Is American English older than British English?

American English is actually older
When the first settlers set sail from England to America, they took with them the common tongue at the time, which was based on something called rhotic speech (when you pronounce the r sound in a word).

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How did American English evolve from British English?

The “American English” we know and use today in an American accent first started out as an “England English” accent. According to a linguist at the Smithsonian, Americans began putting their own spin on English pronunciations just one generation after the colonists started arriving in the New World.

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Which English accent is older?

Geordie. As the oldest English dialect still spoken, Geordie normally refers to both the people and dialect of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in Northeast England.

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How did Australians get their accent?

Australian English can be described as a new dialect that developed as a result of contact between people who spoke different, mutually intelligible, varieties of English. The very early form of Australian English would have been first spoken by the children of the colonists born into the early colony in Sydney.

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When did the Australian accent develop?

According to Richards, the beginning of our Australian accent emerged following the arrival of European settlers in 1788. "It emerged from a process called levelling down because you had all these people who came here on 11 ships from different dialect areas, regional dialect areas across England," he said.

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Is American-English more traditional than British-English?

21 related questions found

Why did Americans lose their British accents?

The first is isolation; early colonists had only sporadic contact with the mother country. The second is exposure to other languages, and the colonists came into contact with Native American languages, mariners' Indian English pidgin and other settlers, who spoke Dutch, Swedish, French and Spanish.

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Which British accent is closest to American?

I would say that the closest accent to General American would be an Irish accent.
  • All accents in Ireland are rhotic (pronouncing the post-vocalic "r"). eg. wondah > wondeR.
  • The vowel sounds in "bath" and "box" are very similar.
  • The inter-vocalic "t" becomes a flapped t (which British people hear as a "d"). eg.

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Why do British people sound American when they sing?

One of the more likely reasons that singers mimic American accents when they perform is that many are taught to do so by their vocal teachers to encourage good vowel techniques. These long, neutral vowel techniques can often sound more like an American accent, and British vocal hints will be lost in the song.

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Why do British people say innit?

'Innit? ' is a contraction of the tag question 'Isn't it? ' and people use it to prompt a response from the listener. So if someone says 'Nice weather, innit?

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Why do Australian singers sound American?

They're probably just trying to sing “correctly”, producing sound from the back, which makes them sound American. I'm noticing some “r” sounds, too; I guess it's because while singing correctly one's tongue should be as relaxed as possible, which causes the “r” sounds to happen quite naturally.

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Why do the Beatles sing with an American accent?

Why do British vocalists often sound American when they sing? Because that's the way everyone expects pop and rock musicians to sound. British pop singers have been imitating American pronunciations since Cliff Richard, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones began recording in the 1960s.

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Who speaks the clearest English?

Top 10 Countries that Speak English the Best!
  • Singapore.
  • Norway.
  • Denmark.
  • South Africa.
  • Luxemburg.
  • Finland.
  • Slovenia.
  • Germany.

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Which countries love the British accent?

#1 The British accent

It was crowned the sexiest accent in the world with 25 percent of the total votes. The accent proved particularly popular in countries like China, Sweden, India and the USA.

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Was the British accent made up?

It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in London in the early modern period.

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Why do Australian accents sound British?

Early European settlers to Australia — many of whom were convicts — were from all over Great Britain and Ireland, and their speech patterns blended to form the new Australian accent.

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Why do British people have an accent and Americans don t?

Non-rhoticity spread through the British Isles over time, and many British immigrants arrived in the United States before non-rhoticity hit their homelands. So, while Americans of British descent continued to pronounce the letter “r,” the accents of British citizens evolved to drop the letter.

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What country has the cutest accent?

The year 2020 saw the British accent ranked No. 1 on the list. It was crowned the sexiest accent in the world with 25 percent of the total votes. The accent proved particularly popular in countries like China, Sweden, India and the USA.

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Which country has the nicest accent?

British, Australian, and Irish accents are the top 3 foreign accents people find to be most attractive.

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What are the prettiest British accents?

Here are the top ten sexiest accents according to that survey:
  • Geordie.
  • Welsh.
  • Received Pronunciation, Queen's English.
  • Yorkshire.
  • Glaswegian.
  • Cockney.
  • Brummie.
  • Cornish.

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What is the most pure English accent?

Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English.

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Which English accent is the most correct?

British English is 'correct' where it is spoken, and American or Australian English is correct in those areas of the world. While it might not seem clean and neat to have so many 'correct' versions of a language, that's just the way it is. Of course, all of these versions of English are perfectly interchangeable.

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What is the most proper British accent?

Nevertheless, RP remains the national standard and has traditionally been considered by many to be the most prestigious accent of British English.

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What was John Lennon's accent?

1.2 RP, GA and Liverpool accent John Lennons native accent is that of Liverpool, and there are some differences from the British standard accent sometimes referred to as Received Pronunciation (RP), and similarities to the accent called General American (GA).

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Why don t British singers sound British when they sing?

It's partly that many of the distinctive characteristics of an accent aren't reproduced well when you sing. Vowel sounds get stretched, and the precise articulation of the consonants is lost. The result is a neutral baseline accent that sounds vaguely American.

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