Declaration of Independence - 18th Century North Virginian Accent

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  • Опубліковано 1 жов 2024
  • Could have called this the somewhat more clickbaity "George Washington" accent. I'd say that's a bit iffy given this might not've been. It's pretty likely though, he came from the right area and a relatively middle-class family.

КОМЕНТАРІ • 770

  • @juraicgamer4408
    @juraicgamer4408 5 років тому +4989

    It sounds like a calm Scottish person

    • @ABAlphaBeta
      @ABAlphaBeta  5 років тому +832

      Now that sounds like an oxymoron!

    • @juraicgamer4408
      @juraicgamer4408 5 років тому +104

      AB Ich habe keine Ahnung, was das bedeutet, aber ok

    • @ABAlphaBeta
      @ABAlphaBeta  5 років тому +178

      @@juraicgamer4408 ist ein Paradoxon

    • @juraicgamer4408
      @juraicgamer4408 5 років тому +77

      AB ok now I understand THAT IS HALARIOUS

    • @juraicgamer4408
      @juraicgamer4408 5 років тому +39

      AB Du kennst Deutsch?

  • @LewisCampbellTech
    @LewisCampbellTech 10 місяців тому +596

    I hear so many different bits of contemporary accents in this. Very interesting sounding.

    • @RestitutorEuropa
      @RestitutorEuropa 9 місяців тому +13

      It sounds like a mix of all the British accents like English Scottish Irish, plus a bit of modern New Yorker and New Jersey strangely enough

  • @jasmadams
    @jasmadams 9 місяців тому +417

    The series John Adams on HBO did a good job with this. The various actors portraying the founding fathers in Philadelphia speak with a variety of accents common to the period. Zeljko Ivanek, in particular, playing John Dickinson, did a phenomenal job with it.

    • @HANKTHEDANKEST
      @HANKTHEDANKEST 9 місяців тому +18

      Strongly recommend this as well, I remember being struck by that fact when I watched it--such a treat seeing period-correct accents!

    • @IronMan-tk8uc
      @IronMan-tk8uc 6 місяців тому +1

      That series is nothing but incredible but story-wise, it took a lot of creative liberties with it.

  • @kelseyjaffer
    @kelseyjaffer 5 років тому +276

    it sounds like a scotsman morphing back and forth from himself to a calm southern rancher

  • @BigDMartial
    @BigDMartial 5 років тому +3088

    The reason why the United States doesn't have the generic British accent unlike places like Australia and New Zealand, is because the standard British accent that we all know today wasn't developed yet during this time.

    • @pennypincherkevin6600
      @pennypincherkevin6600 5 років тому +194

      They did or still do but varies by region of course..., parts of the southern east coast for example resemble the accent of the sussex region in England

    • @inigobantok1579
      @inigobantok1579 3 роки тому +212

      The southern accent is the closest accent to the mother country mate compare that accent to those of Cornwall west county and devon

    • @mike4680
      @mike4680 3 роки тому +51

      @@inigobantok1579 "The southern accent is the closest accent to the mother country" Only in media

    • @grinninggoat5369
      @grinninggoat5369 2 роки тому +52

      Ha Ha buddy, you speak of this "Calm Scottish person" as if they actually exists!
      I'll trade you a "Unpretentious Englishman" for it if you can back up your claim 😉

    • @robertisham5279
      @robertisham5279 2 роки тому +8

      Same for Canda

  • @Glassandcandy
    @Glassandcandy 3 роки тому +1223

    In the tangier islands off of North Carolina they more or less still speak in this accent. The community is so isolated that it’s preserved it’s dialect for centuries. They’re often called “hoigh toiders” for how they pronounce “high tide” with the fronted /oi/ like in this video. Look it up, it’s dope af

    • @godofgods1995
      @godofgods1995 11 місяців тому +16

      Discovered this like a year ago, so cool

    • @arthurh5707
      @arthurh5707 11 місяців тому +29

      Are you speaking of Tangier Island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay?

    • @jackholloway1
      @jackholloway1 9 місяців тому +25

      Hoi Toiders don't sound like this, this sound like my part of England mixed with the southern US

    • @testadalord01432
      @testadalord01432 9 місяців тому +8

      @@jackholloway1 lemme guess, Derbyshire/Notts way?

    • @jackholloway1
      @jackholloway1 9 місяців тому

      @@testadalord01432 no

  • @Urlocallordandsavior
    @Urlocallordandsavior 4 роки тому +467

    You should do more of these early-proto-American-accent videos ABAlphaBeta, there are so few videos on youtube pertaining to this sort of English from the 18th century. Also I just realized how "Scottish" sounding this accent sounded.

    • @ABAlphaBeta
      @ABAlphaBeta  4 роки тому +69

      Been trying but I want the accent to be perfect

    • @Urlocallordandsavior
      @Urlocallordandsavior 4 роки тому +7

      @@ABAlphaBeta I'll certainly look forward to it.

    • @georgejackson4424
      @georgejackson4424 3 роки тому +7

      @@Urlocallordandsavior I would especially like to hear a general New York accent of the 1700s from someone of English descent

    • @SStupendous
      @SStupendous Рік тому +3

      @@ABAlphaBeta Kinda sounds Liverpuddian, Scottish and Welsh at the same time

    • @MrMonk112
      @MrMonk112 11 місяців тому +7

      @@SStupendous I have no idea where people are getting Scottish from. Are you mixing up Irish/Northern Irish and Scottish? Cos that doesn't sound like anywhere in my country. The only thing really sounding Scottish is the aggressive R's, but that's also old, upper class english and northern/midland English accents like Birmingham and Liverpool

  • @grinninggoat5369
    @grinninggoat5369 3 роки тому +38

    So, basically a U.S. southerner from Appalachia trying to do his best at his favorite "Braveheart" movie accent while gargling Irish whiskey, right?

