English accent vs American accent

[@IlicSorrentino]

What really impressed me was that we needed an Italian guy to explain this clearly...

[@willer87]

And me as a Swedish guy understood it verry well :) weird times aye? :P

[@alphamale1717]

@@willer87 Here in the US it is Eh?

[@patdellasera2320]

Was he born in England from Italians parents?.

[@dinob8736]

@@patdellasera2320 no, he grew up in Sicily. His father is from northern Italy while his mother is Sicilian.

[@Byronic19134]

Considering our language came from Italy, or Latin precisely which is from Latium in modern Italy, it makes perfect sense actually.

[@bloodofthelamb13]

As a teacher of English and History, myself, I stand suitably impressed, Metatron. This video is 100% on point; a rare thing on KZbin.

[@metatronyt]

Thank you for that :)

[@federicofedericovivacristo4787]

English is not my mother tongue , and as an English student I must say english accent is easier to understand

[@sniffrat3646]

I was thinking the same thing. Rare indeed!

[@Rofel_Wodring]

I generally don't have a problem with english accents at all, on the other hand however, I can barely understand my first language depending on the accent.

[@ashmckinlay1402]

this guy is really on the ball with his English, his knowledge of its history is better than most native speakers! I'm glad he addresses the "American accent is closer to original early modern English" myth, that one really annoyed me. the traditional Bristol/Somerset/ Norfolk accent would have been the closest to how the General southern British accent was. as for the north, I'm not sure though, but if you hear modern frisian dialects, as well as some Flanders Dutch, they can sound very similar to Scots English :)

[@RickyVWorld]

To all you saying that there are many accents within England and the US... i'm 99.999% sure this guy understands this. He's obviously generalising for the purpose of the video or the video would be 30 hours long if he went in depth about every accent within those two countries

[@ХристоМартунковграфЛозенски]

Come to think about it, he could write a 300+ pp treatise on English accents, sell it and get some "munny".

[@bigusdickus8596]

Brits can't pronounce the letter R and Americans can't pronounce the letter T and Australians can't pronounce either.

[@noruv3816]

ausailians*

[@thelurkingpanda3605]

as an american i feel like we all say the T, and i imagine Brits don't...

[@MidnightAssass1n]

'Straya for the win

[@theholybible8702]

As an Aussie, I feel sorry for you that you prescribe grammar.

[@bobzeda284]

Pronounce "butter." Do you say, "Budder?" or "Butter?" American pronounce double tt's as d's. Some English from "lower classes" do drop the "TT" all together in part of England.

[@Fireflydl]

Did you know that the modern pirate accent actually started from Robert Newton's performance in Treasure Island, he exaggerated his West country accent (which sounds like a stereotypical farmer) to get the 'ARRR'. Before that pirates would probably have spoken with their own local dialect.

[@TedSpacey]

Considering You are an Italian, You speak better English than me, an Englishman... well done Sir!

[@Woodman-Spare-that-tree]

Obviously! because the correct way to phrase that is to say, “better English than I”. NOT “better English than me”!

[@ibrahimihsan2090]

He does sometimes pronounce the sion/tion as 'see-on' instead of 'shun' though not always the case.

[@testingsomething5280]

​@@Woodman-Spare-that-tree Nobody talks like that though

[@kevinoneal9779]

Saying "British accent" is actually very similar to saying "American accent". In both cases, regional differences apply.

[@TorvusVae]

This is so true. Most people when they say "American" accent, they mean "California", because that has somehow become the standard.

[@TorvusVae]

It's the same here in Seattle, lots of transplants from all over the rest of the country and the world. Though, I'm told those of us who are native to the area have an accent of our own, I can't hear it.

[@CodyCannon11]

Absolutely agree. In fact I would safely say there is more variation to an American accent than a "british accent." We have about 330 million people in the US, to their 66 million in the UK. And significantly more land mass in the US. Metatron gave a very good and well thought out video here. Loved watching it, still needed a little more though representation of different english accents. A great intro to Standard American English though.

[@sluggo206]

I'm also from Seattle, and the differences between Northwest, California, and Midwest English are so slight that I can hardly perceive them, but linguists have cataloged them. It's not that every speaker has all the differences, but enough speakers do to change the average. The first few settlers to an area set the dialect tone, and it remains remarkably stable after that. New Englanders predominated in Pugetopolis and San Francisco (but not the rest of the Bay Area), so our dialect has ties to that. Not the Bawston cah accent obviously, but another one.

[@karenbartlett1307]

Destructive Criticism: I'd rack that up to Hollywood.

[@genevievefosa6815]

We tend to prefer what we heard when we learned how to talk. This is why it is so difficult, and even traumatic, for a child in school to be told that he speaks 'incorrectly.' Have you done any work with American regional differences? Bostonians are famous for dropping their final Rs, and people from New York often do odd things with Ts found in thee middle of the words. Appalachians, perhaps rightly or wrongly, have a reputation for maintaining an English accent that is very, very similar to what they brought over from England, many years ago.

[@intractablemaskvpmGy]

Many Irish speak English with an accent almost like Americans'. Considering the millions of Irish that ended up in the States they must have had an impact. Or perhaps the Irish now have picked up on the American accent from modern culture?

[@mexvette8209]

I doubt that the American eclectic accent influenced the Irish accent? More than likely the large amount of Irish and Scott's and to a lesser degree the Welsh influence the American accents more than the modern London accent. American English also had a large influence from The Dutch, German, Scandinavians. Even from it's Hispanic neighbors in Cuba, and Mexico. Louisiana has a slight french accent.

[@Joker-yw9hl]

As a Brit I think the Dutch had a massive impact on the American accent to be honest (along with the Irish of course, but by the time the Irish migrated en masse there would already have been established American accents - the Irish emigrating in huge numbers in the 1800s whereas the North American Colonies were a thing from the 1600s). Listen out to some Dutch speakers online and focus on their R's but also the nasal tone in their voice that Americans tend to have. 1 quick example is the Dutch word for "ready" which is "klaar" with a hard RRR

[@bsteele5287]

I have never heard that explanation of how those accents came about. I was unaware of the link between when the geographic areas were colonized and the pronunciations. Great material. Thanks for all the wonderful videos.

[@AaroneStefano]

Metatron I've got to say, you are so talented in your languages! Your English accent is basically native to me, your videos are so informing and great, and I thank you for all your hard work for us on KZbin. Keep it up mate!

[@jrcastrorwc]

can you make a whole video in a American accent lol

[@Liam-B]

Roberto Castro *an :^)

[@logantaylor4387]

According to the linguist definition of a language, as long as the both the speaker and the listener are capable of understanding each other, they speak are speaking the same language. Any regional variation in pronunciation can be classified as a dialect. Most native English speakers are capable of understanding multiple dialects of English, even with the different pronunciations, so the idea of one dialect being superior or more "proper" than another is impossible. All accents are viable unless they in some way fail to express the idea the speaker wishes to get across in a way the listener can understand.

