| Aielyn said: 1. It's not about age, it's about the time at which it was being spoken. Elderly New Zealanders speak with the same kind of accent (mostly) as young New Zealanders... if you go back to the time of World War 1, New Zealanders sounded just like Australians. It's not because of the accent at the time the person was born, but the accent in the last 20 years of the person's life (basically). 2. Some parts of America seem to have accents that could be called "British-lite". Others have very different accents from Britain. I realised recently just how much Irish is in the general American accent. This article covers the topic pretty well: http://mentalfloss.com/article/29761/when-did-americans-lose-their-british-accents 3. Basically, all it takes is a particular accent being seen as the accent used by those with "status", and it becomes common. "General American" of today is basically Hollywood American, and it makes sense - celebrity is the main status-bearing trait at the moment. Within 40 years, that could change dramatically. |
1. I won't disagree with that. But it supports both my point that there can be long periods in which the common language remains pretty static AND your point that language can change rapidly within a few decades. It is possible for the common dialect to remain quite static over a hundred years (or more) if nothing changes too much with regards to social classes (which are already pretty much non-existent in the U.S: plumbers are best friends with doctors.) It is even more possible today with longer life-spans and broadcasts than it was historically.
2. Even the non-rhotic American accents don't sound very English to me, to be honest. The only specific accent I know of that I think would fit in somewhere in England is a very small dialect (proportionally) found in Massachusetts among the elderly. I do agree though that Irish-English probably had a heavy influence on the development of many American accents, along with even entirely different languages like Pfaltzdeutsch, French, and Spanish.
3. I would rather say Hollywood is General American more than General American is Hollywood. What we have as the standard dialect in the U.S, which your article alluded to, is a mix of North-Midland and Northern dialects found in the industrial cities (Colombus, Cincinatti, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Erie, Rochestor, and a bunch of minor cities.) It has been the standard since the late 1800's (over 100 years ago.) The Northern accents have also had the most impact on the West. Having said that, the difference between Northern dialects and Midland dialects aren't that huge. It is more of a gradient than a sudden change, and you'll only notice the difference by traveling to the cities in each area.
But that is besides the point. My point was that it is perfectly possible for GAE 100 years from now to be similar enough to the GAE we speak today, that the common person would recognize it as American (without given context) and not be able to tell it as very different. It isn't very likely that one of the few minor (even in a regional sense) dialects would convert most Americans to speaking dialects almost identical to those found in 2015 Britain, and it is even less possible in a modern society with fewer social classes (regardless of the status of economic classes.) I wouldn't be opposed to there being some characters with British accents in the game (migration is definitely a thing and will be even more in the future), but for all of them to have today's British accents would truly break the immersion, and for reasons aforementioned much less than said characters having 2015 American accents, as it it still quite probable for the language to sound mostly "American" 100 years (or whatever undefined period) from now.
