Early American Accent

I came across an interesting article recently about the difference between American and British accents. For two groups who used to be one, we now have very distinct speech patterns. It seems almost common sense that early Americans must have sounded like modern Brits and eventually lost the accent when we lost the king. But, think again:

What’s surprising, though, is that those accents were much closer to today’s American accents than to today’s British accents. While both have changed over time, it’s actually British accents that have changed much more drastically since then.

It's fascinating how I somehow put the British flag with the British accent. When we lost one I'd just assumed we lost the other. But why shouldn't the opposite be true? Hat tip to Lindsay Thompson.