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Lyde Lyde
01-13-2007, 01:55 AM
Accents can be defined as vocal prominences on a tongue of language or people. What I want to discuss is why are there accents. You may think it's frivolous of me asking why, but I always saw accents associated to people from certain countries. That isn't necessarily true. The white Americans that came here to America were British, but why aren't they speaking with a British accent today? Some say that Americans don't have accents, but then one could go to the south and not undertsand a person from New York. That is odd where did these accents come from, the settlers were British, but they lost their accents and seemd to gain several different accents in the same country. This is not only true here, but also let's look at the Africans. The African slaves weren't only taken to North America, but also the Carribean and South America. It would make since if being influced by the tongue ofd others would change your speech, but the Africans in the carribean seemed to have gained a different accent from the natives and the Hispanics. The Jamaicans and Haitians for example. Originally from Africa their accents changed to some extent but you can tell the difference between an African and a Jamaican. Does climate and location perhaps have an affect on speech?

Luis
01-15-2007, 10:11 AM
...
Accent do not only affect only English... but also Spanish, German, French... And it usually has to do with the influence of other language speakers, inmigration... and so on. Climate has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Valencian Speech has a very different accent from a place to another within the Valencian Community (my region), and it's due to the influence of other binding regions, among other factors...

Lyde Lyde
01-15-2007, 03:33 PM
I know veing around others for a certain amount of time can make you develop an accent I know that. But what of new accents that derived from old as I have said the black Jamaicans originally came from Africa with African accents, one would assume that their change in tongue is due to confonataion with the natives, but the natives spoke in a different tone and the surrounding countries of that are speak Spanish. The Jamaicans speak with a totally different accent between all those people, but it's not the African accent that they had when they came from the African shores. Peculiar?

John Smith
01-15-2007, 04:35 PM
But what of new accents that derived from old as I have said the black Jamaicans originally came from Africa with African accents, one would assume that their change in tongue is due to confonataion with the natives, but the natives spoke in a different tone and the surrounding countries of that are speak Spanish. The Jamaicans speak with a totally different accent between all those people, but it's not the African accent that they had when they came from the African shores.

That answers your question, lol.