[@Zathaghil]

Wrong. Oh so utterly wrong. Norwegian, Danish and Swedish are 3 different proper languages, but as long as the speakers stay close to s.c. "proper" language without to much dialect, they understand each other very well. Danes usually understand the others best, Swedes the least, because of the clarity of sounds used. And no linguist worth their salt would call all Scandinavian languages one language. Same goes for a few of the Slavic languages. Russian and Ukrainian for instance. Then on the other side of the spectrum we have Arabic. where a Maroccan can't understand a Syrian and vice versa. Both are seen as dialects of Arabic, not distinct languages. (Suryoyo is NOT Arabic or even closely related, but Arameic, not what we're talking about) So your "fact" about the linguist definition is patently false.

[@logantaylor4387]

That's because linguists suck at categorizing things. Chinese is considered one language as well, but it's actually an entire family of languages. What I said isn't false in the sense of that is what we're taught. How linguists' categories of languages play out is a different story entirely. It doesn't help that linguistics, along with most other forms of history, in all honesty, is largely Euro-centric. Have you ever studied linguistics? I'm an amateur at best, so I could be wrong. But that is what I have found in my limited studies

[@userequaltoNull]

Zathaghil linguistics is weird, both are sort of correct, depending on fuck if I know. It is sort of like sociology, you can get close to facts, but it is of course up to the individual expert to interpret, making it unobjective, and therefore difficult to argue om the basis of "fact" especially absolute ones. Sorry for any mispellings, I have fat fingers. (Resulting in me spelling "have" as the swiss german version of "habe", several times)

[@colt-one]

The idea that nothing can be considered correct is just an ideological point of view (a postmodernist one) - an opinion no more valid than the idea that a language should be highly consistent and static.

[@leandrog2785]

Imagine the following situation: - Person A and Person B can mutually understand each other - Person B and Person C can mutually understand each other - Neither Person A nor Person C can understand each other So Person A and B speak the same language, so do B and C, but yet A's language is not C's? It's similar to what happens in biology with the defenition of species based on whether 2 individuals can produce fertile offspring. And that's not even mentioning that understanding can be unidirectional instead of mutual, or that there's no good definition for "understanding".

[@songtraveler]

I taught esl for many years (in New York), and when a student asked me what the "best" English was, my answer was, "The best English is the English spoken in the community where you live because that is the English you will need to learn and to use." For a learner not living in an English speaking country and with no plans to relocate to one, the choice is personal and depends on cultural affinity, interest in history, literature, popular culture of a particular country, or other personal reasons. There is no such thing as "proper" English, just as there is no such thing as "proper" French or "proper" Spanish.

[@RonAnderson]

While I'm American I've always felt a little stupid when speaking with someone from England. Then I hear someone like Ozzy Osborne speak and I'm reassured. What I do find interesting is the degree of regional shift between American English and British English. For example there is little difference, to my ear, between a native English speaker from Indianapolis and one from Manhattan. Whereas if you travel just 30 miles north of London the difference is stark.

[@apexlex1255]

You cross a street in London and people speak differently

[@jerrykofiadonu4763]

Look on google maps the distance between Milan and Bergamo... It's Minimal but the accents are strongly different...actually they are well distinct dialects....and is the same story for whole Italy!

[@天皇陛下万歳日本会議]

don't lump your northern yankee ass in with me.

[@davidparker9676]

Shakespeare spoke more like Ozzy Osbourne.

[@CountArtha]

What you're referring to as "the" American accent is Standard American English. There are regional accents in America just as there are in England, though somewhat less provincial. People in the South tend to have one of several accents depending on their state and their education level, and people from the Upper Midwest (e.g., Minnesota) have a distinctive accent as well. The boroughs of New York City and Boston each have a different accent, kind of like London. As an aside, the "Pirate Accent" is actually (if I'm not mistaken) just an exaggerated Bristol accent. Robert Newton, who played Long John Silver in the 1950 adaptation of _Treasure Island_, heard sailors talking in Bristol and figured that was what a pirate sounded like.

[@metatronyt]

+CountArtha Yes I did mention both things, first that I was referring to general American and two that Bristol is the city where even now they still roll the R

[@tonyoliver6797]

+Metatron I was down in Bristol and Devon last August and I must say, it was very intriguing for me (coming from London) to hear a very animated and so distant accent. Although I hear many accents within London I always find it fascinating to hear the further out rural accents when talking to someone face to face.

[@CountArtha]

***** Virginia was the oldest of the 13 original colonies (1607) and Georgia was the newest (1732), so the Southern accent is actually pretty varied. There are still a few people who speak the "original" southern accent, the Tidewater accent - Walter Jones, a congressman from North Carolina, comes to mind. This is how George Washington or Thomas Jefferson would have sounded. Later on the Southern accent became more rhotal as more and more Scots-Irish immigrants settled in the interior parts of those states. So, it's a mongrel dialect of Southeast England, Southwest England, and Northern Ireland. Louisiana is technically a southern state but the Cajun accent is derived from French-speaking settlers.

[@CountArtha]

***** It's not? Clearly you've never been as been to New Yawk or Baaaston. :P

[@zacakafroztee]

+CountArtha New Yorkers do not pronounce it "Yawk"

[@gina-mariecarr3488]

Love your videos it's funny to look back on this from 7 years ago compared to the quality of your videos now. It's great to see the evolution.. but I could watch your videos all day. You explain everything so well. Side note, I love how Irish your American accent sounds! I find it so funny that most Americans do a terrible English accent and the English typically do a decent job at the American accent but it usually sounds Irish or for the girls it sounds like a "valley girl" accent

[@waynedunn3824]

I'd say when American and English diverged it wasn't one becoming different but instead two entirely new ones being made and a old one being forgotten. A language is different no matter where it is.

[@sniper.93c14]

wayne dunn and then there is Australian english, being an Aussie I have no clue to what I sound like to outsiders plz help

[@RubixNinja]

To an American... It sounds like a more masculine English accent. Almost like if a Country American man decided to live in England for 20 years, and the accents mixed.

[@teebes2009]

wayne dunn Except there was never a single English dialect or accent to diverge from, there were many. I recall reading that there was a time when an English man could be traced to his hometown by his accent.

[@yourmum69_420]

@@teebes2009 they still can. Cities such as London, Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Newcastle each have their own recognisable accent

[@carstendengler3283]

the idea that the pirate and farmer accents are the same is a myth created by hollywood

[@lindacanaday1440]

Fascinating!!. You have answers in all your video's, to many of my questions I have always had. I saw a program about the history of our American accents one time, The History of English. They traced our American accents in our colonies to different parts of England. Wish I could find that program again.

[@inhumanhyena]

Americans also have many different accents remember.

[@ILikeMyPrivacytbt]

Even though the British Isles are smaller than "America" (United States) I think the British have more accents than Americans.

[@Quaquadaqu]

John Doe They don’t.

[@keaganwheeler-mccann8565]

On the west coast accents also vary per city, and state.