  • @joffreybaratheon3045
    @joffreybaratheon3045 5 років тому +165

    Can you do more videos on this, and maybe some other British colonies, like Australia or South Africa?

  • @raslipmugfrud2040
    @raslipmugfrud2040 10 місяців тому +53

    Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Second Breakfast

    • @_Bloxcast
      @_Bloxcast 5 місяців тому +3

      This deserves more likes 😂😂😂

  • @user-oo8xp2rf1k
    @user-oo8xp2rf1k 9 місяців тому +81

    Sounds like my Mexican work colleagues spectacularly inept attempt to do a Sean Connery impersonation. People would block their ears and beg him to stop. I think because he'd got an ok English English accent here in the UK pretty well , that meant he'd cracked all the English language family of accents. He hadn't! 😂

    • @localmilfchaser6938
      @localmilfchaser6938 9 місяців тому

      WAIT….THERES PAISA IN THE UK?!??? Wtf 😭😭😭😭. I’ve never heard of that before 💀💀

    • @Aaron-fb6mb
      @Aaron-fb6mb 2 місяці тому +1

      😂😂😂

  • @tuesday65971
    @tuesday65971 2 роки тому +23

    Damn, George Washington would have spoken this way.

  • @brandonashley5872
    @brandonashley5872 3 роки тому +134

    The Ulster is strong with this one lol. I'd always know about the Ulster influence in the Appalachian dialect but I'd never heard it till recently. I grew up in North Alabama and recently met a northern Irish person from Ulster. The one sound where the similarity is VERY clear is in words than end in "wer" or "our" as in power or hour. The Northern Irish say power like Par and in Appalachia we always said it like paa'er

    • @forallthatisunreal
      @forallthatisunreal 8 місяців тому

      You hope eh? F Ulster.

    • @BlandMarkComedy
      @BlandMarkComedy 2 місяці тому +2

      Agreed. This sounds like a blend of Ulster and north/midland English. With a few other twangs blended in

  • @Elcore
    @Elcore 9 місяців тому +13

    It's like someone from Belfast and someone from Birmingham raised a nervous little baby together. 😍

  • @raoulduke344
    @raoulduke344 9 місяців тому +2

    Sounds like every awful Hollywood attempt at a Scottish accent.
    Doesnt surprise me though, since the southern states had a huge influx of Scots, especially after 1746. It always made me wonder if thats the reason the Confederate Flag is basically the same as a Scottish one (Saltire/St Andrew's Cross).

  • @tonyoB
    @tonyoB 5 років тому +64

    Hi, I'm SUCH huge fan of your videos! They 100% serve my geeky linguistic passion. But can you please add some sources or references in your videos? How do you know for sure that this was the proper accent? I would LOVE to see the linguistic research involved. Thank you!!!

  • @amaya3660
    @amaya3660 6 років тому +78

    They trilled their r's?

    • @ABAlphaBeta
      @ABAlphaBeta  6 років тому +74

      Only sometimes, and it was probably a class thing since it's said the common folk made the "dog sound" like a growl, probably the modern alveolar (or they actually barked?).

    • @jasonpalacios2705
      @jasonpalacios2705 4 роки тому +1

      @@ABAlphaBeta How do you know if they sounded like that if there was no audio recordings back then to listen to?

    • @ABAlphaBeta
      @ABAlphaBeta  4 роки тому +21

      @@jasonpalacios2705 pronunciation guides of the time, dictionaries, rhymes, natural developments

    • @jasonpalacios2705
      @jasonpalacios2705 4 роки тому +4

      @@ABAlphaBeta Interesting,how about do a video on how the people of the US Civil War era sounded like?. Only a suggestion.

    • @zachtaylor9597
      @zachtaylor9597 4 роки тому +5

      Jason Palacios There is actual video interviews from 1929 here on UA-cam where they interviewed people born in the early 1800’s who had lived into old age. The video is titled “1929 Interviews With Elderly People Throughout The US” and one of the elderly men they interviewed was born in 1826. It’s interesting that they don’t speak much differently than we do in the modern day, but still a fascinating glimpse at linguistic American history.

  • @JohnnyReb
    @JohnnyReb 4 роки тому +266

    As a little note for everyone most English speakers of that part of America at that time were of Scottish or Welsh decent.

    • @thenextshenanigantownandth4393
      @thenextshenanigantownandth4393 3 роки тому +71

      The majority were of English ancestry

    • @The_Conspiracy_Analyst
      @The_Conspiracy_Analyst Рік тому +3

      no proof

    • @mikeday4060
      @mikeday4060 Рік тому +6

      White protestants intermarried in America, come on.

    • @carlranns6658
      @carlranns6658 Рік тому +3

      Did the Welsh speak English back then? Or Welsh? So many English kids who were evacuated to Wales in WW2 came back fluent in Welsh

    • @aymanhood999
      @aymanhood999 Рік тому +15

      The lower classes perhaps, but not framers of the constitution from Virginia

  • @wrestlingfan-yq1wh
    @wrestlingfan-yq1wh 6 років тому +153

    It sounds better than all current American English accents to be honest

    • @ABAlphaBeta
      @ABAlphaBeta  5 років тому +30

      Glad to hear that, hopefully they can switch back, lol

    • @KateGladstone
      @KateGladstone 5 років тому +2

      Why do you disagree on that?

