{"id":24507,"date":"2012-01-24T10:27:41","date_gmt":"2012-01-24T16:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?p=24507"},"modified":"2012-01-18T07:30:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-18T13:30:00","slug":"perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/","title":{"rendered":"Perhaps we have the more original English accent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Fascinating report from Mental Floss<\/a><\/strong> about the so-called English accent vs. the American accent:<\/p>\n

As for the \u201cwhy,\u201d though, one\u00a0big factor in the divergence of the accents\u00a0is\u00a0rhotacism<\/a>. The General American accent is rhotic and speakers pronounce the\u00a0r <\/em>in words such as\u00a0hard<\/em>. The BBC-type British accent is non-rhotic, and speakers don\u2019t pronounce the\u00a0r<\/em>, leaving\u00a0hard<\/em> sounding more like\u00a0hahd<\/em>. Before and during the American Revolution, the English, both in England and in the colonies, mostly spoke with a\u00a0rhotic accent. We don\u2019t know much more about said accent, though. Various claims about the accents of the Appalachian Mountains, the Outer Banks, the Tidewater region and Virginia\u2019s\u00a0Tangier Island<\/a> sounding like an uncorrupted Elizabethan-era English accent have been busted as myths by linguists. \u2026<\/p>\n

Around the turn of the\u00a018th<\/span> 19th\u00a0century, not long after the revolution,\u00a0non-rhotic speech took off in southern England, especially among the upper and upper-middle classes. It was a signifier of class and status.\u00a0This posh accent was standardized as Received Pronunciation\u00a0and taught widely by pronunciation tutors to people who wanted to learn to speak fashionably. Because the Received Pronunciation accent\u00a0was regionally \u201cneutral\u201d and easy to understand, it\u00a0spread across England and the empire through the armed forces, the civil service and, later, the BBC.<\/p>\n

Across the pond, many former colonists also adopted and imitated Received Pronunciation to show off their status. This happened especially in the port cities that still had close trading ties with England \u2014\u00a0Boston, Richmond, Charleston, and Savannah. From the Southeastern coast, the RP sound spread through much of the South along with plantation culture and wealth.<\/p>\n

After industrialization and the Civil War and well into the 20th century, political and economic power largely passed from the port cities and cotton regions to the manufacturing hubs of the Mid Atlantic and Midwest \u2014 New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit, etc. The British elite had much less cultural and linguistic influence in these places, which were mostly populated by the\u00a0Scots-Irish and other settlers from Northern Britain, and\u00a0rhotic English was still spoken there. As industrialists in these cities became the self-made economic and political elites of the Industrial Era, Received Pronunciation lost its status and fizzled out in the U.S. The prevalent accent in the Rust Belt, though, got dubbed General American\u00a0and spread across the states just as RP had in Britain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fascinating report from Mental Floss about the so-called English accent vs. the American accent: As for the \u201cwhy,\u201d though, one\u00a0big factor in the divergence of the accents\u00a0is\u00a0rhotacism. The General American accent is rhotic and speakers pronounce the\u00a0r in words such as\u00a0hard. The BBC-type British accent is non-rhotic, and speakers don\u2019t pronounce the\u00a0r, leaving\u00a0hard sounding more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPerhaps we have the more original English accent<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Fascinating report from Mental Floss about the so-called English accent vs. the American accent: As for the \u201cwhy,\u201d though, one\u00a0big factor in the\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Perhaps we have the more original English accent\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fascinating report from Mental Floss about the so-called English accent vs. the American accent: As for the \u201cwhy,\u201d though, one\u00a0big factor in the\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-01-24T16:27:41+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-01-18T13:30:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/\",\"name\":\"Perhaps we have the more original English accent\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-24T16:27:41+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-01-18T13:30:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\"},\"description\":\"Fascinating report from Mental Floss about the so-called English accent vs. the American accent: As for the \u201cwhy,\u201d though, one\u00a0big factor in the\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Perhaps we have the more original English accent\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/\",\"name\":\"Jesus Creed\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252\",\"name\":\"Scot McKnight\",\"description\":\"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/scotmcknight\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Perhaps we have the more original English accent","description":"Fascinating report from Mental Floss about the so-called English accent vs. the American accent: As for the \u201cwhy,\u201d though, one\u00a0big factor in the","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Perhaps we have the more original English accent","og_description":"Fascinating report from Mental Floss about the so-called English accent vs. the American accent: As for the \u201cwhy,\u201d though, one\u00a0big factor in the","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2012-01-24T16:27:41+00:00","article_modified_time":"2012-01-18T13:30:00+00:00","author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Scot McKnight","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/","name":"Perhaps we have the more original English accent","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-01-24T16:27:41+00:00","dateModified":"2012-01-18T13:30:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252"},"description":"Fascinating report from Mental Floss about the so-called English accent vs. the American accent: As for the \u201cwhy,\u201d though, one\u00a0big factor in the","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/2012\/01\/24\/perhaps-we-have-the-more-original-english-accent\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Perhaps we have the more original English accent"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith in the 21st century","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/5919e847c58ffe6efb5899fb61797252","name":"Scot McKnight","description":"Scot McKnight is a recognized authority on the New Testament, early Christianity, and the historical Jesus. McKnight, author of more than fifty books, is the Professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lombard, IL.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/author\/scotmcknight\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}