[@answeris4217]

John Doe - In the USA you can have different accent inside of the same city. NY is a good example inside of NY you have the Brooklyn accent a more proper American accent and you go into New Jersey there a very distinct accent there. The issue is that Americans in movies have a more standard american accent that actors train for and is easy to have for most Americans. The biggest landmass to my knowledge that keep an accent is in Canada. Most Canadians west of Quebec have the same accent or close to the same and Canadians can learn the American accent easier than a English one.

[@grasmereguy5116]

@Gabriel Matte It's a myth that the accents of NYC vary from borough by borough. There's no real difference between a Brooklyn accent, Queens accent, Staten Island accent, Manhattan accent. But there is a difference by ethnic group in the five boroughs. So there's NY Jewish, NY Italian, NY Irish, NY Puerto Rican, NY African American, etc. And there's differences in generation. But a 65-year-old American Jew from Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn sounds like a 65-year-old American Jew from Forest Hills, Queens. A 50-year-old Italian-American raised in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn sounds like a 50-year-old Italian-American from Little Italy, Manhattan. (Assuming there are any born-and-raised Italian New Yorkers from Little Italy who still live there.)

[@JohnKruse]

Some of your points remind me of a conversation I had with a Portuguese friend about a Brazilian portuguese-speaking colleague. He said that he was perfectly understandable, but he had the feeling that he was speaking to someone transported from the past. It is pretty clear that there is a mosaic nature to these things in which certain aspects of a language will morph in one region, while in another a different aspect will change. I guess this is most evident in the huge range of romance languages and dialects... not news for an Italian, but we Americans are largely ignorant of all of the dramatic language variations within European countries and we take mutual intelligibility for granted.

[@emintey]

As an American (Northeastern) British English sounds to my ear to be harsh, excessively formal like it's a lot of work whereas American English is relaxed and flows easily. There are some British dialects that I find to be nearly unintelligible.

It isn't at all. (or "inni 'a all') British just flows differently. To me, American sounds horrible. You have to speak with your mouth wide open, almost as if you're trying to snarl. And many American accents pretty much sound like snarling too, mostly southern or rural from the midwest. Makes Scottish and Scouse sound like the Queen's English by comparison.... ....And I do not have a clue what those people are saying half the time.

[@Adjag2Studios]

As a Canadian I think you are on point. Most Brits don't say their R's unless you're from Bristol or Cornwall. Most Americans say their R's unless they are from New York or Boston where you never here an R said. All englishes evolved from Original Pronunciation OP which evolved from old English. All are pure and corrupted. People that say one English is better a politicizing language simply because they might dislike Americans or Brits.

[@Adjag2Studios]

*are politicizing /politicising

[@Adjag2Studios]

One final word if you want to hear how Shakespeare spoke check out Ben Crystal's OP on KZbin. Then decide for yourself which accent is the Best. I have a affinity for the Irish, Cornwall and Canadian accents, but OP is the best.

[@Trecesolotienesdos]

As a born Brit, we have many accents. RP is not a natural/geographic accent, it was devised by the upper classes and even the BBC in its early years in the 1920s. The UK accents I've heard known are London/South-East England, Norfolk, South-West England, South Wales, North Wales, West Midlands, East Midlands, Yorkshire, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Sunderland, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Highlands, Ulster. Language evolves, and there is no inherent good of a language, only what the currrent convention says. language is fascinating though, good discussion.

[@metatronyt]

+coalikesdesi Thank you for your comment and interesting info you have provided. May I ask where in England you come from? Just so that I can imagine your accent if you have that regional accent ^^

[@Trecesolotienesdos]

Metatron I'm from Hertfordshire, which is just north of London. Our accent is very similar to London, well I cannot detect much of a difference. Mine is a little RP, but mostly local Hertfordshire.

[@metatronyt]

coalikesdesi Fantastic thank you :D London is a city I really like. In the future I am planning to move there eventually :3

[@zr0w3n-16]

coalikesdesi RP isn't upper class, it was developed so that anyone could understand it. It was made for the radio, when they first developed so that anyone could tune in and understand the person on the radio. Also, no way this guy shouldn't British. He speaks English, but doesn't would anything like any Brit, he sounds foreign to me

[@Zathaghil]

+Gamer Zeke your WRITING looks foreign to me, so I wonder how you judge the language you hear? "Also, no way this guy shouldn't British." -Can you please explain that sentence to me, it makes no sense. "He speaks English, but doesn't would anything like any Brit, he sounds foreign to me" Same thing here. I'm guessing auto correct turning your "sounds" and "sound" to "shouldn't" and "would"? If not, it eludes me... But you are correct about RP.

[@gracieallen8285]

Massachusetts they don’t pronounce the R as in car.

[@Deedeedee137]

I thought it was ver interesting that you said that you have an English accent. I think I agree. However, I was surprised that you didn't say you had an Italian accent, since that is also a very prominent feature of your speech.

[@diyarnechirvan]

Even though I think that English accent is showy, I personally prefer the American accent because it is clear to understand and relatively represents gaining the freedom from English nobels ;)

[@LordDice1]

as an American I can say we have a wide range of accents like Britain does. Texas, New York, and Boston still hold many British attributes and older English pronunciations, while Midwestern states such as Wisconsin are influenced by Deutch and other Norse accents. only large Cities on coasts really have what you'd call an American accent. a tv actor accent that most of the world association associates with the U.S. that being said, I enjoy listening to many accents. I don't think I have a preference. Some southern American speech is grating on the ears and sounds wrong to me somehow. Possibly left over class prejudice. On a last note, the royal Shakespeare society I believe in Stratford has done brilliant work reviving their idea of the accent of Shakespeare and are doing plays in this accent. I'll look for the link if you are interested. thanks for your great content, love your channel and have a great day.

[@Cry_about_it_lmao]

You know that the Americans have the original british accent right lol

[@edwardmiessner6502]

@@Cry_about_it_lmao except there was never one original British accent. What the American colonists spoke at the time of the Revolution was remarked upon by one English aristocrat as "clear and proper." But the pronunciation didn't stay the same on either side of the ocean.

[@bettihana]

Just like you, I'm Italian born and bred. Living in various countries, I have come into contact with different pronunciations of the English language. From Cornwall to the Caribbean, from Kenya to South Africa, through Scotland and Australia, I found the zenith of difficulty in New Castle.

[@tosgem]

Scottish accents also contain some "original" sounds that other accents have lost or changed. E.g. in the word "know", for us the K is silent. But in the Scottish highlands they say "ken". It looks like they've dropped the "ow" from the end of the word, but they have kept something that we dropped - the original silent K! There are many other words and interesting pronunciations they use, and some linguists argue that some Scottish accents are the closest in utterance to Shakespeare (but like you say, it all depends on your perspective)

[@sluggo206]

'ken' may be related to German 'kennen'. German has two words for 'know': wissen (to know a fact) and kennen (to be acquainted with a person). Scots 'ken' has the meaning of 'wissen', but perhaps that reflects an older stage of Germanic languages, or maybe it used to mean 'kennen' and the meaning drifted. By the way, 'wissen' is related to English 'wit'. It's possible 'ken' came from 'know' but I doubt it because I don't know of any other case where the n separated from the k. Shakespearian English is on KZbin; e.g., Ben Crystal. It sounds partly Irish to me,. But think it's only individual vowels and traits, rather than matching an entire dialect wholesale.

