Ok, people. I'm a Plant and Soil Science major, so I haven't yet had the opportunity to take any anthropology or sociology classes that could answer this question for me... but I figured someone here must know the answer, or at least have an opinion. Delta and I were talking the other day, and I think I just randomly starting asking him about different accents from around the world, and why people have them in the first place. So that's my question- why do we/do you think we all sound different, whether it be country to country, state to state, province to province, or region to region?

I think partly because for many years people lived in isolation from each other. and i also think that, for example, in England we hjave many different accents because of the Tribes and Groups that invaded and that they settled in certain parts of the country. Of course their accents and languages came from the early developments of speech.

Thats my take on it

That makes sense. As different groups try to formulate words around the dialect they originally spoke and all.

What I still find curious is how American English and British English evolved separately .

I assume it was because new things were invented and brought into use meaning that they needed a new word, and britain chose one - america chose another.

eg. When cars were invented america and Britain were still very seperate.So when we had roads and needed somewhere to walk we called it 'Path' or 'pavement' and you called it 'sidewalk'

Right, which would explain some more modern terms like "Lift" and "Tube" and all that, but what I was wondering was more along the lines of why did, especially with terms that are the same for both of us, did we end up today sounding so different, even saying the same words.

Oh right i see. could be the mix of different Europeans? Like in australia i assume their accent came from the different British accents mixed up. And NZ and South african accents are simlar to that. In america it could be that the early non english settlers learnt english but had an accent and it mixed up.

One reason is lack of communications. I always figured that if phones had been invented when the settlers first came to America, and they were as widely used as they are today, the accent never would have changed.
What I've always wondered is why it changed in the first place, even with the lack of communication, what was it that made the tone and pronunciation of the same language different?

Language evolves much like life. Look at the difference between the north and the south. The northern colonies were trade cities and had to keep in contact with strangers from all over the world, requiring coherence on their part. In the south and in towns in the middle of nowhere, it isn't as important because you know everyone and just need to get the point across rather than give your whole life story. Phrases like "all of you" get simplified to "you all" and then "y'all".
It's also a cultural thing. You may feel a greater connection to people who sound like you, and spending more time with them only deepens the speech patterns. I'd like to point out ghetto, jive, and geek speak. You also pick up the accent you were raised on. Slight nuances in speech for a parent may create and entirely new dialect, spread by their children and childrens children.
As for the differences between american english and oxford english, early america set out to distance itself as much as possible from britain. Some dude named Webster went so far that he rewrote the dictionary. This would have definately impacted the way children learned phonetics.

I'm not sure if any of you have ever heard the "pubic hair song" by Kevin Bloody Wilson? He puts forward a very interesting hypothesis :P

Other than that, I have no serious opinion on the matter that wouldn't be reiterating a combination of what you all said.

To my understanding this gets at the heart of it.

Webster rewrote our dictionary with "American" spellings because we wanted to be culturally different from Britain. The reason the accent developed, quite simply, has to do with the fact there was an ocean between us. We chose to pronounce things one way and they chose another way and since it took roughly a month to get between America and England, well, that explains the differences. Even travel between the different regions of the colonies wasn't as quick as it is today. It would take weeks to get from Massachusetts to DC.

Somewhere I read that American accents developed (and I guess it's Southern) because of the influence of Scottish and Dutch people. The question asked was how long it took for the American accent to develop, if someone wants to google and get the full story.

I'd LOVE to know what a South African accent is. English people from KwaZulu Natal speak and pronounce English better than the Queen. Johannesburg Northern suburb English sounds different from Joburg South or East Rand. Now, throw in people whose mother tongue is any of several other languages, and whose English is determined by what English they've been exposed to, and it gets as complicated as in the UK.

I spent my primary schoold years in Port Elizabeth (Eastern Cape, quite English), and many people don't realise that English is not my first language, until I botch up my sentence construction.