I was told by a teacher of mine that in the really rural south, where people didn't really leave or come to the area, that the accent that they have is closer to the accent that Shakespeare probably spoke in.
It is unlikely that the british accent sounded anything like modern day american. However it make have been more rhotic in nature (prolonged R sounds) as britain had been invaded by the french (and the rest of europe at various points) who have a more rhotic way of speaking. Scottish accents are also considered a rhotic accent, as are many british accents that currently exist (such as geordie accents). Based on these observations I would hypothesise that british accents have never sounded like any modern american accent, although we (british) may have lost the prolonged, rolling "R" sounds associated with american accents, while americans simply retained it and emphasized it. Also the influx of africans in early american culture would have encouraged the development of the rhotic sounds due to the difference in tongue muslces and structure, and modern American is just as likely to have stemmed from that influence as from the native accents carried over from britain and ireland.
This is sadly a lot of rubbish. The "Shakespeare" accent can be Youtubed under OP accent ("Shakespeare: Original pronunciation" - the RSC have down Shakespeare plays using it) and you can listen to the difference. There are many accents in Britain like Geordie which retains sounds from a thousand years ago. Then there's Welsh, the West Country accent ... the list is endless. What the person going on here is the RP accent (received pronunciation) which is the sort of clipped non-regional accent promoted by the BBC sixty years ago. The US has been changed by two hundred years of non-English speaking migration but in England, where the first big migrations started in the 1950s and is well documented we're supposed to believe everyone changed their accents two hundred years ago for no reason? Hmmmmm.
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