re: Evolution of the American accent

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What did British and Americans sound like during the revolution?

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Depends if you were fighting the Brits in South Cakalki or up in Bahston. But I imagine the accents were closer than they are today.

How Americans Preserved British English

Brits Originlly Had American Accents

A Linguist Explains What Old-School British Accents Sounded Like

History of the modern British accent

Too lazy to link them for you but there are three really good videos on You Tube about this:

— how Southern girls pronounce and use different words such as ketchup, minez, soda pop, etc.

— how Brits and Aussies, etc. try to speak with an American accent.

— how non-English speaking people here our language spoken (really cool).

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There are people on the Outer Banks in North Carolina that still speak with an English Accent

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They sound like pirates on Okracoke

I cannae believe this

There's a youtube where a British linguist uses Old English to successfully buy a cow from a Dutch farmer.

We have 4 accents in Louisiana alone. We have the East Texas/West Louisiana Texas twang, we have North Louisiana, we have Cajun accent, and we have New Orleans. Hell, in Baton Rouge area alone you can hear one accent from Baton Rouge proper (I would say it's kind of a mixture of New Orleans and North Louisiana), and then drive into Livingston Parish about five miles down the road and all of a sudden people sound like they're from Mississippi.

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all US dialects are generally mutually intelligible

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The general American accent took over. I dont understand why people hate having an accent, it adds to peoples character instead of being bland.

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I don't know about you but I don't have an accent.

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in Baton Rouge area alone you can hear one accent from Baton Rouge proper (I would say it's kind of a mixture of New Orleans and North Louisiana), and then drive into Livingston Parish about five miles down the road and all of a sudden people sound like they're from Mississippi.

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I think the longer you live in one place, the more you pick up on the subtle differences. My girlfriend has lived in our state for over 20 years and can immediately tell, "this person is from north of I-44, this person is from the panhandle, oh that guy is probably from the eastern part of the state." To me they all sound the same, but she can quickly pick out differences and she's correct almost every time.

I'd be interested to know more about how the African American dialects (what we used to call "ebonics") is affecting the English language. They're pronunciations of words like:

- skreets (streets)
- Walmarks (Walmart)
- ax (instead of ask)
- mane (instead of man)
- yessuh (yes sir)

I'd imagine the popularity of hiphop music has help spread those dialects, whereas previously they were confined to largely African American areas (delta south, Detroit etc.)