eli5: How does the U.S. have so many different regional accents?
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It doesn’t, there are about 30 recognized dialects in US and about 40 in England.
US has significantly fewer dialects than would be expected for country of it’s size.
I can’t answer your question exactly, but within the UK which is approximately 580 miles ‘tall’ end to to end, there are tens of regional accents that develop from the communities that enunciate words differently over centuries and also the cultures and languages that are used that live in thst place. America is a sped up melting pot of culture, think of all the native communities, the massive mix of European, African and Asian communities that have settled and now call the United States home. That has influenced accents and enunciation over the past 4 centuries in particular.
[This video gets into it a bit.](https://youtu.be/H1KP4ztKK0A)
Basically, it comes down to settlement patterns. You have to realize as well that in the time before mass media the only people you would hear speak were from your local geographic region. Therefore what you had was a big echo chamber where differences in pronunciation got magnified.
A lot of it has to do with the immigrants that lived and settled in the areas decades/centuries ago. Then over time the foreign accents blend with the local accents creating a hybrid of the accents in the area.
For example, the New York/New Jersey and Chicago accents are heavily influenced by the Italian immigrants.
The Boston accent is influenced by Irish immigrants.
Minnesota/North Dakota is influence by Scandinavian settlers.
New Orleans/Louisiana is influenced by French/Acadian immigrants mixing with the southern twang.
I dont know what country you’re from but Portugal is roughly the size of minnesota and we have wildly varying regional accents.
I will simply say that it doesn’t. The US is one of the largest countries in terms of both population and geography. Compared to any other country with similar rankings on BOTH, you will see far less variety in the US.
There have been multiple waves of immigration, from all the corners of the world. Factor in class, generational pronounciations, and you’ve got a hodge podge of accents.
I’d go so far as to say that every major American city has their own accent. It’s way deeper than region.
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