Can an American have a British accent?

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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.

i've read/heard that there are residents of islands off the coast of NC with accents similar to what may be found in the british isles. almost scottish IMO.

both the isles and the united states have areas and regional dialects diverse enough that it's possible an outside observer might confuse the two, or think they sound similar. there's no one english or british accent...same for the US.

very early american settlers probably sounded a lot like their brit overlords (in general) before enough generations passed to differentiate them. still, the quintessential "british accent" of then was probably a lot different than the one we love now.

i've seen videos of you singing. your inflection doesn't remind me of anything i'd call british, but you certainly don't sound californian.

languages are always changing. some linguists have found evidence of an emerging southern california dialect....

I was born and raised in Pa Dutch Country. Even though I'm English (which is how the Amish and Mennonites refer to anyone not born in that lineage), people around here have that Dutchified (w and v switched in pronunciation, ditto with f and v), combined with the nasal Philly Accent, the twang from West Virginia and Picksburgh (Pittsburgh), and the dreadful Bawlmer/Warshinton accent.

I moved to Northern Illinois/Southern Wisconsin in 1986. When I moved back to Pa Dutch Country in 1991, everybody and their brother were convinced I was a cheesehead or a flatlander. The cheesehead accent does pop up every once in a while. I still have issues getting rid of the flatlander accent.

As far as I'm concerned, it is possible to sound like you came from somewhere else.

I went to special school with a boy who was born and raised in England (no American heritage as far as I'm aware, his last name was very Welsh) and who spoke with a broad American accent. He got it from watching a lot of American cartoons. I have no idea if he still does.

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'm Canadian, but several people have told me I sound British. It's because I have trouble pronouncing R's at the ends of syllables.

Once I was at a flea-market, and someone started talking to me about the attractions of the flea-market. I said that I like to look at the gulls (sea-gulls). He asked if I was from England.

He thought I was saying that I like the flea-market because I like to look at the girls.

In addition to "gulls", another thing that might have contributed to it was the fact that I'd just consumed a sno-cone or an iced drink, and my mouth was rather frozen.

I've had other people ask where I was from, and tell me that i have an accent. One woman at a transit-center insisted that I had a New-York accent. I was born and raised in coastal California.

She asked if I went to the university, and I said that I often go there. She said "That'll sometimes do it"

At the local pub, someone asked where I was from. I said "I'm from here." (Santa Cruz). He said that I had an accent, and asked what kind of an accent it was. I said, "A Santa Cruz accent".

He thought that was awfully funny, but seemed to agree with that explanation.

Michael829

Which English accent?

That's a good question Baby Bird.

There are like 30 kinds of "British accents".

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.

As mentioned, there are some parts of the US where there is still a heavy British influence in speech patterns, which has lingered from settler times.

Some people on the autism spectrum develop an accent that isn't their local one; on an episode of a British TV show, there was a young man with autism who had been so heavily influenced by watching American children's shows that he speaks in a mildly "American" standard accent instead of his local British one.

The X-Files actress Gillian Anderson, and an actor named John Barrowman are both "bi-dialectal." They were born in one country, partly raised in another country and now speak in either accent. Gillian tends to sound like an Englishwoman when appearing on UK talk shows, but an American woman when on US talk shows.

John Barrowman sounds Scottish when appearing in the UK, but has an American accent otherwise.

Same as those cases, I am bi-dialectal due to a hefty chunk of my lifetime split between countries.

When I'm relaxed I sound like an American. When I have to deal with strangers I'm a Londoner. When I speak to my American friends my American speech comes out. When I speak to a British friend I start sounding more like that person. It's not even deliberate.

I would add, I don't think there's anything incorrect about calling something an "American accent" or a "British accent."

It's merely a "general" term and therefore valid when speaking generally instead of specifically.

When you say "I love cheese" the word cheese is understood by most people to cover all specifics within the "cheese" designation. You could specifically love cheddar, Gouda, Brie etc. But it's still okay to just say you like "cheese" generally.

Same with calling something a generally "British" accent. It could be Yorkshire, London, Cornwall or Newcastle, it's still a British accent isn't it? It's legitimate for example for someone to say "I know he spoke in a British accent, I just don't know which one."

Just the same "I know he said he's a cheese lover, but I didn't find out which ONE is his favorite kind."

These come to mind.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/9143302/How-should-Shakespeare-really-sound.html

Yes, that's true -- it's now believed that rather than it being the case that Americans "changed" as their accent got further away from that of the British settlers, instead the truth seems to be that they retained more of the original set of accents people from Britain spoke with back at that time, and in fact it's the Brits who altered their accent over time.

Apparently Brits did not sound then what they sound like today. Apparently even the well known "Queens English" or "Received Pronunciation" -- the very posh sounding way of speech heard among Shakespearean actors and British Royals and aristocracy, is in fact an artificial accent that took its influence from the mixed "German-English accent which the German Prince Albert had, consort to Queen Victoria.