People across the globe admire and respect RP, whether it's British RP or mid-Atlantic/American RP [the latter is mostly extinct]. It is my humble opinion that the general American accent is the worst thing to have happened to the English language.
It was the speech of the neo-peasantry of colonial British North America, the upper classes of the new world always sported patrician RP accents [including the founding fathers of the USA]. It was simply superior to colonial gutter-speak, always has been and always will be. Here's a fine example of a patrician American accent [disregard the content of the video, just observe the accent]:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QgXVJJyzZ00
I'm not saying all British accents are good, I'm just saying recieved pronunciation, whether Canadian, American, British, South African or Australian is better and was a better standard than the general American accent that has become the dominant dialect in North America and internationally.
>>52006747
My main point is that Recieved Pronunciation isn't just Britiah and that it should be the standard for spoken English. Let's not pretend it isn't an enviable dialect. It's the best form of spoken English, undeniably.
Trans-Atlantic is a cultivated accent, and it's okay to be Trans. Cis-accented people may be satisfied with their born accent, but many people don't identify with an accent that is an accident of geography.
People who don't speak with accents indicative of their upbringing or common to their social circle are often viewed as freaks. I want wider acceptance of trans-accented people.
Who's with me?
No one cares you twat
>>52006747
Hay ewe hozer, that's my beer, eh! Frig off, eh!
>>52007223
Of course you don't you inbred chav.
>>52007233
w0t da fok u say bout me u fokin bendah?
American with a nonrhotic accent here. Always wondered what a brit or aussie would think of the way I speak.
Actually been mistaken for an australian once or twice. Asked me to say "Shrimp on the bahbie"
>>52007463
As an american i honestly dont know where you would have picked up a non-rhotic. Boston? I guess they turn park into 'pahk,' but only a retard would confuse that with aussie
What do non-Anglophones think? I know other languages have prestige accents that are still very much alive and even popular. English's still exists in Britain and a number of ex-colonies [most notably the educated South African English accent], but has entirely passed away in North America, where it has been replaced by a much, much shittier accent.
Considering that the USA is undeniably the world's cultural superpower, it's a tremendous loss for the English language.
> mfw the english language has been permanently ruined by americans
I guess that's just how it's gonna be then.
It still doesn't change 90% of people's total awe of RP accents. It's a staple in our fantasy, even if no one speaks like that in our reality. It is the pinnacle of spoken English, and it's not objectionable to acknowledge that and say that RP should be the standard for spoken English.
Let's say china speaks British English
>Wow everyone fucking speaks with a British accent
>HOLY shit Americans sound so different! It's super cool and sexy.
If American media didn't dominate the airwaves our accent would be considered somewhat exotic because of how radically different it is from standard English.
>>52011512
It can be exotic. Scots is an exotic English dialect, but it still sounds retarded. The general American accent should be the native vernacular of the American North-West, but Recieved Pronunciation should be the standard for spoken English.
Would you rather have someone who sounds like a suburban man-child presenting the news, or a man with an educated and well-read accent?
I couldn't give a rat's ass for the opinion a foreigner has on my accent
>>52012383
lmao do you wear your Victorian top hat around town and wax your tiny preteen mustache to appear more like your fantasy of British men?
>>52006747
American accents >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> british accents.
Mid-Atlantic Accent is the greatest of all English accents but it is now mostly extinct by now.
american accent sounds crisp, clean and clear compare to rp imo
>>52012737
My cane, Jeeves. It's about time I took one of those oh-so delightful holidays off in the English country-side I oft enjoyed in my youth. Oh, how the years have fluttered by like the gentle kisses I recieved from my headmaster at St. Cuthbert's All-Boys Grammar School. You know Jeeves, my mama always said there is no air like the English air, and after many a voyage to countries that promised sun, breeze and toddy, I now know with certainty that, as Kipling wrote, 'to be born English is to win first place in the lottery of life', for I have galavanted in the French Riveria, served Her Majesty's Order of Civil Engineers in Ceylon, fended off the Japs in Hong Kong and Macua, delivered vital intelligence to Aden, and dutifully vanguarded our Empire in Malta, and through all that time I sustained myself on memory of jolly-old England fair and brave and what what... Make preperation for a picnic in the verdant fields of Wiltshire, and lay-out my favourite straw hat will you, I don't want to get the sun in my eyes whilst enjoying the sun.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Osmrxk0dnjY
One thing that does annoy me is that I can barely make out what British people say when they speak quietly. It sounds really slurred to me.
https://clyp.it/tudd0adc
i dont see how this is so bad
>>52006747
Yeah, it's pretty shit.
>>52013795
10/10, would use again.
>Vocal fry
>>52013233
fuck off back to the base, tyler
>>52006747
patrician sounds kinda droopy.
>>52006747
You can only get away with that shit if you're white and have a University degree so what I've done is make up my own Accent that sorta has an English RP thing going on but you really can't tell because it isn't always constant.
>>52012383
>general American accent should be the native vernacular of the American North-West
nigga what? General American comes from the heart of the Midwest, around Iowa
>>52014680
Um what?
Isnt general american based on mid-atlantic? I remember reading somewhere that it has origins in philly, new york, and baltimore. Not sure about baltimore but pretty confident about Philly & NYC origins.
Also.
>>52006747
The American accent is the BEST and ONLY best thing to have ever happen to the english language, besides being enriched by Latin and French.
Is pretty stupid for a british person or anyone in a faggoty commonwealth anglo country to say otherwise.
Not being biased, im basing my opinion as someone whos native language is not english.
