Accents

[Lyde Lyde]

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?