Accent? What Accent? (Published 2004) (2024)

FAQs

What accent did the colonists have? ›

At first, English speakers in the colonies and England used a rhotic accent. But after the Revolutionary War, upper-class and upper-middle-class citizens in England began using non-rhotic speech as a way to show their social status.

It was called 'received pronunciation' (now usually referred to as RP) - that is, the kind of pronunciation passed down from one educated generation to the next. RP quickly came to be associated with a public-school education followed by higher education at Oxford or Cambridge.

After the accent's decline following the end of World War II, this American version of a "posh" accent has all but disappeared even among the American upper classes, as Americans have increasingly dissociated from the speaking styles of the East Coast elite; if anything, the accent is now subject to ridicule in ...

sometime between the late 16th and early 19th centuries, but a more accurate answer is never. Colonial Americans didn't really lose their accent. They developed a new one. And incidentally, so did the British.

All of these languages influenced American English, as did the English-speaking colonists' origins in different parts of England, Wales and Scotland. Later, as metropolitan centers such as Boston and New York City had more contact with England, they adopted the then-trendy r-less accent of the English upper class.

There are roughly 30 major dialects in America. Go here if you'd like a see a map of the various regions with an example of what each dialect might sound like. On the East Coast, we have many very small regions, with slightly varying dialects in each one.

A neutral English accent is a way of speaking English that is not influenced by regional dialects or accents. It is considered the standard form of English and is used in formal settings, such as business meetings, presentations, and voice over work.

Received Pronunciation (or RP, or BBC English) is the name given to the standard accent of English used by the British Broadcasting Corporation. It is used most often in the south of England, and by some people all over Britain. It is more often called Standard English.

The Mid-Atlantic accent was artificially created and popularized to project eloquence and grandeur in Hollywood. Prominent figures like Katharine Hepburn upheld the accent's prestige in the film industry. The birth and eventual decline of the Mid-Atlantic accent reflect shifting societal values in post-WWII America.

What accent did Audrey Hepburn have? ›

Audrey Hepburn was pretty well consistent with non-rhotic. and spoke refined English. Her accent can be characterized as British with somewhat of Flemish or Dutch blend because of her Belgian and Dutch roots. Audrey was born in Brussels, Belgium.

Accordingly, we asked people what the most and least pleasant accent to listen to is. Overwhelmingly, people like the Southern accent best, followed by British and Australian accents. Southern accents tend to be thought of as friendly and welcoming, while British and Australian accents are more exotic.

General American English, known in linguistics simply as General American (abbreviated GA or GenAm), is the umbrella accent of American English spoken by a majority of Americans, encompassing a continuum rather than a single unified accent.

The findings stated that Italian was perceived by most to be “most sexy” and the “most romantic” by the highest number of people involved in the study. “There are certain characteristics of Italian that may contribute to its appeal,” Babbel language teacher Noël Wolf explained to UK newspaper Daily Mail.

While the Boston and New York accents are by no means similar to English accents, their use of the vocalic R was influenced by the significant contact with and migration from England during the colonial period of American history. Once the Revolutionary War happened, however, the situation quickly changed.

Of course, most colonial Americans certainly did not sound like your average modern Brit does today, but nor did they sound like the Queen. By the time America was ready to consciously uncouple itself from the mother country, it had long since achieved a kind of linguistic independence.

Besides English, Dutch, French and Swedish were spoken. The Dutch had founded New York, and Sweden settled the Delaware valley. French speakers would have drifted in from today's Canada and Louisiana. These people did not all pack up and go home when their colonies were taken over by the British.