I heard it was Southern English which was closest to Elizabethan English.
In any case, reality doesn’t matter. Perceptions matter. Britain is an old country, and America is a new country - so in ‘translating’ an accent to a past period, we tend to see the accent of the ‘old country’ as more appropriate.
I’m not sure how they measure how close an accent is. But, they can tell how old accents sounded by looking at songs and poetry for the meter and rhyme of words. If two words rhymed, they were probably pronounced the same way. For example, in Shakespeare’s time they know that “proved” and “loved” rhymed.
well for one from times and places where there was a lot of casual writing there are just straight up people writing about how people speak, which is pretty convenient.
but additionally you can compare different recorded and modern speakers to figure out trends which let you at least vaguely reconstruct what people from the past would probably have sounded like.
and more specifically with new england that’s just wholesale a bunch of people from england who settled a colony, so you effectively have a twin study where you can compare it to modern england.
New England accent is actually closest to English of the Middle Ages.
I heard it was Southern English which was closest to Elizabethan English.
In any case, reality doesn’t matter. Perceptions matter. Britain is an old country, and America is a new country - so in ‘translating’ an accent to a past period, we tend to see the accent of the ‘old country’ as more appropriate.
Pahk the caht.
Dahn ehn Cahmahlaht.
I wonder how they measure such a thing
I’m not sure how they measure how close an accent is. But, they can tell how old accents sounded by looking at songs and poetry for the meter and rhyme of words. If two words rhymed, they were probably pronounced the same way. For example, in Shakespeare’s time they know that “proved” and “loved” rhymed.
well for one from times and places where there was a lot of casual writing there are just straight up people writing about how people speak, which is pretty convenient.
but additionally you can compare different recorded and modern speakers to figure out trends which let you at least vaguely reconstruct what people from the past would probably have sounded like.
and more specifically with new england that’s just wholesale a bunch of people from england who settled a colony, so you effectively have a twin study where you can compare it to modern england.