    • @hcn6708
      @hcn6708 5 років тому +7

      +ABAlphaBeta That'd be unrealistic
      Also, Modern Accents are still as great imo!

    • @pennypincherkevin6600
      @pennypincherkevin6600 5 років тому +11

      @aattitude If you listen to old voice recording of people born before 1850s, speaking in their natural ways, you would hear they were more diverse back in the days, the standard American accent changed somewhat overtime based on my research.

    • @flamebird2218
      @flamebird2218 4 роки тому +9

      @aattitude While the TranslatIantic accent is indeed artificial, I have to disagree on the assertion that the American Accent from this time period sounded the same as 21st-Century American English, let alone American English at the turn of the Century. My 92-year-old Grandfather from New Bedford sounds nothing like people from the same area born after 1960. He says "mon-dee and fri-dee" instead of Monday and Friday, and pronounces the _qu_ in quarter (/kɔrtər/) like the _qu_ in quiz (/kwiz/), which is a lot less common nowadays. Interestingly, if you listen to interviews of elderly people from 1929 from the working class, you can hear how different their accent sounds compared to people now, both young and elderly.

  • @talonhammer
    @talonhammer Рік тому +12

    Sounds so similar to the classic New England accent my oldest relatives speak. Like JFK trying to do a half-hearted British impression. lmao

  • @CazTanto
    @CazTanto 9 місяців тому +12

    So interesting! It's like a Scottish accent and a Brummie accent combined. Love it, though 🥰

  • @daveware4117
    @daveware4117 9 місяців тому +2

    Im not trying to doubt you, but with out being able to hear these people talk from a recording, how can you know what their accent sounded like?

  • @yankevin8972
    @yankevin8972 6 років тому +45

    How accurate do you think it is to the original 18th century accent?

    • @ABAlphaBeta
      @ABAlphaBeta  6 років тому +35

      Yan Kevin There's probably some stuff and variants we don't know about - but relatively.

    • @yankevin8972
      @yankevin8972 6 років тому +22

      From the recordings you can only hear how people in America sounded like in the 19th century, but it would be cool to hear the accents of the 18th century. nice work by the way!

    • @ABAlphaBeta
      @ABAlphaBeta  6 років тому +9

      Yan Kevin Cheers! And it indeed would. Perhaps one day? Who knows!

  • @winterwine460
    @winterwine460 Рік тому +101

    Love this. I have a “friend” who lives in Virginia who swears on god (and idk where she learned this) that her current accent is exactly what the first american settlers/founding fathers sounded like. And ever since she first said that it felt wrong to me and just weird as f. And let me tell you, she sounds nothing like this recording. Ik this is only a guess but this is way more believable than what shes saying

    • @robertgould1345
      @robertgould1345 9 місяців тому +19

      The first settlers from Britain would've had very distinct regional accents from the British Isles.
      The accents of the Founding Fathers are reacted through many sources, including a phonetic alphabet by Franklin.

    • @warsawpoland7807
      @warsawpoland7807 9 місяців тому +5

      If she’s from the Appalachian part, it’s kind of understandable. The Appalachian dialect has barely changed from what the original Scots-Irish immigrants sounded like.

    • @thepoet9253
      @thepoet9253 9 місяців тому

      Virginian here. We have varying but largely normal American-sounding accents.

    • @pollypurree1834
      @pollypurree1834 8 місяців тому +1

      The Founding fathers sounded like a classic New York City Manhattan accent. How do I know this? I'm from a region in southern Connecticut, the Lower Naugatuck Valley, that has that accent. It was settled in 1639. When I was a tourist in England, I was asked a few times if I was a British expat. That's someone who moved from England to the USA. I was told that I sounded very British but, at times, traces of American would come thru. A Manhattan accent sounds very British to British ears. I was often tagged off as coming from Derby, England by the British. The lower Naugatuck Valley where I'm from in Connecticut was settled by Derby, England.

    • @itskarl7575
      @itskarl7575 8 місяців тому

      Just bear in mind that this is not a period recording. Nevertheless, your Virginian friend is utterly and damnably wrong.

  • @blonded0532
    @blonded0532 3 роки тому +10

    Sounds like a born and bred southerner trying his damndest to do am upper class accent

  • @zsedcftglkjh
    @zsedcftglkjh 4 роки тому +33

    How do we know this accent is historically true?

    • @maxofthetitans
      @maxofthetitans 9 місяців тому +9

      Because “trust me bro” 😂

    • @kutter_ttl6786
      @kutter_ttl6786 9 місяців тому +7

      Written English wasn't quite as codified back then, so when it came to writing, it was far more phonetic compared to now. So, based on how people wrote, you can get a pretty good idea of how they spoke. I'm sure if you saw the original text it would be much more obvious.

    • @Rxz5526
      @Rxz5526 8 місяців тому

      That’s Niles!

    • @LetterSignedBy51SpiesWasA-Coup
      @LetterSignedBy51SpiesWasA-Coup 8 місяців тому

      ​@@kutter_ttl6786I've read the declaration of independence and other documents from the time and the accents don't come through.

  • @Tenndrago221
    @Tenndrago221 5 років тому +22

    Sounds northern Irish

  • @Albukhshi
    @Albukhshi 5 років тому +180

    From what I understand, the accent in Virginia--particularly the planters--derives from what was spoken in English Civil War era West-country and Midland speech; additionally, they'd maintained close contacts with the mother country, well into the mid-18th century (George Washington's older brother went to Britain for schooling, for example). As a result they also tried to partly emulate the speech of the aristocracy in Britain.
    It certainly explains why, even in the 19th century, the few recordings we have of southerners from there show a clearly English lilt to the speech (warning: the guy is a CSA veteran, so his language will come across as a tad racist):
    ua-cam.com/video/uHDfC-z9YaE/v-deo.html
    Washington--while not the highest-born person--was from that general class, though his ancestry was from the East Midlands.