[@keaganwheeler-mccann8565]

Wissen is probably closer to Wisdom, in terms of word usage. Not the modern meaning of wisdom, but the more archaic. As in "a understanding" "a learning" or "a lesson"

[@Beastlango]

The dripping of the T is actually a western United States thing. It is especially use around the Utah accent. Being from Utah I have had a lot of experience with this. Most of the time when someone from the Utah-ish area talks to someone who isn’t it is one of the first things they notice. It’s actually funny because I say the T more than most people from Utah and I always get asked if I was raised here or recently move here.

[@АпокалипсеДостое́вский]

"Hit that *r* like it stole something."

[@oscarcoco1605]

I'm an American, and I moved around the states enough as a kid that I don't really have a geographical accent. I tend to adopt the local accent wherever I go(as long that place is English speaking) I also do a spot on lindybeige impression.

[@i420i420]

Just found your channel from watching one of your debunked videos. This was an absolutely fascinating video on language. Brought many things to light for me. Cheers from upstate, NY! You got me paying attention to my flapping of central double t words....to the point of near self conscience.

[@metatronyt]

+Jed Wood I am glad you liked it and NY is like my favourite city in the States :D

[@ephesusrh4780]

+Metatron NY is great and so is Atlanta where i live, but after having gone to London several times since i was 7 (I'm 16 now) it'd be awesome to live there. i still have much to explore over in England though. Also are you part something else? rather then just English?

[@blackdeath4eternity]

+Pericles of Athens i believe he's Italian though a English teacher (apparently , i just learnt that in this video) so he merely referred to having a English accent as the general accent he's learnt English, or at least that's my take on it.

[@metatronyt]

blackdeath4eternity Precisely ;)

[@blackdeath4eternity]

+Metatron glad to know that i was correct. :)

[@RexAndAllen]

What you're discussing with Bristol/West Country accent was retaining the /r/ was very common with pirates correlates to the fact that due to Bristol being a very common port city and about 25% of English pirates came from there in the 1710s.

[@kingbaldwiniv5409]

A lot of American sub groups pronounce "t". It may be as common to pronounce it as a "d", but most places where I have lived (1/3 of the country) do make a sound where the "t" is in the word. I grew up between two particular groups however, Midwest and Pittsburgh, which are a bit unique.

[@keaganwheeler-mccann8565]

I'm from Montana, an my english is different from the Pacific Northwest. I sound more similar to someone from Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arizona. Even between those there is a difference.

[@carbonmonoxide5052]

The t in water in American English is NOT a d! It's a flap, closer to the Spanish/Scottish r in the word "pero" (Spanish for but), but different from "perro" (Spanish for dog).

[@Quarton]

Exactly right, Carbon Monoxide. The "t" is not pronounced as a "d" which has a much harder sound.

[@tombeegeeeye5765]

In the urban northeast and some other urban areas you see the T-> D heavy influence of Germans Italian and Yiddish speakers. In the vastness of middle America it is "T" as it is in standard spoken American English.

[@Quarton]

Exactly!

[@Adjag2Studios]

All English accents are equally right and wrong. Check out OP Original Pronunciation Of Shakespeare. The closest thing to a proper accent would most likely sound like a “pirate” accent to our ears. But RP is far from Shakespearean. It is, in comparison to OP quite improper. Proved and loved don’t rhyme in RP for example. They were pronounced pruvd and luvd. R’s were Irish or American sounding. Glottal stops were very common for Shakespeare o’er for example. And he also rhymed and coupled words like butter and fodder. Whether ts and ds were always differentiated is highly debatable. We know a lot from OP in Shakespeare’s time based on his intended puns and rhymes which almost never work with RP. To play it safe a Pirate’s or Samwise Gamgee’s Pronunciation is most likely the closest to Original Pronunciation of English and would be most proper and or correct.

[@ryklatortuga4146]

Always good content! I think of the English Language as a big tree with branches growing in all sorts of directions - Odd how certain geographical/political events have created a new version -

[@Stomper67]

Metatron, I just discovered your channel and enjoy it very much! I’m an American man married to an Australian wife who has a Scottish grandfather and an Irish grandmother.... I submit that the superior accent variant belongs to the ones who were first to split the atom, liberate Europe from Nazi occupation, broke the sound barrier (and lived to tell the tale), and put men on the moon.... what’s quite amusing to me is on the rare occasions when my Australian wife yells (loudly) at me, I perceive no accent of any kind.... LOL! Seriously though, there are many regional accents in America... New England, New York State, New York City, New Jersey, Southern, mid-West, West coast, then there’s a myriad of “hillbilly”, country” (rural), and sub-cultural “Ebonics” accents found mainly in large urban areas.

[@andersengman3896]

You're mixing a lot of things up here, even though most of it is correct. The reason Standard American is a rhotic accent is because of the huge numbers of Irish settlers, and the accents pretty much go from east to west. Virginia is a funny example since the accent traditionally spoken there is non-rhotic. :p

[@awkwardsilence4427]

Hmm, the t flapping would kinda help explain how a couple of times in the past I was asked where I was from due to my accent, despite being grown and raised in the same place as them (southern US). While granted I don't have much of a southern accent anyway (I'd say none, but northerners have told me they can hear a bit of a southern tinge), but even still one guy said he thought I was from Scotland or somewhere. I was very confused at the time as to why he thought that, but I do specifically sound out the t sound in words like letter. And sound it out when saying "what" too. Because that's what letters say they should be said as.

[@tsulkalu8640]

Personally, my favorite accent is the Southern Appalachian accent, but if I had to choose between a General American accent and a RP English accent, I'ld have to go with the English accent.

[@dr.bluesfield3629]

Hi @Metatron, great video as usual, it raised my curiousity about 2 points: Firstly, how did you acquire your British accent? Have you lived in the UK and if yes, for how long? And secondly: what was the reason for the loss of rhotic pronounciation in the UK from the 1800s onward? Who started it and why. Thanks a lot, man!

[@odeemartin4690]

Wow a fascinating and learning discussion. I'm from Dublin, Ireland and we do pronounce our 'R's . Also, many in Dublin don't pronounce our 'T's or more accurately our 'Th's . So for example many people in Dublin instead of saying "this" we say "Diss". then for "that" we say "Datt", and d'ont forget the "Deees" and "Doze".

[@DjangoWarheart]

You forgot tirty tree and a turd.

