Most of England dropped the rhotic R to follow after the aristocracy who changed it to differentiate themselves from commoners. Spain adopted an inbred king's lisp into their pronunciation. What about Portugal?
That European Spanish phonology includes the /θ/ sound for z, ce, and ci does not make it a "lisp." Spaniards can and do have the "regular" /s/ sound just like other dialects of Spanish. It would be just as silly to say that English speakers who say "think" instead of "sink" speak with a lisp when they are two different words separated by a minimal pair
A single person with a lisp (even a king) cannot influence a language spoken by millions of people. Languages change via natural processes over time, the king thing is an urban legend
inbred king's lisp into their pronunciation
Which one? There are a lot of them lol.
Carlos II, but now I'm reading that that's just a myth. It's varies regionally and dates back further to the 15th century.
Is that rhotic R thing true? When I think about rhotic accents in the UK it's mostly just South West England. Why would that side of the country spontaneously keep it while the rest drops it?
Vosotros is cool! It's basically y'all.
In the Americas I think the equivalent is ustedes, which is y'all (formal). Totally different.
I learned Castellano Spanish in school and was very surprised to see Latin-Americans making fun of vosotros. I also got it mixed up with ustedes all the time.
Most of British English was standardised around bourgeois parts of London, right? Like it always seems like BBC English is taught as "proper" English. It kinda annoys me how they tried to do away with regional dialects.
"Received pronunciation" is what it's called. And they essentially beat regional accents out of you at all the elite-reproducing schools (Eton, Oxbridge)
I wouldn't say beat so much anymore, though that used to be the case. It still is to an extent in the acting profession, in that you're taught to perform in that accent, though that's changing too.
More like the accent just gets you made fun of or alienated, and you begin to pick up the RP accents because you're constantly surrounded by it. You never know though, although you'll pick up bits, there's a level of autonomy in linguistic convergence and divergence, that's sometimes very subconscious.
What are your favorite dialects? I've gotten to know a lot of beautiful Spanishes.
Joyce said the best English in the world is spoken in lower Drumcondra (near Dublin's inner city). I love hiberno English personally and if I have to speak a colonial tongue at least we have our own flavour of it.