    • @JohnnyReb
      @JohnnyReb 4 роки тому +17

      Why is it you had to put a warning?
      Because he says "darkie" and "negro"? (Although his accent sounds like it's actually "nigra")
      Or was that simply because he was a Confederate?
      You cannot judge a man who was born in 1846 by the morals and standards of 2020.
      As a small sidenote I have heard that accent in use and I can tell you with absolute certainty he is saying "negro" or "negros" (Spanish for black) however the accent makes him sound like he is saying "nigra" or "nigras".

    • @arkle519
      @arkle519 3 роки тому +5

      Video is gone... Any idea where else we can access it?

    • @arkle519
      @arkle519 3 роки тому

      @@Albukhshi Thank you for sharing. This is very interesting stuff.

    • @JohnnyReb
      @JohnnyReb 3 роки тому +7

      @Joe Guajardo Because he did judge him. He said his words sounded "a tad racist".
      As I've said in my original comment you cannot judge a man born in 1846, his actions, or his words with today's standards.
      And yes I will continue to defend him as not being racist by today's standards because I know of his activities after the guns fell silent.
      Did you even listen to what he had to say from beginning to end?
      I'd suspect that you didn't.
      Because if you did you'd know what his personal thoughts on slavery was.
      And if you researched what he did after the war you'd know he had beliefs that were beyond his time.

    • @adieljonsson864
      @adieljonsson864 2 роки тому +22

      @@JohnnyReb There were abolitionists from the very start of US history. There were people who understood what was right. The man likely WAS a racist, and sure it was an effect of the time he was raised in, but what does that change? Can we no longer state that a man who was a racist was a racist? You’re a fool.

  • @tereseshaw7650
    @tereseshaw7650 10 місяців тому +4

    It is very common for a language with speakers who are separated for a long time to change, esp. as to pronunciation.
    Cf. Latin>French, Italian, Spanish, Romany, Catalan, et al. Note that Canadians also were separated from native speakers, and assumed the pronunciation of people with whom they shared a continent. (With a few exceptions.) The speaker's cadence and phrasing is way off. He is extremely uncomfortable speaking.

  • @tereseshaw7650
    @tereseshaw7650 10 місяців тому +13

    Noah Webster's fame developed during the Revolution. The Dictionary didn't come until 1828. He approached George Washington with the idea of making a "speller" of American words. The spelling was intended to standardize pronunciation, esp. of the Army. This book went westward with the Conestoga wagons. You can read it online.

  • @Bobby3OOO
    @Bobby3OOO 9 місяців тому +2

    I’m not buying it.

  • @tonyclifton265
    @tonyclifton265 10 місяців тому +5

    many of the vowels sound similar to a northern ireland or western scotland accent. and the "earth" vowel sounded like liverpool ( which is in turn related to northern ireland)

  • @rymacreeks2k07
    @rymacreeks2k07 2 роки тому +2

    Sounds just like a cross between the Deep South and Scottish Lowlands

  • @davidwaguespack6324
    @davidwaguespack6324 3 роки тому +6

    Sounds like that episode in FRIENDS when Ross fakes an accent to his class to sound more intelligent, only to have to "phase" it out after he's seen doing it by Rachel and Monica.

    • @choonblaze
      @choonblaze 9 місяців тому

      no one cares about that soy show

  • @odietamo9376
    @odietamo9376 9 місяців тому +6

    This is fascinating, but different than I expected. I seem to remember in that wonderful television series from the 1980s-I think it was called “The Story of English”- they said that the English upper class/aristo accent at the time was more like the accent of the American Deep South of today. Very drawly. Am I recalling that correctly? (Of course Virginia is not Deep South, I understand that.)

  • @demos113
    @demos113 5 років тому +9

    It would be hard to tell if the speaker was from Northumbria, Dorset, Scotland or the States as the pronunciation varies so much throughout the passage spoken.

    • @tereseshaw7650
      @tereseshaw7650 10 місяців тому +1

      Over time these accents would blend and become one.

  • @redfive5856
    @redfive5856 Рік тому +2

    TIL early Americans were from Belfast

  • @manlyburns5772
    @manlyburns5772 3 роки тому +5

    "a relatively middle class family" lol he was actually one of the richest men in the colonies

  • @jeffbrewer8810
    @jeffbrewer8810 9 місяців тому +4

    Tangier Island off the Northern Neck sounded like this as recently as the ‘90s due to isolation by the water. Ferry on, ferry off. Only way to reach them. Also the Guinea fisherman near Gloucester, Virginia sound similar but speak much faster. I used to live in Williamsburg and became pretty familiar with both accents. Lastly, TRUE Virginians also have a distinct accent. Phonetically speaking, they don’t live in a HOUSE, they live in a “HOOSE” or you might say instead of riding a HORSE, they ride a “HOORSE”. I’ve also encountered the accent in eastern Maryland before.

  • @officialFredDurstfanclub
    @officialFredDurstfanclub 10 місяців тому +2

    Can’t believe the colonists were all brummies this whole time

  • @janejohnstone5795
    @janejohnstone5795 9 місяців тому +1

    Definitely..sounds Scotish...a little Norfolk/Suffolk...included...