[@Igor-ug1uo]

There is another case in which English pronounce R. It occurs when a word ending with /a/ is followed by a word starting with a vowel sound. For example, "America-r-is", "The idea-r-of". Also one of the most noticeable differences between the American accent and British accents (at least for me) have always been the O sound. OU in American and OI in British.

[@metatronyt]

+Igor Arutiunian “Ahoy” I actually say that ghost R myself ^^

[@MrHazz111]

This is a very Interesting topic, and a great video! I'd like give my two cents on it, As an Indian with a North American accent, I find it categorizing a 'proper' accent for a language as widespread as English a little strange. In a lot of developed cities here in India, you will find English speaking communities, who were brought up speaking English as their mother tongue. To a foreigner, their accent might seem a bit thick, but that's what they identify with. If they don't speak English at home, they might as well incorporate it with their native language. And some Indians are so engulfed in this manner of speaking, their vocabulary might be amazing, but they would still have trouble understanding an accent not from India (mine, for example) I have also heard about other communities around the world molding English to their cultural background. I would like to hear you thoughts on this. (Sorry for the long post)

[@Lafly84]

For partial explanation of American spelling, reference Noah Webster.

[@BlackJar72]

Most Americans do pronounce the /t/ at the end of words, but many don't release the /t/ so that it becomes very subtle. Of course, Americans do use glottal before some nasals, especially /n/, such as with the word "button." Of course, some American accents are non-rhotic. The questions begs another questions -- which American accent and which British accent? (And of course people say "British," since "English English" just sounds awkward as and expression.)

[@tc2334]

+Jared Blackburn English English may sound awkward to average Americans, but it sounds silly to people to are familiar with any other variety of English. I'd argue that one would encounter a wider variety of accents within the the 12-hour drive between Brighton (southern coast of England) and Tongue (northern coast of Scotland). So, saying "British English" seems too generic especially when English alone has a set of different accents as does Scotland and Wales.

[@yusufgta4341]

Us New Yorkers dont say the Rs. I have a heavy Brooklyn New York accent.

[@staceynadeau6948]

Such interesting information on the history of English and it's evolution from both sides of the pond. However, I have a question for you. Most here in the US are rhotic speakers but there are non rhotic areas such as those from New England, Boston comes to mind i.e. they "pahk the cah" dropping of the "r". And in the southern regions of the US. What are your thoughts on that? I would value your opinion. 😊

[@kernowforest1693]

Metatron, you have a London influenced accent over Italian, it sticks out like a sore thumb, I wouldn't call it English, it is London-Italian. Lot of twaddle in this article though, here we go supposed only one English accent myth. Pity you did not research the degree and regionality of rhoticity in the UK and the history of regional spoken English. Why did you focus on Bristol as an example of rhoticity? Other Westcountry cities like Plymouth and Exeter also have rhotic accents, but they are distinctly Devonian, not Bristolian accents. Bristol is more like the surrounding areas such as south Gloucestershire, Wiltshire and north Somerset. You should have focussed on the Westcountry, i.e. Cornwall, upto Gloucestershire and Herefordshire as being dominated by rhoticity, Bristol just happens to be in the north of the region. The Westcountry in general uses a retroflex r like Irish and most American/Canadian English. In fact parts of Newfoundland and the Smith Islands still use Westcountry influenced English. Also part of north Lancashire is also rhotic. All of Scotland and NI is rhotic. Yes, loss of rhoticity did develop in the 18th C, probably and has been documented at the time, but possibly in the 17th C in eastern England, such as East Anglia. The non rhotic US New England speech, i.e. Boston is derived from East Anglian, as that is where many of the settlers came from. It was also adopted by the landed gentry and wealthy classes and spread west and northwards, and also down the social ladder. The same form that included London from the late 18th and early 19th C ended up forming the basis of Australian accents. Listen to modern Norfolk accent, to my ears similar to Australian. Anyway, I digress. That change eventually led to most of England being non rhotic, but not the west. But where did you get this farmer and pirate thing from that they pronounced 'r's? Farming is a livelihood, not a regional or type of speech, you didn't research this very well. Do all farmers in Italy speak with the same accent? Hey, you obviously only know London, so that is where you have gotten your knowledge of England from. Farmers from non rhotic area like Norfolk or Yorkshire don't pronounce their 'r's, it is a London association purely with farmers from the Westcountry - a regional form of speech only. Like wise, the association of pirate speech with rhoticity is from Hollywood films like Treasure Island where the Dorset born actor, Robert Newton used a Dorset accent (rhotic Westcountry). True many pirates were from the Westcountry, going back to the times of Drake and Raleigh, who spoke broad Devonian, not London English. So that London thing of pirate and farmer accents you have picked up on, is just an association with Westcountry accents, so there is no difference as you commented on. As for vowels, diphthongs and consonants, again a bit more research was required here. Broad Westcountry speech (a range, not one form) tend to voice middle ts to ds, so butter is budder, and water is wadder. I would say Westcountry English is more like American forms than any other form of English spoken in the UK, not surprising as many early settlers to the Americas were from the Westcountry. I've travelled and lived in all countries of the British Isles, am from the Westcountry and live in Cornwall, so can easily pick out the range and differences in the UK (and the Westcountry). Just watch TV programmes like Poldark or Jamaica Inn to hear rhotic Cornish accents, unfortunately they are all non Cornish actors, and do the speech quite badly (even painful to my ears). To complicate things further, we also have two native languages in England, English and Cornish, and Cornish (both accent and language) is deffo rhotic. I'd like to see a revised version of this article, with a bit more research and accuracy. I'd have to score this article as C-, it has or some good points but lacks accuracy.

[@robertboyer5498]

Metaron. Hello, I was wondering what you think of the Mid-Atlantic accent. It is an affected accent spoken by upper class Americans. People would be familiar with it for example, it is the accent that Kelsey Grammar, the actor, uses.

[@wordsmithgmxch]

You want to be careful, Metatron. I'm from Virginia: the Tidewater part that was settled early. (My folks arrived in the 1640s.) Now explain to me how it is that I DON'T pronounce the final "r", and the Virginians further west, settled later, DO -- the opposite of what your video states. This is just one minuscule example that suggests that the story of American accents is far more complicated than you suggest. Keep digging!

[@johnbenton6681]

can you talk about how different accents formed in America? for instance I have a "Southern accent" and I pronounce dog with a short vowel sound. I just moved North and they pronounce it like it'd spelled dowg. They also put an emphasis on a's in words.

[@Blackdorsay]

Amazing! I am not a native English speaker, and in fact, being a Costarrican who basically learned by himself, I was not aware of the reason behind so many differences among English speakers. Although my pronunciation is closer to the American way, I would love to have an English ( understand please as from anywhere within Great Britain) instead of my Latino accent. That being said, a friend of mine, who learned English trough the local British Institution, went to Texas for a couple of years during his teens, and he said it was one of the worst experiences in his life! A Latino, speaking with a British accent, which he would not drop just for the sake of having friends, given how much it cost his parents to pay for such a good education, in Texas!...suffice to say, he spent those two years alone, learning how to play bass and taking photography classes and whatnot, and completely isolated from the rest of the world...TRUE STORY!!

