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Old July 10th, 2019 #15
Breanna
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ColdFire View Post
Sister , it is a fact that from about 1800 on more and more Irish settled in North America.

I think at the core Irish pronounciation for English was the root of 'American English' . .

For example , a person from England for the word 'car park' would pronounce 'cuh puk' while and American would emphasize the r's , 'carr parrk' . . . Or he wouldn't say 'city' , emphasizing the 't' , but would pronounce it 'ciddy' . . . you know what I mean.

The basics for American English I think was the pronounciation of Ireland.


The Irish influence into American culture can be seen by 'Wild West' phenomena such as banjo playing , drinking whiskey , dancing reel et al . .

The U.S. did start out as an English colony , so the Founding Fathers a la Washington , Jefferson et al must still have spoken British but from 1800 on more and more Irish moved there . . This was also the high phase of the American 'Wild West' from about 1800 to 1900 which was comprised like I said of banjo playing , whiskey drinking folks.

You have an interesting theory as well but for me it is out of question that the U.S.A. was heavily influenced by Ireland.
I don't contest that the USA has an Irish influence but to me it does not seem like it was the main influence. The accent and the culture is very different and I say so because I live in a place that has an accent/culture that is a direct blend of English and Irish and the dialect is so different from the standard American accent. Some words have the exact opposite pronunciation for example the words tie and toy. Here, tie is pronounced like "toy" and toy is pronounced like "tie" which is the same as how it is in Ireland, the exact opposite of America. Likewise boil is pronounced like "bile," boy like "bye" and words like right are pronounced like "roight" and life as "loife" which is how it is in Ireland and in England. If I could point to a more well-known accent that is a direct blend of England and Ireland it would probably be in Australia which is also very different from the USA. There's also the regional differences between the North and the South in the USA with the accents what does that come from? Surely it must come from a different ethnic origin of the two regions?

Interesting with what you say about the r's and the t's in some words here the t is pronounced very hard, much harder than in America but in some words the t is not pronounced at all. A double t in the middle of a word won't be said at all for example the word kettle will be said "keh-ul" or battle "bah-ul" or little "lih-ul." But in other words the t will be pronounced very exaggerated in a word such as shout, water, wait, which to me sound like "shoud," "wadder," "waid" when an American says it.

The rs here sound much more exaggerated than the American rs too in words like car, heart, and so on. Then we have h's pronounced here in words a lot for example in "white" you will hear the h but even in words that don't have an h for example water sounds more like "what-her" and red like "rhed." All that comes from Ireland if I'm not mistaken but those are things I really don't hear in an American accent.

The stereotypical American to me and Americans I met lack the stereotypical Irish personality of being very merry and jovial, they're more stereotypically impatient, always in a rush, and not as happy or polite.
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