Can an American have a British accent?

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29 Sep 2017, 8:02 am

People in the Appalachian region share many linguistic/oral characteristics with rural UK folk--especially folk from the 18th century.

There is a "tidewater" accent spoken in the eastern parts of Virginia and North Carolina (now becoming rare) where it is said that they use Elizabethan pronunciation and syntax.

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29 Sep 2017, 8:29 am

Not that it has much to do with the OP's query, but here is an interesting piece about how Shakspeare's characters probably really sounded in his time. Quite different from what you're used to hearing in Shakespeare adaptations on stage and screen today.

The "Original Pronunciation" that they have reconstructed has bits and pieces of the "high tider"( hoy toyder) dialect of Tangier Island Virginia, hints of a modern Irish brogue, bits of London Cockney, Australian, and other British Empire and American regional dialects. If you had to sum it up ...they sound like stereotype "pirates".

Apparently the far flung dialects of the modern English speaking world all retain different archaic traits that were in the British common speech of Elizabethan times.

rvacountrysinger
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29 Sep 2017, 11:52 am

naturalplastic wrote:

A friend and I took the tour of Luray Caverns which is not exactly the same part of Virginia you live in, but its pretty close. Inland, and the mountains. And the old guy who did the tour had this nice pleasant genteel Virginia dialect (which I suspected he practiced every morning in front of a mirror to create the local color effect of his tour). It was very different from that coastal twangy southern dialect that starts at the North Carolina Virginia border as you go south. But the tour guide guy did NOT sound British at all. So if you talk like him I wouldn't expect folks to take you for being British. So its a mystery.

When I was younger there was a period in which folks (both in person, and on the phone) would ask if I was "Canadian", or even if I was "British" even though I was raised by American Midwestern parents transplanted to Washington DC. But back then I used to listen a lot of British rock, and watch Monty Python, and was a pop culture Anglophile. So I guess back then that some Britishness must have rubbed off on my speech I suppose.

Yes, I know Luray. Luray is kind of a tourist trap. But I think the "twang" is not really coastal, its a mountain thing. Charleston and Savannah aren't twangy either. Mitch McConnell from Kentucky is not twangy either. And Jimmy Carter from Georgia did not have a twang in his voice. Upland South is where you hear more of a twang, but the Deep South is much smoother and actually there are several dialects. Luray Caverns is in the Northern Shenandoah valley and they don't have the Appalachian twang there as much because a lot of Tidewater Virginians settled that region.

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29 Sep 2017, 11:56 am

kraftiekortie wrote:

My grandmother had the non-rhotic Tidewater accent, in which Richmond was actually famous for, technically not Tidewater, as it is Central Virginia. But the Richmond region was settled by the same people . I believe it is a mixture of 18th Century London speech mixed with England's West Country dialects that formed much of the famous Virginian accents (and their variants)

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29 Sep 2017, 12:00 pm

Jimmy Carter speaks with I would call a "soft" Southern accent.

Are you familiar with the Tangier Island accent, RV?

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29 Sep 2017, 12:56 pm

rvacountrysinger wrote:

I worked for a political phone calling place and most people (at least from the North and Midwest states and Texas) thought I was from England! I have had that happen on more than a few occasions. I'm not sure how that would be possible. I am a Virginian, and I have lived in the US my whole life. I had to assure them that I was indeed, American.

There are worse things to be accused of.

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29 Sep 2017, 1:09 pm

babybird wrote:

rvacountrysinger wrote:

There are worse things to be accused of.

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30 Sep 2017, 8:48 pm

SentientPotato wrote:

There was a case where a woman who was born and raised American (and spoke with an American accent, though not sure which region) suddenly started inexplicably speaking in a British accent and has apparently been unable to stop doing so ever since.

I've heard a similar story where a white British woman went into a coma and woke up speaking with a Jamaican accent.

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rvacountrysinger
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01 Oct 2017, 2:05 pm

kraftiekortie wrote:

Jimmy Carter speaks with I would call a "soft" Southern accent.

Are you familiar with the Tangier Island accent, RV?

I know of it, but I don't hear it come across it on the mainland. I haven't encountered anyone from Tangier. I know probably though most of youth would probably be losing some of it.

The Tidewater Virginian accent is some times mistaken for Canadian because of the oot (out ) aboot (about) and "hoos (house) ) But it has a distinctive drawl to it, which I don't think Canadians do as much. And having heard Canadians, they don't say it quite the same. But I wonder if a bunch of Virginians moved up to Canada after the War, and brought it with them.

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01 Oct 2017, 4:19 pm

I once saw a couple of videos a few years ago where there was a really creepy boy being raised by white supremacists saying things that sound really disturbing coming from a little kid. He had a British-sounding accent but they claimed he was American.

Not that anyone with a British accent must be evil, of course. That's just what came to mind. Besides, where I live everyone is supposed to have a quaint Irish or Scottish accent, but I sound pretty generic.

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01 Oct 2017, 8:07 pm

lostonearth35 wrote:

Most white supremacists I've heard of would rather raise their kids Germanic or Norse than British. They don't tend to like us very much, due to the general left-wing (by American standards) attitude we display and the high number of black people, Asians and Muslims we have here. Considering we once had control over half of the world, why are they so shocked at the enormous number of ethnic minorities of colonial origin living here?

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rvacountrysinger
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02 Oct 2017, 3:14 pm

EclecticWarrior wrote:

lostonearth35 wrote:

I hate to say it, but Muslims are really destroying the city of London. I don't think extreme liberal progressiveism is any better than white nationalist, to be honest.

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