Early American documents reveal clues about Colonial and Revolutionary era English pronunciation.

Revolutionary-era Americans had vowel and consonant distinctions that Americans have since lost.

American English became more diverse over time while still helping to shape a shared national identity.

Over the past 250 years, since adopting the Declaration of Independence, American life has changed in many ways the founding fathers could not have foreseen, from massive medical and technical advances to major social changes.

But what about the way Americans talk? How has our language changed since the Colonial period? What did we sound like in the days of yore?

The early American tongue

While the lack of audio recordings during this early history certainly makes listening in on America’s ancestors tricky, numerous letters, diaries, journals, and even transcripts from early legal trials can help us “listen in” on speech from earlier eras.

Spelling norms were more fluid during colonial and revolutionary times, and there are often clues to pronunciation in earlier writings, especially informal ones. For example, spellings like “dafter” for “daughter,” “Sary” for “Sarah,” “git” for “get,” and “deef” for “deaf” were common in the colonial period.

The pronunciations these spellings hint at may now sound odd, but would not have been heard the same way then. In fact, several pronunciations that today might be heard as more rustic are relics of once commonly accepted forms that are no longer in widespread use, which is why we notice them.

The coming of a revolution

We also have a few clues to pronunciation from writings left behind by people like Noah Webster,........

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