  • @caffracer7196
    @caffracer7196 11 місяців тому +1

    It sounds like a modern American veering between a bad Scottish accent and an equally bad Irish one.

  • @maxschrader3884
    @maxschrader3884 4 роки тому +5

    Didn’t they pronounce their R’s, at least that was my belief

    • @EscanV
      @EscanV 4 роки тому +3

      They did take THIS then at the RRRRRRRRRRR! then you have the accent! Watch HBO's JOHN ADAMS! THAT is the most accurate form of accent at the time!

  • @daddywoodentop2820
    @daddywoodentop2820 10 місяців тому +1

    Sounds to be like a hybrid of Irish and West Country

  • @david_porthouse
    @david_porthouse 10 місяців тому +1

    Bits of Northern Ireland, Liverpool and Birmingham maybe?

  • @will27ns
    @will27ns 6 місяців тому +1

    Nice guess, but in reality, it's really impossible to know what Washington would have sounded like at this point.

  • @lasakau272
    @lasakau272 3 роки тому +3

    Sounds like Scottish, Welsh, English, Irish with a french twist

  • @nettietrees7238
    @nettietrees7238 9 місяців тому +3

    The ‘becomes’, ‘another’, ‘amoung’, ‘should’, is very northern England, just below the Scottish border. The rest is very Scottish, with hints of northern Irish in it. That’s crazy! Would love to know who this fella is.

  • @Greksallad
    @Greksallad 5 років тому +4

    Sounds a bit like a Belfast accent? At least some of the words lol

  • @bigress4300
    @bigress4300 3 роки тому +3

    It sounds like a cross between an American southern accent and a Scottish accent

  • @erichbrough6097
    @erichbrough6097 9 місяців тому +1

    Surely you mean Northern England, like near Manchester?

  • @jason-gf8dg
    @jason-gf8dg 5 років тому +6

    im from yorkshire i can here yorkshire in this accent more than any other

    • @BrandonLeeBrown
      @BrandonLeeBrown 9 місяців тому

      I'm American and educated people from York sound more American or have a milder accent than those from southern England, that have the classic British English accent. I think the working class from York might have heavier accents, but people I've met from York, barely seem have a British accent. They were from rather wealthy families though. What is the humor in the Monty Python, York / Yorkshire skit? It seems to be making fun of wealthy people, but I don't know what the joke is.

    • @elwolf8536
      @elwolf8536 9 місяців тому

      Yeah same, I'm from Yorkshire he sounds like the wierside jack to me with a bit of Yorkshire

  • @pieterwillembotha6719
    @pieterwillembotha6719 5 років тому +15

    Sounds like a Northern Ireland accent, I'd say Belfast maybe Londonderry.

  • @SantaFe19484
    @SantaFe19484 9 місяців тому +1

    How do we know what accent sounded like before there were tape recorders?

  • @chadofmercia2448
    @chadofmercia2448 10 місяців тому +1

    Sounds a bit like a West Country Accent.

  • @EminencePhront
    @EminencePhront Рік тому +3

    It's like Texas, Glasgow, and Devon had a baby.

    • @PaulG.x
      @PaulG.x 9 місяців тому +1

      A haggis pasty with ranch dressing

  • @The_BadBasilisk
    @The_BadBasilisk 8 місяців тому +1

    We don’t all sound like this

  • @EnglishOrthodox
    @EnglishOrthodox 2 місяці тому +1

    Turns out the founding fathers are from the north 😂

  • @smarterthan98
    @smarterthan98 9 місяців тому +1

    Sorry, not buying it. Only way anyone could know this is if they had a time machine or they were 250 years old.

  • @the.good_guy.1
    @the.good_guy.1 11 місяців тому +1

    Sounds like Jimmy Carter

  • @tonyclifton265
    @tonyclifton265 10 місяців тому +4

    i'm a limey but i would have been a furious supporter of american independence, fighting alongside george washington. the american war of independence is my favourite war, in terms of justness of cause and righteousness of outcome

    • @counterfeit6089
      @counterfeit6089 9 місяців тому +2

      Utterly based

    • @jackholloway1
      @jackholloway1 9 місяців тому +1

      Terrible opinion, literally the foundation of every disaster we've had since

    • @counterfeit6089
      @counterfeit6089 9 місяців тому +1

      @@jackholloway1 Stay mad

    • @thevulture5750
      @thevulture5750 9 місяців тому +2

      Tony you're the kind of immigrant America needs.

    • @jackholloway1
      @jackholloway1 9 місяців тому

      @@counterfeit6089 yes I am mad that your country is the biggest producer and promoter of the problems the rest of us have to face and that right wing Americans somehow see the founding of their country on the principles of liberalism to be a good thing

  • @eleanorthegreat6308
    @eleanorthegreat6308 5 років тому +6

    I wish it was still like this today... my German accent would be way less noticeable :-)

    • @pennypincherkevin6600
      @pennypincherkevin6600 5 років тому

      Certain vowels sounds would still be less like German, try saying ""my house has a tiny mouse".

  • @Dusty-y6b
    @Dusty-y6b 9 місяців тому +1

    How would we know that’s how colonials sounded?

  • @valviform
    @valviform 8 місяців тому +1

    It's like an RP-speaking Brit mixed with a Scot. I can absolutely see how we got our accent from this.

  • @ivanrorick
    @ivanrorick 5 років тому +2

    Kind of sounds like Calvin Coolidge in his presidential speech movie, and the was the 1920s. Interesting.
    Here's the one I'm talking about if you want to compare: ua-cam.com/video/pNQn86vL5zE/v-deo.html

  • @katiejon17
    @katiejon17 9 місяців тому +10

    I find this particular one a stretch. There is clearly a Scottish brogue, and while some families did come here from Scotland, the overwhelming accent would have been one of the English varieties. It’s still fascinating though - to consider they likely sounded more British than what we now consider “American”.

