> I think most people in the UK can understand American accents
> okay. We are
> exposed
> to a wide variety of Americanese on British TV.
OK, that's what I figured.
I've read in some places that a U.S. Southern accent, or, more specifically,
one from the back woods of the Appalachian Mountains, is actually closer to
an Elizabethan English accent than anything being spoken in England today. I
don't know how linguists came up with this conclusion, but that's what I
read somewhere. I'd like to see a hillbilly Shakespeare...
(For the record, I'm from L.A. and have more or less the kind of accent your
average newscaster in the US would have.) Somehow politicians in the U.S.
seem to keep their accents stronger than most other Americans in the public
eye.
Adam
