>Gregg said:
>[In North Carolina] There are still folks who use the terms onest,
>twice, thrice in everyday language. I have heard that if you really
>want to hear "old English" go to parts of the south...
>- -----------------------------
>Or parts of the North. The Boston accent is reputedly the sound of East
>Anglia of the early 1700's.
I doubt it. In my experience accents in the US are fairly homologous
compared to the UK.Noticeable differences only occur over hundreds of miles.
Hereabouts (in the north of england) older people regularly use thee/ thine/
twice/thrice.., and you can often place someone to within 15 miles by their
accent. When I work on construction sites it is good entertainment to guess
which town your workmates are from - it is rare to be more than 20 miles
out.
Travel a hundred miles or more and you have accents considerably less
similar than deep south is to boston. Try geordie, scouse, cockney, or (if
you want a real challenge) glaswegian. Scouse and mancunian are totally
different over about 40.
Back in the 1700s this will have been greater as people moved around a lot
less. I can imagine there is an east anglian element to the boston accent
but the overwhelming component is the generic US.
Accents/ dialects seem to develop over long periods with sedentary
populations. (Check the aboriginal languages of australia) The very short
life of the US, much of which was spent colonising, coupled with todays
media means the differences are small.
Adam
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