Specifically I’m wondering how the typical English accent became the typical western accent (Which sounds relatively country), and how did that become the modern accents on the West Coast? What factor was added in that made cowboys start sounding like the modern day Californian.
I’m assuming the typical NY accent comes from Italians coming over.
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Bonus question: Why are there no places in the US at all that kept the English accents????
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Most English accents, at the time Britain was colonizing NA, were still *rhotic*, that is they didn’t include all the silent r’s in modern English accents, or rather, they *did* pronounce all their r’s, the way US accents tend to currently.
England didn’t start widely switching to non-rhotic dialects until the early 1800s.
So, US accents ARE primarily English accents, they just diverged from those in England before the English started dropping their Rs.
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