    • @koletonnelson6310
      @koletonnelson6310 9 місяців тому +2

      That’s not really true at all; what we today consider “English” accents didn’t exist at the time, and the colonists all had wildly differing dialects-Midlands in New England, upper class for the deep southern aristocracy, but primarily Scottish and Irish for the much larger deep southern servant/slave class (which was then taught to the new African slaves), as well as among the vast majority of people who settled in Appalachia-including western Virginia. Today, between that and the new influx of Irish immigrants in the 19-20th centuries, most white Americans are predominantly of Scottish/Irish descent.

    • @katiejon17
      @katiejon17 9 місяців тому +1

      @@koletonnelson6310 Interesting. I knew much of what you said, such as what we consider a US “southern accent” is actually an off-shoot the British dialect of early America. But I had never heard that a Scottish brogue would have been considered common among our forefathers. Thank you for that perspective!

    • @DavidMichaelCommer
      @DavidMichaelCommer 9 місяців тому

      I also think this is a 'stretch' given that it claims to be an 18th century (1701-1799) recording, and no known recording device existed until the late 1800s. These are among the earliest known recordings, the earliest from 1859, which is the mid-19th century: ua-cam.com/video/-0H8Q4QD-cM/v-deo.htmlsi=mIKDmZDymbvskgEn
      But accentwise, there are scholars who have done a lot of forensic research into regional accents of the British isles long before recordings and that research is fascinating. A father and son pair of Shakespearean scholars/linguists/actor, David and Ben Crystal, have defined what they believe to have been something close to the accent (to the extent there may have been a standard-ish accent) of Shakespeare's London and the Globe in London has put on productions of Shakespeare's play in this 'original pronunciation.' It sounds little like the received pronunciation we think of as hoity-toity Shakespearean affect; instead, it sounds a lot more rugged, and people variously think it sounds Irish or American or Australian, and that has to do with the pronunciation of the letter R from the southern coast of what's now England (Cornwall, which has its own language and is its own ethnic group within England), which is how we think of as stereotypical 'pirate speak.' Since Cornwall was a port area, many immigrants from Britain came to the US and Australia and therefore we received a lot of their pronunciation among early American settlers, which influenced our pronunciation, after which the non-rhotic R became a standard pronunciation throughout much of Great Britain. The Boston area came by their non-rhotic R 'honestly,' as people who landed there likely came mostly from regions where this was more common, but the so-called Midatlantic or transatlantic accent that developed artificially and caught on in parts of New England and New York was manufactured and adopted because some American people thought non-rhotic pronunciations sounded more refined. The reality is that prior to any kind of broadcast media, accents were highly localized county by county throughout the UK to the extent some people had trouble understanding one another's everyday speech, with no region's accent being generally 'better' than any other's because most people were peasants, and people from throughout the country emigrated to the US and fed into our regional accents, along with immigrants from other countries. My father is from New Bern, North Carolina, and according to Ancestry DNA, his side of the family first arrived there around the 1750s-1760s, and they came from England, Scotland and Switzerland. People in that area have a typical southeastern US accent, and one would assume that that is derived from British immigrants, which it is, but New Bern was named for Bern, Switzerland, and there's no doubt that the Swiss speakers also had an influence on how that area's accent developed for hundreds of years and many generations. Meanwhile, my mother's father was from the mountains of Virginia and his ethnic background was English, Scottish and German and his dialect was markedly different than my father's family. My father's mother, whose family also was in the US for hundreds of years, was Pennsylvania Dutch (e.g., of German origin) and that family maintained some odd syntax (my father's grandmother used to say 'Throw the cow over the fence some hay.'), whereas my mother's mother's family were Irish refugees who fled to Pennsylvania during the famine in the 1850s, and they came from a rural area of Ireland where people spoke only Irish, no English at all, and even though my grandmother was a second-generation American, she and her siblings maintained some curious syntax that stemmed back to their Irish ancestors' original language.
      All of which is just to say that even going back to their foundations, the US indeed was made up of immigrants from various countries or at least from various regions within the British isles and I don't think there is really a standard dialect from the 1700s, much less on that has been recorded for us to hear. Surely some of those here in the DC area spoke with Scottish-ish brogues and trills, but surely others had pirate-like dialects and others had accents more like what we think of as 'standard British' (received pronunciation), and others were Irish and others were German or Dutch-people were streaming in from throughout western Europe by this time for economic opportunity and religious freedom.
      I grew up in Loudoun County, Virginia in the 1980s and 1990s and it's notable that the 'standard accent,' to the extent there ever may have been one, has changed markedly even just since then. When I was young, quite a lot of people in Loudoun County spoke with a twang similar to a West Virginia accent but a bit less pronounced, and I can still hear this twang among some people (such as my sister, who never left and who worked for the local government farther out west near West Virginia). This accent surely was influenced by the European languages and dialects that came to the area, but I really wonder for how long the 'twang' was in place there before I grew up there. Certainly, it sounded nothing like this recording, which is said to be from the same general area, and since the area was settled primarily by English, Irish, Scottish, Dutch and German immigrants/colonists, I think it's unlikely that the area had its own standard accent for a very long time. Scottish and Northern English can sound similar, but Scottish and Southern English sound quite different, and German and Dutch are entirely different languagages.
      But the dot-com boom of the 1990s attracted people from all over the country as well as various immigrant populations-including large communities from countries as diverse as El Salvador, India and Liberia-all of whom will meld together into a unique local dialect over time, but that dialect will continue changing over time.