[@bilbohob7179]

What latino accent? French, spanish, Italian, portuguese, rumanian?

[@hidlehel]

@@bilbohob7179 uhm, a major mishap here! The world only considers Latin American people Latinos. French, Italians, Romanians, heck not even Portuguese are considered Latinos. One of those instances when, one utterly burns himself by trying to sound smart.

[@bilbohob7179]

@@hidlehel the world? You mean US? Latino is the word in italian for the latin language. Latin language was the roman empire language. All of romances languages are evolutioned Latin. Only US change the name like a pretenciosa ignorant teenager... Only US can say that an Italian is not Latin. You can go to Rome in Lazio and say it to then...

[@hidlehel]

@@bilbohob7179 Latino does mean Latin in Latino, which is singular, refers to a person, and to a person from Latin America. I’m quite aware of classical history. No need for lectures about classical languages. Go around in Italy, France, Portugal or Romania and see how many people refer to themselves as Latinos. Let me save you the trip and give you the answer: none. Yes, we call them Romance languages, because of Roman influence, of the romans, who spoke Latin. Again, the term latino doesn’t refer to a Romance language, but to a person from Latin America. Again, just ask any member of the aforementioned nations if they call themselves Latinos.

[@bilbohob7179]

@@hidlehel latin American nations are called in this way because a French governor did. Why did a French ruler put the name? Perhaps because frenchs are latins? Patethic try of cultural apropiation. Shame.

[@RussellRadio]

I live in the Georgia/Tennessee area in the United States, and I notice a lot of my friends and I have very neutral accents. I still do love the southern accent, I just don't really have one.

[@Venedlor]

If you were to talk to someone from another area out they will tell you that you have an accent. My cousins from England all say that I have a southern accent even though I am from Florida and have a Florida accent .

[@linguistlogic7937]

I usually don't like it when foreigners speak with a heavy English accent, I find it too forced and prefer just clear pronunciation but I will make an exception for Metatron

[@laskey84]

I love your footage friend. Keep it up. Whats a Pirates favorite letter?

[@JoclynM]

I'm American and neither I, nor anyone I know, don't pronounce t's at the end of words. It may be a bit softer than in English proper, but we definitely pronounce it. Double t's absolutely become d's though.

[@RichardDCook]

Final t's are different than initial t's. In English the final stops are unreleased: you form the mouth as if you're going to fully say it, but the mouth stays in that position when the airflow ceases. It's most obvious with P. Initial P is strong enough to blow out a small candle if it's close enough, but final P has no air at all coming out.

[@ravenlord4]

I find it interesting that most ESL speakers have an RP accent (plus their native accent mixed in) rather than an American accent. I think probably because British vowels are more common to other languages, and the American "R" is pretty difficult to deal with. Most languages seem to be either non-rhotic, or they hammer their "R"s like there is no tomorrow. The American "R" is kind of a wimpy in between.

[@karenbartlett1307]

Virginians are Southerners and speak with the old Tidewater Virginia accent. They don't say "Arrr", they say "ah". They are usually of British descent, like Gen. Lee, but are not the same people as the Puritan descendants of Massachusetts and Connecticut. As you go further inland, you have more people who are descended from Scots/Irish (for example, as in Tennessee) and they pronounce the "r" as "arr", not like Virginians. Except maybe in Georgia (for example, Jimmy Carter does not say "arr"). As for "proper" pronunciation of English, we Americans simply don't care how the British talk. It's pretty, but we wouldn't want to bother. We like the way we talk, as does everybody in the world.

[@angietyndall7337]

Well as I found out Maine drops their consonants,like in car, they say ca. I found this hillarious as a teenager when I met my uncle. The other funny thing is my mom was always correcting my grammar and speaking of the English language, but when she came back to Maine, she started speaking like she grew up. It was weird.

[@天皇陛下万歳日本会議]

I'm from SW VA and we don't consider you easterners southerners

[@PrimusGladius]

@@天皇陛下万歳日本会議 I've always figured everyone south of the Mason-Dixon Line had the right to call themselves "Southerners", perhaps less-so with Maryland today but still. It's funny and interesting to hear about the regional quibbles people have with their neighbors.

[@天皇陛下万歳日本会議]

PrimusGladius SW Va has way more in common with Kentucky and North Carolina, we hardly consider ourselves part of Va, East Va is way way more urbanized and we're divided by the Appalachians so, yeah.

[@天皇陛下万歳日本会議]

And no, we have an accent derived from Ulster Scots, not the Tidewater accent.

[@chiconva]

Study the Tangier Island accent of Virginia. Their accent is very close to a southwestern British accent.

[@GloriousGloryTimes]

hi there Metatron! First off, great videos! I wanted to also say, I am genuinely surprised that you are a native English speaker, and I must ask what region you come from. I actually thought you sounded like a central European/Scandinavian speaker who had learned English as a second language but who had done an excellent job of eliminating your native tongue accent. I've heard a lot of different British accents, but being an American, I'm sure I've heard far fewer dialects than what exist in the UK in total. Keep the videos coming! :)

[@metatronyt]

+Erik Tasker Hi, I am Italian I am not native, English is my second language indeed :)

[@GloriousGloryTimes]

+Metatron yes, after reading some of your other replies I realized that, foolish me! Regardless, you've clearly done a great job assimilating a foreign language, and I apologize for my ignorance! :)

[@metatronyt]

Erik Tasker Not at all, I appreciate your comment pal :D and thank you for the complements ^^ My intonation got a bit weird because I am back in Italy, but normally if I spend a couple of weeks in Englad it gets back to normal and I sound a lot better ahah :3

[@intanto1]

+Metatron And maybe not a Northern Italian... yes? You Latin is too neat:-)

[@jackiemclean2776]

Hi, I am English, and I would say Metatron has one of the best English, Italian accents I have ever heard. It is probably closest to a London, Southeast accent, quite neutral and pure. Very nice indeed.

[@fuzzwarmy]

Mr. Metatron, your American accent sounds closer to Cornish (“pirate”) to my New England ear. Some folks here also do not pronounce their r’s, BTW. Have you covered or do you (or anyone who reads this old video’s comments) know why the English nobility adopted their accent? Was it due to Norman French influence? I prefer Irish pronunciation of English, with Jamaican pronunciation #2. Best regards.

[@StickMan1294]

Sometimes i can still hear your italian accent :p

[@soilmanted]

I am a stater. I grew up in the suburbs of New York City but I live in North Carolina and while I understand people who are speaking with a North Carolinian accent, I have trouble speaking it myself. My buddy in North Carolina was born in England. We sometimes go places together in my car, in which I use a GPS navigation device. My device came with a synthetic female voice that has an american accent. My English friend gets jumpy and anxious when he hears her giving directions, however when I switch the device to using a voice with an English accent he calms down.

