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This keeps the distinction observed in rhotic accents like General American, but not made in RP. Also, some New Englanders, particularly in Eastern New England, could pronounce the vowel in start more fronted: [aː~aə]. However, in the mid-20th century and later, this came to be associated with non-elite Boston accents.
Mid-Atlantic accent or Transatlantic accent may refer to: Good American Speech, a consciously learned American accent incorporating British features, mostly associated with early 20th-century actors and announcers; Northeastern elite accent, an accent of the Northeastern elite of the United States born between the 19th century and early 20th ...
One such example accent feature is the "r-dropping" (or non-rhoticity) of the late 18th and early 19th century, resulting in the similar r-dropping found in these American areas during the cultural "Old South". Contrarily, in Southern areas away from the major coasts and plantations (like Appalachia), on certain isolated islands, and variously ...
However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single mainstream American accent. [13] [14] The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in the 20th century. [15]
A diversity of earlier Southern dialects once existed: a consequence of the mix of English speakers from the British Isles (including largely English and Scots-Irish immigrants) who migrated to the American South in the 17th and 18th centuries, with particular 19th-century elements also borrowed from the London upper class and enslaved African-Americans.
This 20th-century St. Louis accent's separating quality from the rest of the Midland is its strong resistance to the cot–caught merger and the most advanced development of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift (NCS). [41] In the 20th century, Greater St. Louis therefore became a mix of Midland accents and Inland Northern (Chicago-like) accents.
Regional dialects in North America are historically the most strongly differentiated along the Eastern seaboard, due to distinctive speech patterns of urban centers of the American East Coast like Boston, New York City, and certain Southern cities, all of these accents historically noted by their London-like r-dropping (called non-rhoticity), a feature gradually receding among younger ...
Linguists often characterize the northwestern Great Lakes region's dialect separately as North-Central American English. The early 20th-century accent of the Inland North was the basis for the term "General American", [6] [7] though the regional accent has since altered, due to the Northern Cities Vowel Shift: its now-defining chain shift of ...