The key features of this accent are its non-rhoticity, meaning that the ‘r’ is dropped as in British English, as well as the pronunciation of ‘wh’ in words like ‘who’ or ‘when’ as [hw]. The letter ‘t’ in words was always enunciated, even in words like ‘butter’ when it’s often pronounced as [bʌdər] in American English.
Vowels sound differently in the Mid-Atlantic accent as well, with the most famous feature being the pronunciation of the letter ‘u’ as ‘you’ in words like ‘tube’ and ‘tune’. All of these features, apart from the non-rhoticity, which is common in the New England accent, are quite unnatural for modern spoken American English. Likewise, early 20th century American English didn’t have any of these features, which linguists can tell from recordings of the time.
Instead, the Transatlantic accent has always been the speech of the elites, kind of like RP English in the United Kingdom. Still, the Mid-Atlantic accent isn’t an American invention, as its origins can be traced back to an Australian phonetician William Tilly, who taught at Columbia University between 1918 and 1935.
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