Americans repeatingly say this in the vague hope that if they say it enough times it will rewrite history and become true. There’s absolutely no evidence that that is the case.
Realistically when you think about it it makes no sense, why would American English be closer to old English than British English? By the time of the colonisation no one spoke old English anymore anyway, so American English is no more likely to be like it than British English. Even if it was why would the current American form not have changed, if apparently the British form has changed?
Realistically when you think about it it makes no sense, why would American English be closer to old English than British English?
Standardization of RP only ocurred in the last 200 years.
Although a form of Standard English had been established in the City of London by the end of the 15th century, it did not begin to resemble RP until the late 19th century.
As for the “why,” though, one big factor in the divergence of the accents is rhotacism. The General American accent is rhotic and speakers pronounce the r in words such as hard. The BBC-type British accent is non-rhotic, and speakers don’t pronounce the r, leaving hard sounding more like hahd. Before and during the American Revolution, English people, both in England and in the colonies, mostly spoke with a rhotic accent.
Around the turn of the 18th to 19th century, not long after the Revolution, non-rhotic speech took off in southern England, especially among the upper and upper-middle classes. It was a signifier of class and status. This posh accent was standardized as Received Pronunciation and taught widely by pronunciation tutors to people who wanted to learn to speak fashionably. Because the Received Pronunciation accent was regionally “neutral” and easy to understand, it spread across England and the empire through the armed forces, the civil service, and, later, the BBC.
The study was from a college student in Canada. I’d wait to hear from peer reviews before taking one side or the other. Her findings were that Americans pronounce some words more closely to 17th century England vs. Common day England due to a movement to change the accent around that time.
Americans repeatingly say this in the vague hope that if they say it enough times it will rewrite history and become true. There’s absolutely no evidence that that is the case.
Realistically when you think about it it makes no sense, why would American English be closer to old English than British English? By the time of the colonisation no one spoke old English anymore anyway, so American English is no more likely to be like it than British English. Even if it was why would the current American form not have changed, if apparently the British form has changed?
Standardization of RP only ocurred in the last 200 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Received_Pronunciation
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/29761/when-did-americans-lose-their-british-accents
Yo you should read this article by the Boston Broadcasting Company. Kinda disagrees with ya.
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20180207-how-americans-preserved-british-english
No evidence? Are you sure?
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20190623-the-us-island-that-speaks-elizabethan-english
You would think the BBC, of all outlets, would agree with you if you were right.
The study was from a college student in Canada. I’d wait to hear from peer reviews before taking one side or the other. Her findings were that Americans pronounce some words more closely to 17th century England vs. Common day England due to a movement to change the accent around that time.
It’s not unheard of, Icelandic is much closer to Old Norse than Norwegian is.
There are many reasons why this could be the case: pure chance, less outside influence of other languages, a smaller group of people, …
Not all of these apply to the US and I have no idea whether English in the US has less changed than in the UK.