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The only rational criteria for a 'pure English' would be a static, artificially defined written standard, based on consensus of grammarians. This, itself, could only be compiled from a grammar and lexicon of a single, geographically defined, but popular dialect; most likely one which is widely spoken and comprehended in the heavily populated and linguistically influential southeast of England, such as the London Region General British, closely related to the concept of 'Estuary English'.
One could call it "Book Estuary English" or BEE.
Then, an individual's idiolectal English could be compared to this BEE standard and measured for deviation on a set of grammatical, lexical, and idiomatic criteria.
People might be surprised to find that the dominant and popular American dialects would probably fall closer to the standard deviation than many well known, but highly deviant, British dialects.
The only rational criteria for a 'pure English' would be a static, artificially defined written standard, based on consensus of grammarians. This, itself, could only be compiled from a grammar and lexicon of a single, geographically defined, but popular dialect; most likely one which is widely spoken and comprehended in the heavily populated and linguistically influential southeast of England, such as the London Region General British, closely related to the concept of 'Estuary English'.
One could call it "Book Estuary English" or BEE.
Then, an individual's idiolectal English could be compared to this BEE standard and measured for deviation on a set of grammatical, lexical, and idiomatic criteria.
People might be surprised to find that the dominant and popular American dialects would probably fall closer to the standard deviation than many well known, but highly deviant, British dialects.
Aside from a few vowel mergers and rhoticity, Standard American is not very different from RP.
Honestly all you need to do to Americanize RP is to make or rhotic and add slight Irish inflection. It really isn't much more than that. Yes you could add a few unique American nasal qualities but it isn't necessary because many actors don't even have every American linguistic characteristic. This is especially true the further West you go in the US.
The ironic thing is that many inland Americans believe the East Coast dialects are the most British sounding when most of them (Boston, NYC, Philly, Charleston, Outer Banks, Savannah) deviate from Standard English probably more than General American. Most East Coast dialects actually deviated from RP as much as any other American dialect. Boston especially. It shares almost nothing in common with RP.
Last edited by EddieOlSkool; 02-15-2017 at 01:16 PM..
I think the RP pronunciation of cot. Also it could the O like in the American English pronounciation of Forest and Orange.
Ohhhhh ok. Like "you wot mate?"
That is more of a Northern English pronunciation. It used to be common in the Mancunian accent and across the Lancashire region due to Irish influence (lots of Irish settled in that region). Not surprisingly it is also very common in many Irish dialects.
It's not a feature of Received Pronunciation however. It's not heard on the BBC broadcasters.
Interestingly that pronunciation does exist in America (but not part of GenAm either). It's heard on the Great Lakes and not surprisingly there were a LOT of Irish who settled there as well. Common feature of the Northern Cities Vowel Shift.
Heck many Texans sound just like Midwesterners. I always thought that Texas was as far East as the "West" went. It is much different than the South for sure.
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