is one of the few areas where words such as neer
(as in neer do well), nary, and poke (rather than a bag or a sack) are still
in common usage. This dialect has been preserved in the more isolated
regions where until fairly recently there was little or no outside the area
contact, and now it is generally used primarily by old timers. There are
several projects underway by several universities to record and save the
speech patterns for future study.

Glen


"Fly-by-Night CC" wrote in message
news
In article ,
otforme (Charlie Self) wrote:

Possibly. I do wonder if anyone, anywhere in the English speaking world,

OK, I've had a question rattling around in my noggin' (note proper use
of an apostrophe to indicate a missing letter) for quite some time now...

At what point did we U.S.-ians and Canady-ites lose the Brit accent?
Australia still has theirs, some folks in India still have theirs.
What/who influenced the changeover to American English and accent versus
the Brittish (Proper?) English and accent? Did the New World-born and
raised colonists of, say 1776, sound American or Brittish? When did the
transition take place and over how long a period of time?

Please, please, will someone answer my queries - the rattling is tooo
damn loud and is driving me crazy! Crazy I tell ya, CRAZY!

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