ANSWERS: 2
  • An accent is the sum total of the way you pronounce the different sounds in a language. English has 44 sounds even though there are only 26 letters, and people in different regions or countries will more or less agree on a way to pronounce each of them--which gives them a regional accent. For example, virtually all white Midwestern Americans pronounce every "R" the same way. This is not true of Northeasterners, Southerners, and many black people some of the time, who vowelize some of their "R's". It is not true in England and its colonies--except for Canada, which pronounces "R" the way Midwesterners do. It isn't true in Scotland and Wales, where they trill some of their R's and vowelize others. It is not true when most foreigners learn English and import their own way of pronouncing the R, with a trill or a roll or the unique German R. So Midwesterners think that other people all have accents--and others think that Midwesterners have an accent. What is true of the R is true of many vowels. The sound of A in "cat" only occurs in English, French ("maintenant," for example) and goat-bleats, so it is very difficult for foreigners to learn to pronounce this sound, which they can't hear anywhere else in the world except among bleating goats. This makes it hard for foreigners to pronounce the short "A" and gives them an accent. Even the British often use an "ah" instead of a short A, in words like "can't" and "answer". But once again, they think WE are the ones with the accent, because an accent is just an agreed-on set of pronunciation rules. Most people must start learning a foreign language very young to be able to speak it without an accent, and even some extremely intelligent people like Henry Kissinger (and probably Einstein, I never heard him) are never able to overcome their thick foreign accents.
  • A difficut one to answer fully, but isolation plays its part in regional variation as well as influences from other languages from different settlers. As an example, American English contains many vowel sounds of 17th century England spoken in the west of England. Australian English can be traced back to the sounds of the early London accent but over time, being separated, the English spoken develops independently from outside influences and gives rise to accents. The Scottish accent still uses the vowels familiar to old English of the 15th century and you don;t need to travel very far in the U.K to find a different regional accent. The same diversification applies to English in all its forms all over the world.

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