[@brokenursa9986]

As an American, I'm more accustomed to the American accent, but I do like the English accent. However, among American accents, I don't like the southern accent as much, and I can have a bit of trouble understanding Brooklyn and Boston accents.

[@Pyrrhus399]

for me it depends on the southerner speaking, sometimes it can be pretty charming, but on the other hand it can be grating and make you sound less intelligent than you probably are.

[@joez9839]

Having grown up in New England and having moved south, a lot of southern accents sound positively Bostonian.

[@geertstroy]

Yes , there is something with southern latitudes that makes one sound less gifted. I live in the southern Netherlands and our musical accent is mostly felt as being from another silly planet.

[@brokenursa9986]

TR Rln Actually, according to historians, the northern American accent is closest to common English at the time the Americas were colonized. However, the commonality you noticed might have something to do with the fact that both the modern English and southern American accents evolved from the accent used by upper class English people of the time. The north of the US was colonized by commoners, while the south was settled by wealthy landowners.

[@nastrael]

Ryan Cauffman It also has to do with the massive influx of Scotts-Irish to the South in the 19th century.

[@Woodman-Spare-that-tree]

Regarding the link between farmers and pirates:- For “pirates” read “smugglers”. Smuggling AND farming mainly happened in the south west of England, which is exactly where people do still pronounce the letter R. So there’s your answer!

[@MoviMakr]

I feel like people with English accents sound more Canadian when trying to do an American accent.

[@metatronyt]

***** I see :D

[@MoviMakr]

Metatron Stephen Fry does it all the time and it always sounds rather uncanny (probably the reason Hugh Laurie got the American parts and Fry didn't).

[@michaelnurge1652]

@@MoviMakr Every time I hear Stephen Fry try to do an American accent, I just think he should stop. It's like Dick Van Dyke famously trying to do a cockney accent. Lots of English people try to do American by overdoing the r's, but they don't get a lot of the vowels or the flow quite right...and it sounds jarring... On Canadian accents, it depends on where they're from whether I can pick out the differences from the U.S. in a short time or longer time or not at all. Most people from Vancouver sound like they could be from Oregon or Washington or even N. California, and some of the middle parts sound like they could be Midwest U.S. Toronto area is easier, though it may take a couple minutes. Nova Scotia or Quebec are the easiest IMO.

[@edranetz]

Hi, Metatron: The Boston or Massachusetts accent is a non-Rhotic accent. We drop the Rs at the end of words. Therefore it is probably the closest American accent to an English accent. Maybe that's why they call Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut and Rhode Island New England. I love your historical documentaries.

[@neutroncapture9095]

Proper is a very loaded word. It implies that anyone who doesn't speak in a very specific way all the time they aren't educated. Because only an educated person would be able to speak in that way. It really should be change to academic English. An English that is used in academic or profesional settings. The way i speak with my friends would not be the same way i would speak in a thesis. Ultimately so long as a person can communicate what they want the accent is irrelevant, no matter how "broken" or unacademic.

[@kyleklein8746]

Matt Binelli he was just stating his opinion. Why do you need to bring race into this conversation?

[@timothylongo5828]

I’m from one of the few places in the US that’s non-rhotic like most of England. Boston. We always drop our r’s and add them in weird places. Idea for me is “idear”. Perhaps British occupation left an impression.

[@pumbar]

I'll take my NorthWest England Mersey accent.

[@pv6212]

Mr. Metatron, than you for all these videos. They are very informative and interesting! Keep up the great work! Cheers! Roma Victa!

[@ieuanhunt552]

There is no way herb should be pronounced rb

[@kaimietis52]

+Ieuan Hunt and there is no way "Water" should be pronounced "Wo a"

[@ieuanhunt552]

Saulius J. Wtf are you on about?

[@kaimietis52]

Well that's how some british people pronounce it.

[@kaimietis52]

+Saulius J. He even mentions it about 9:37

[@ieuanhunt552]

not where I live

[@genericfuton7750]

From what you said it sounds like the big difference is that you prefer losing the r rather than losing the t....I didn't see where the American accent deviated more based on what you said so it sounds like it is just a personal preference rather than an actual objective evaluation of which is proper.

[@Direwoof]

I like Australian accent the best. and all the silly slang words they use, Bottle-O lol.

[@metatronyt]

Hassassin Assassin Aussie accent is nice :D

[@EpicTurtle4423]

If you say the reason for the rhotic American accent is because they were founded before the 18th century, how do you explain the Massachusetts and New York accent?

[@ewokFTW]

I am an American and good god i hate flapping, especially when i catch myself doing it.

[@anna-mariaciccone3186]

SilverMyrmidon Me too but tattle tale doesn't flap for me. Interesting. My mother, Canadian, was always on the flapping, tho she didn't call it as such. And tube was twbe but turbulent didn't have that strange w for u. Go figure, perhaps the rhotic prevents the w sound?

[@blakewinter1657]

I would be very interested in hearing more about the GVS. Also, perhaps, how it came about that 'rough,' 'cough,' etc. all have the same spelling but are pronounced quite differently.

[@OmarSlloum]

OMG! the cringe that comes with the green-screen are to much to bare! please go back to your normal background. (JK, I know that you already did, 'cause i'm in the future compared to this video! lol)

[@Calabrooo]

Omar Salloum and I'm even more in the future

[@keaganwheeler-mccann8565]

I'm even more in the future.

[@EEYore-py1bf]

And I'm even _more_ in the future

[@hewhoshallnotbenamed5168]

When you say "American" accent you have to be more specific. Do you mean New York, Jersey, Boston, Appalachian, deep southern, Florida, Louisiana, Cajun, Texas, Rocky Mountain, southwest, California, or Pacific Northwest (and these are just the ones I can list off the top of my head)?

[@harveythepooka]

You lost me when you started to talk about what's "proper." What does that even mean? You are basically saying there is a correct way to speak and in incorrect way to speak and that's BS. We all speak the way the people around us when we were growing up speaks, so there is no way for that to be improper, so I don't get the point you're making. Also, your accent sounds like it has a lot of some kind of Latin root to in it, maybe Spanish or Italian. Also Americans pronounce our Ts, maybe not as strongly as other people but we do do it, with a few notable exceptions like water, for what, that, mat, etc we say the T. Of course people in the US don't speak like 1600s English people, but we probably speak as much like them as anyone with a standard English accent does, or possibly more so. IMO, American English sounds more like an Irish accent, but there have been waves and waves of immigration that have come to the US and I'm sure each new wave has left their mark on the way we speak.

