When Did Americans Lose Their British Accents?

[former9thward]

26. Long before the Civil War.

According to the book, The Story of English, Black English played a large role in the development of what we call the Southern accent. This is a delicate subject among some Southerners, but nevertheless an historical fact. A paragraph from page 215 of The Story of English explains:

"The plantations of the deep South became the cradle of a new ingredient in American culture. The English of the slaves was having a decisive effect on the English of their White Anglo-Saxon masters. The Southern accent of the United States would almost certainly have been quite different without the influence of the Blacks. The influence of Black English was felt in the fields (where slave and overseer would mix), in the house (where master and mistress used Plantation Creole to communicate with their house slaves); but above all, it was found in the nursery. Up to the age of about six years, Black and White children grew up together, played together, and learned together. In these crucial years of their development the Whites were often outnumbered by the Black slave children. Furthermore, all the nursing -- as any reader of Southern literature knows -- was done by Blacks. As early as the mid-eighteenth century, it was reported that, 'the better sort, in this country, particularly, consign their children to the care of Negroes ...'"

Interestingly, English author Charles Dickens, while on an American tour, noticed that Southern women were most influenced by Black English.The reason for this was that young Southern women more often stayed on the plantations, while the young men of well-to-do families "were usually sent away to White schools, often in the Northern states."