    • @katiejon17
      @katiejon17 9 місяців тому

      @@DavidMichaelCommer it is very interesting to consider that accents really are always changing. My father’s family left France, settled in Quebec City, then a few generations later settled in the northern northeast. They all spoke French, but what is known as Canadian French, and the accent was somewhat different. I could hear the difference, but my ear is not refined enough to explain exactly how it’s different. It seems like we are of similar ages (I was born in 1979), and the northern northeast area the I went to high school in was predominantly of French Canadian ancestry. Almost everyone of my parent’s generation spoke fluent French, and even my teenage classmates (in the 1990’s) who did not speak French, but had always grew-up here, spoke English with a very French Canadian accent and/or cadence. When just in the past 25 years the accent is all but gone around here.

    • @cacogenicist
      @cacogenicist 7 місяців тому

      Which English varieties? Not modern English varieties. English English dialects have changed quite a lot in the last couple hundred years.

  • @abroadloverchannel4938
    @abroadloverchannel4938 9 місяців тому +1

    “Declare” sounds so posh:)

  • @PickleRick65
    @PickleRick65 9 місяців тому +1

    And how do we know this...(?)

  • @CDaeda
    @CDaeda 2 роки тому +1

    Sounds a little Irish. Different than today. How about accents between regions of the US today.

  • @latinhero1818
    @latinhero1818 9 місяців тому +1

    Was this made with AI?

  • @Abebe345
    @Abebe345 8 місяців тому +1

    New Scotland.

  • @damiandeville584
    @damiandeville584 3 роки тому +3

    What’s the evidence suggesting this is how they spoke? I’m curious about authenticity

    • @raymoshav-bloodbought
      @raymoshav-bloodbought 11 місяців тому +1

      There is extensive evidence that all English people trilled their Rs up until around early to mid 1800s.
      There was extensive documentation at least in England that English people trilled their Rs, notable examples are Sir Issac Newton a bunch of other people and on the American side is Benjamin Franklin and likely all of the other founders, or they would’ve insulted each other for having a lisp.

    • @Clodhopping
      @Clodhopping 10 місяців тому +1

      ​@@raymoshav-bloodboughtNot quite right, East Anglian accents were non rhotic.

    • @robertgould1345
      @robertgould1345 9 місяців тому +1

      Among other sources there are Benjamin Franklin's writings on phonetics.

  • @Philmoscowitz
    @Philmoscowitz 10 місяців тому +1

    Sounds Scottish.

  • @user-td4do3op2d
    @user-td4do3op2d 3 роки тому +3

    50% Northern Irish
    50% Brummie

    • @stefanpuszka8173
      @stefanpuszka8173 2 роки тому

      I didna hear any Brummie in that I shall have to listen to it again.

  • @FlagAnthem
    @FlagAnthem 9 місяців тому

    oh man
    this sounds my father trying to put the strreotypical high class british accent 😅

  • @voicelessglottalfricative6567
    @voicelessglottalfricative6567 4 роки тому +2

    it sounds like if you took someone from scotland and moved them to america and their accent was shifting

    • @henrylicious
      @henrylicious 3 роки тому +2

      That is kinda what happened.

  • @itsyaboi9103
    @itsyaboi9103 9 місяців тому +1

    but how do we know tho

  • @SykoTuna
    @SykoTuna 9 місяців тому +1

    I definitely hear a southern accent when he says words like “Events” or “causes”

  • @camefaceh8380
    @camefaceh8380 9 місяців тому +1

    Why are people saying Scottish it doesn’t sound Scottish in the slightest

  • @markmorabito1643
    @markmorabito1643 9 місяців тому +1

    This sounds very similar to reconstructions of an English accent from the early 1600s. I'd be surprised if people still had the same accent in the American colonies 170 years later. I thought the tapped/rolled r was already declining in the 1600s, and pretty much completely disappeared in England by the early 1700s. Then again, it's said that colonial accents were more conservative, that is, they changed at a slower pace than the accents on the mainland, England in this case, so I guess its possible that a few older people still rolled their r's in the late 1700s in the US. Phonograph recordings from the late 1870s sound pretty similar to a modern American English accent, with the same r sound that we use today.

    • @jackholloway1
      @jackholloway1 9 місяців тому

      And pretty much completely disappeared in England by the early 1700s - by that do you mean a rhotic R? If so it still exists in parts of England now and was pretty much ubiquitous outside of East Anglia and parts of London well into the 19th century

    • @markmorabito1643
      @markmorabito1643 9 місяців тому

      ​​​@@jackholloway1No, I'm only talking about the trilled r, ⟨r⟩ or tapped r, ⟨ɾ⟩, which sounded like the r sounds in Spanish or Italian, which were almost entirely replaced by the modern English r ⟨ɹ⟩, except for certain regional accents like northern England and Scotland.

    • @jackholloway1
      @jackholloway1 9 місяців тому

      @@markmorabito1643 ah I'm following now, I misunderstood your I think the trilled R was still a feature in parts of northern England as pate as the 20th century among a few old people so I can see it possibly existing in the US in the late 18th, but I'm not educated enough to know

  • @frankmartinez2987
    @frankmartinez2987 9 місяців тому +1

    Nice, source?

