![]() The first time was when William the Conqueror invaded Britain in the 11th Century (more on the history of English here), bringing Norman French with him and making it the high language – used in schools, courts, universities, and the upper classes. 2. British English is more like Frenchįrench has influenced English in more ways than English speakers would care to admit. Basically, if you speak English from London, you sound more posh. It also explains why many places outside the south of England still have rhotic pronunciation as part of their regional accents. Of course, these people were posh and everyone wanted to copy them, so this new way of speaking – which British people now refer to as Received Pronunciation – spread across the rest of the south of England. Meanwhile, back in wealthy southern cities of the UK, people from the new higher classes wanted a way to distinguish themselves from everyone else, so they started changing their rhotic speech to a soft r sound, saying words like winter as “win-tuh” instead of “win-terr”. When the first settlers set sail from England to America, they took with them the common tongue at the time, which was based on something called rhotic speech (when you pronounce the r sound in a word). This isn’t something you should tell to a British person, because we’re the country that gave birth to America as we know it today – but this fact really is true. ![]() But never fear! If you’re learning English in London and want to know what makes your accent different from your friend learning in New York, here’s what you need to know. Everything from putting a z everywhere to words that are spelt the same but sound entirely different when you say them – there’s a whole ocean of linguistic differences (plus an actual physical ocean) between the world’s two major English-speaking players. We may share a language but there’s nothing similar when it comes to hearing someone from the US speak to someone from the UK.
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