History of accents

As human beings spread out into isolated communities, stresses and peculiarities develop. Over time these can develop into identifiable accents. In America, the interaction of people from many ethnic backgrounds contributed to the formation of the American accent. It is difficult to measure or predict how long it takes an accent to formulate. Accents in both America and Australia are derived from the British parent accent, yet the American accent remains more distant, either as a result of time or of external or "foreign" linguistic interaction, such as the Italian accent.[1] It could also be argued that the American accent is more fairly consistent with the manner in which English was pronounced by people from Britain - most especially people from Western parts of England - during the 1600s and early 1700s which was presumably rhotic , at this time as it is to a large extent today. Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa (particularly among whites of British-settler descent) are more recent transplants to their destinations so their accents are more-or-less in sync with the way English is spoken in Britain.

In many cases, the accents of non-English settlers from Britain affected the accents of the different colonies quite differently. Irish and Scottish immigrants had accents which greatly affected the vowel pronunciation of certain areas of Australia and Canada.[1]