>>52014680
wrong!
>>52006747
>the worst thing to have happened to the English language
>not the Kiwi accent
>>52012383
>or a man with an educated and well-read accent?
Your lack of education makes this statement all the more hilarious. An accent can't be "educated or well-read." Rather, a person's speech registers and lexical range are effected by being educated or well-read. Do you not understand how languages work? Why are you attempting to make a point about languages when you obviously haven't even taken a basic linguistics course?
The general/common american accent is not special or great, I must admit, but I would take it any day over some those unintelligible Britbong accents
That's not to say America doesn't have some fringe accents that are unintelligible, because we sure do: Louisiana and Appalachia, (example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03iwAY4KlIU ) but the percentage of our population that have these awful accents is miniscule, whereas a much greater percent of the UK's population has a harder to understand accent.
That's my view on it.
>>52014680
I meant mid-west, north west was a typo.
Mandarin Chinese has a similar origin, it was born in the Northern plains of China, from middle-Chinese, where travel and communication were far easier. Of course, Mandarin Chinese is really its own language where the general American accent is just a dialect, but it's the same principle at work with American English west of the appalachia. Geography is only an explanation for its initial development, geography quickly becomes redundant in the age of mass-communication.
It was after WWII and the 1960s [the baby-boomer generation] that he idea of refined dialects fell out of favour to the point that the trans-atlantic dialect basically died.
American media before the 1960s is full of trans-Atlantic accent. Someone would think that it was a very common dialect back then, but he truth was that very few people spoke it naturally, it was a prestige dialect associated with Ivy League universities [where it was common], theatre, media [tv, movies, radio] and the upper classes. It was however a standard for spoken English.
In Canada it has a similar history but more intertwined with the British Empire, Britain and British immigrants.
The rise of the American accent would be like if the accent of Quebecois farmers displaced the Parisian accent, or if the accent of Colombian fishermen displaced the Castillian accent. One was hone from centuries of literary and cultural growth, the other doesn't have any of that. Because of history the former is the one that people will always admire and use in their fantasy or to sound intelligent, and the latter just looks inferior in comparisson.
>>52015455
I'm not really convinced that American English is a dialect
>>52015521
You're right. American English is a set of dialects.
>>52015455
>Of course, Mandarin Chinese is really its own language where the general American accent is just a dialect, but it's the same principle at work with American English west of the appalachia.
Mandarin Chinese is its own language compared to what? If you mean, for example, Cantonese, sure. If you mean, for example, Sichuanese...well, that's where it's obvious that the lines are murky.
>>52015632
a dialect is something akin to mandarin chinese vs mainland chinese, grammar rules are different, spelling, pronunciation, etc.
it's a word that's being misused in this whole thread
>>52015455
>The rise of the American accent would be like if the accent of Quebecois farmers displaced the Parisian accent, or if the accent of Colombian fishermen displaced the Castillian accent. One was hone from centuries of literary and cultural growth, the other doesn't have any of that. Because of history the former is the one that people will always admire and use in their fantasy or to sound intelligent, and the latter just looks inferior in comparisson.
This is where your point makes no sense. There are numerous changes in English that happened in Britain, not in America. Non-rhoticity was not a feature of English until relatively recently. All English was originally rhotic, but the English moved away from that, which means that the English of England has moved away from the "centuries of literary and cultural growth" that you claim for it.
>>52015715
> There are numerous changes in English that happened in Britain, not in America. Non-rhoticity was not a feature of English until relatively recently... which means that the English of England has moved away from the "centuries of literary and cultural growth" that you claim for it.
Those changes are exactly the centuries of literary and cultural growth I'm talk about.
We all know the ye olde english of middle English was very different from modern English, and American English preserves many feautures of early modern English. A branch of early modern English developed into American English on the other side of the Atlantic, mostly from the West County dialect, while English east of the Atlantic was in the midst of a Renaissance [Shakespeare, William Tyndale, John Milton, et cetera]. Not that American English didn't inheret any of that, it inhereted most of it, but this is the pivotal era American English began to depart from British English and it's no coincidence as this was during the rise lf the English and later British Empire when trade in goods from the West Indies [which were being settled] brought great wealth to Britain.
The setting within RP was born was the same dozen or so boarding schools and the same two universities educating the entirety of the British aristocracy. I know the usual response is to get pissy about autocrats and ancient rigid caste systems and I would be inclined to agree, but it was in that setting English came into its own. Oxbridge in paticular was the scholary capital of the English-speaking world, arguably of the entire world, inventing almost the entire English university system.
My point being that in a time most people were farmers or living in slums RP began to develop from a rigorous scholarary tradition. It doesn't claim it's authority from being the accent of the rich and powerful, but the well-read and that produced the literary backbone of this language.
>>52015521
>>52015632
>>52015672
>>52015672
I've checked the technical definition of "dialect". I guess I am misusing that term.
>>52016574
Con't
I could explain the entire history of the English language to you and where RP fits in, but you're a Linguist so you should be able to figure it out.
It's ridiculous that you claimed British English missed out on the geyser of literary and cultural heritage of the English language when the heritage of the English language wasn't in west-country farmers, rogue colonials, or 18th and 19th century America. The majority of the cultural capital of the English lanuage was British until the 20th century.
> England has moved away from the "centuries of literary and cultural growth" that you claim for it.
Re-examining this ridiculous statement you should realise you're horribly wrong. Unless the precious heritage you mean is medieval anglo-saxon snow niggers who couldn't read or write.