[@griffinbeaumont7049]

Metatron, this is a great video explaining clearly the differences between various accents, with much more detail than I generally see (especially including the bit about Bristol). However it seems very odd to me given your linguistic background, that you discuss these ways of speaking in terms of being 'proper' english. Why should an accent be more correct if it is closer to the English of centuries ago? Forgive me if I misinterpret your message, but surely the fact that one variety was spoken earlier in history does not make that variety more 'correct' than any other? After all, if it was the case that people in the 18th century flapped their intervocalic /t/ and only later stopped doing so, would you then say that was more 'correct' to do? The differences between these ways of speaking are in the end arbitrary, so how can one be any more valuable than the other in a rational way? Again, I do not want to accuse you at all, only some viewers may take this information and use it to justify their beliefs that there are accents that are inherently better than others, while in fact there are only those that are more *conservative* than others. These two concepts (conservative vs better) often get confused.

[@dominiquemusk773]

Go English

[@metatronyt]

+christina arceno :D

[@zr0w3n-16]

Metatron sorry, but what country are you from? Because you said you sound English, but you really dont

[@WildChildFromHell]

He's Italian. I agree, he doesn't really sound English at all.

[@Zathaghil]

He means he sounds more English than American. And yes he does. Without a shadow of a doubt. He did NOT say that Brits would mistake him for a Brit or native speaker. /sigh And he also speaks in a patently English way, not Scottish, Welsh or Irish way... Neither Australian, Kiwi or South African way. And not Indian, Caribbean or Canadian way. It's patently English. Most closely to RP because of the lack of real dialects since he's not native and didn't learn by living in the UK. End of story. ME, I speak in an International mish-mash type of way. When people have to guess where I'm from they usually guess I'm either Dutch or Scandinavian. But then they also use my looks as hints.

[@WildChildFromHell]

Dialect isn't the same as accent. He speaks a British English dialect, but doesn't have a British accent. End of story.

[@helRAEzzzer]

America has a massive amount of dialects of English. I'm from northeastern Massachusetts. Every city in northeastern Massachusetts has their own accent. My mother has a Lowell accent, my father had a Concord accent, and my sister and I have a hybrid accent of Lowell-Concord-Dracut (we grew up in Dracut, MA). My accent is more closely related to Lowell's accent (though for some reason I sound EXACTLY like people from northern Manhattan, NY) and my sister sounds closer a Dracut accent (I learned to speak prior to moving out of Lowell when I was 3 and my sister was 1). Almost all east coast American accents also drop the R.

[@steveclemons8191]

Great video. Well explained. I enjoy your videos. Thank you. Just one thing. The term “old English” actually refers to a much older version of English (from before the invasion of William the Conqueror bringing his Norman French influence) which is so Germanic sounding that it is totally unintelligible to a modern English speaker in America or in England. Keep up the great work!

[@ashleybennett4418]

we australians are non-rhotic speakers but we like to throw a few extra vowels into our words sometimes

[@SillyBoydo]

Can you discuss the accents of Australians, New Zealanders, and South Africans?

[@azborderlands]

American Accent married to an Southern English RP accent living in a land of GEORDIE accents 😂

[@savvageorge]

I'm always amazed how good many Europeans are able to speak English, better than a lot of natives. I can hear a slight Italian accent when you speak but very difficult to sound 100% English for people born outside England or even for people born on the English borders.

[@Liam-B]

Lots of people in the US don't pronounce many of their T's. Some states more than others, some towns more than others. "Here in Utah, we have tall mou'ains." People from "Layton" are often teased as being from "Lay'in". Many people also drop vowels for comfortable and easy speech.

[@susandiana4172]

How about the difference in vowel sounds? I'm English, and I do not like the A and O vowel sounds in American speech.

[@phbarrus1]

Howdy y'all from Texas. I wonder how much influence Dutch and German colonists had on American English. I wonder how much of the flapping sounds come from them, as well as the T sound changing to D.

[@Siegbert85]

wow, I often wondered how this difference in pronounciation came about. Thanks for that!

[@extrasmack]

I find these discussions very interesting. I started speaking English at about four or five years of age. An interesting consequence was that I tended to pronounce many sounds that normally were not pronounced in my area. I did this through about the middle of my grade school career. Sounding the tt in the middle of words happened to be one such eccentricity you reminded me of. I must have sounded odd in retrospect being the only kid sounding out all r's t's s's etc. My peers thought I was trying to be too proper and show off and my teachers thought it was charming. It just sounded right to my ear. Through constant exposure, of course, my "accent" eventually shifted to the the common one. All that being said, I am in full agreement. Whether you speak English with an American, English, Australian etc accent, unless someone tries to mix them up and ends up butchering said accent, they just all tend to sound correct to me. What i find most intriguing are the historical divergences that lead to all these variations. Please continue to enlighten us. Thank you.

[@kevinsullivan3448]

I just had an idea for a video on English. Have many different people record themselves speaking a specific set of words and phrases. Then compare them in the video like Meta did in his Italian Vs Sicilian video. This should include slang terms like Pop or Soda, cart, buggy or basket, all depending on what is the common slang in your area.

[@Byronic19134]

Bro, since I found your channel and immediately noticed you speak in narrator accent I've been trying to understand why it sounds so distinguished and proper and it's simply the non rhotic accent. That's the secret to sounding like nobility.

[@moakley]

what is the view on Australian English? Its like a mix of irish,welsh, British and Scottish slang

[@therecalcitrantseditionist3613]

I couldent help but noticing your explanation of the tendency of dropping the R sound to become common in england after colonization, but this also tends to be the case in New england (north eastern US) and was wondering what might be the case with this? Especially considering it was one of the earliest places to be colonized after Virginia of course. Is a case of later emulation? Just curious given the wide spread anti-british sentiment that occurred after the war.

[@metatronyt]

Yes, that's a very interesting topic too, you see. I will make more videos like this one. But let me tell you this one..hear a New England accent and then go back to Britain and hear a Bristol accent..and you will have the "r" situation reversed America r is pronounced England r is dropped however New England and New York r is dropped Bristol r is pronounced xD Blows your mind ahahah I will explain so stay tuned ;)

[@Philoglossos]

Metatron It's more of a Boston accent than a New England accent (I live maybe 25 mins outside of Boston). Interestingly,at least 90% of people here in my experience speak with a completely neutral, non regional accent. As for the issue of what is proper, I'd say that, for example, in the context of America, news anchor American English (which is almost, but not quite the same as my non regional accent) would be more proper than RP, while obviously the opposite is true. Globally speaking is where there is some level of controversy, as the question then is which accent is more globally useful. I'd honestly say that American is more useful in that context, since it's the more universal of the two and has far more native speakers. I think that the geography of it is less important than the politics and economics. Similarly, although Portuguese was born in Europe, if I ever learn the language, I will learn the Brazilian version. Of course, fortunately the difference in English accents is nothing like the difference between European and Brazilian Portuguese, so I'd agree completely with your approach of allowing your students to acquire whichever native accent they like, since with English it really doesn't matter.

[@i420i420]

+Agorist Annah I would venture to guess it has to do with the immigration of the irish in the 19th century. As the shear majority of them landed in boston or NYC. It was then the r was dropped in those accents as e often joke "pahk the cah!" to bostonians. Similar in NYC but as an upstate new yorker we pronounce our r's and accent our a's much much differently.