  • @abcdef27669
    @abcdef27669 10 місяців тому +1

    M A N K O I N D

  • @topknotg5530
    @topknotg5530 2 роки тому +6

    This is interesting, although I am not certain it is entirely accurate... what stands out to me as I found this video going down a rabbit hole of early accents and pronunciations is that nature was pronounced [ˈnɛːtəɹ], so it rhymed with better rather than being pronounced as we do in modern times [ˈneɪtʃɚ]
    I have been led to believe that the colonial English accent would be most similar to modern day Wisconsin/Minnesota and Canadian accents, kind of a mix between Northumbrian and West County where they have the rhotic r (but without the glottal stops characteristic of the West Country).

    • @MeadeFatLoss
      @MeadeFatLoss 11 місяців тому

      Definitely not

    • @topknotg5530
      @topknotg5530 11 місяців тому +2

      @@MeadeFatLoss Definitely not to which part? Etymologists have a fairly decent idea of pronunciation thanks to things like Shakespeare's rhymes and Ben Franklin's phonetic spelling

    • @MeadeFatLoss
      @MeadeFatLoss 11 місяців тому

      @@topknotg5530 my family has been in Virginia since the 1600s. Most of the pronunciation was not standard , especially in the Southern colonies. They relied more on spoken word, even if they were completely literate.

    • @topknotg5530
      @topknotg5530 11 місяців тому +4

      @@MeadeFatLoss I was referring to the spoken word, the discussion originated from talk of how the British and American accents have both diverged from their common ancestor. The reference to Shakespeare and Franklin was about how modern etymologists are able to track changes in dialect in order to figure out what people sounded like back before audio recordings existed.
      I wasn't trying to say there was a standard way that people were taught to pronounce words, but rather than people like Franklin created a phonetic English because he thought that the words should be spelled the way that the American citizens pronounced them. We are all talking about the spoken word here, the old 18th c. American/British accent that sounds very little like its modern counterparts.

    • @jackholloway1
      @jackholloway1 9 місяців тому +1

      This sounds nothing like Wisconsin or Canadian accents, which in turn sound nothing like a mix between Northumbrian and West country

  • @hcn6708
    @hcn6708 5 років тому +3

    Hi! Can you provide the source to the vowels used? I like how it sounds.

  • @MattSuguisAsFondAsEverrr
    @MattSuguisAsFondAsEverrr 9 місяців тому +1

    this essentially meant that the accent in cromwell (1970) where it took place 100 years earlier was mostly accurate
    because it almost did not sound british at all

  • @AmarieRegin
    @AmarieRegin 3 роки тому +1

    watching outlander led me here

  • @dominicc3521
    @dominicc3521 3 роки тому +4

    Lots of ppl always talk about the scotch-Irish but it’s also borderer accent, the mix of English and lowland Scotland. Some say the first true cowboys.

    • @YE-dr3zk
      @YE-dr3zk Рік тому

      Cowboys in the
      us was taken from Mexico and the southwest wdym

    • @gavblack
      @gavblack Рік тому +1

      @@YE-dr3zk no.. no cowboys werent 4'8 hotdog coloured goblins

    • @YE-dr3zk
      @YE-dr3zk Рік тому

      @@gavblack They were but you really took your chance to be racist about it. Cope.

    • @gavblack
      @gavblack Рік тому +1

      @@YE-dr3zk yeah haha i did.. but am i wrong little fella? am i wrong?

    • @jackholloway1
      @jackholloway1 9 місяців тому

      Give the Berwick-Upon-Tweed accent a listen, it's crazy

  • @LisaSpringfield
    @LisaSpringfield 9 місяців тому

    It's just a Scottish man in America speaking in his native accent.

  • @Cr4z3d
    @Cr4z3d 9 місяців тому

    Interesting...it's like a Scottish accent mixed with the modern Southern U.S.

  • @Lucas-gm3bv
    @Lucas-gm3bv 9 місяців тому +1

    I’m just hyped coz I’ve learned that I’m taller than Jefferson last week.
    It really is the simplest of stuff that interests me. Would Jefferson have been good on the basketball court? What would he have made of high school football? I think he’d have made an excellent lacrosse player.
    He’s obviously more cerebral than I am. His first proper project in life was America. I didn’t know this is what they all sounded like, though. I wasn’t expecting them to have sounded like this. They sound odd. We might sound odd to their ears, too.

  • @declanewbank
    @declanewbank Місяць тому

    Astounding audio quality for a 18th-century recording.

  • @ramirosarachu341
    @ramirosarachu341 9 місяців тому

    Sounds like a South American who speaks a terrible English. I know it because I'm a South American who speaks a terrible English

  • @greggkimball4110
    @greggkimball4110 9 місяців тому +1

    Shades of this accent remain around the Chesapeake Bay.

  • @timothy7112
    @timothy7112 6 днів тому

    Simon Roper's research indicates that the accent during that time was more like standard American. But the regional accent varied especially with new Scottish arrivals. What you portray here was more of a 17th century accent than a late 18th century one.

  • @daledykes9253
    @daledykes9253 7 місяців тому

    18th Century Virginians we’re almost certainly from England and not Scotland.

  • @judsongaiden9878
    @judsongaiden9878 9 місяців тому +1

    Strong Celt-Gaelic influence.

  • @trentmonaghan179
    @trentmonaghan179 10 місяців тому

    That sounded like Fitz from Agents of SHIELD.

  • @draoi99
    @draoi99 7 місяців тому

    Sounds like some kind of North of England accent.

  • @JoeyDirnt
    @JoeyDirnt 23 дні тому

    I think I heard the beginnings of the American Southern accent in some parts.

  • @dominicsheldon8154
    @dominicsheldon8154 9 місяців тому

    Very much a blend or northern English, Irish, jock, westcoubtry and soutg-earetn English