When did Americans lose their British accents?

Re:When did Americans lose their British accents? by oblio on Monday February 10, 2020 @09:12AM (#22289216)

There is be a certain degree of irony to English going through the Great Vowel Shift† (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift) and then having a German dynasty which manages to distort the language again††.

† Which made English less-Germanic sounding, at least to my ears.

†† In my humble opinion modern British English sounds marginally more Germanic than American English.

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Re:When did Americans lose their British accents? by ajmurmann on Monday February 10, 2020 @11:24AM (#22290491)

The great vowel shift needs to be taught much more. Native English speakers commonly default to not taking the great vowel shift into account when encountering a new language. They'd be so much closer to the correct pronunciation by just pronouncing it like it was a word from any language other than English they might already know a little.

This should be one of the first things that gets hammered home when learning the first foreign language.

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