"Great Britain literally possesses thousands upon thousands of sacred prehistoric landmarks" (shown in the video below (and I don't just mean the Jurassic Coastline showing life dating to 185 million years))... "but most people only know of Stonehenge!" *o*
There's many ancient and sacred sites in the West Country (south-west region of England) which shares a very similar looking rural landscape and rhotic accent with the Irish, in addition to similar prehistoric sacred sites, like Newgrange in Eire.

Despite all the Pagan persecutions in Europe, the ancient and native religion remains alive in the West of England to this day, passed down with the generations. And it's not just a culture and a very ancient Celtic Pagan nature religion of Celtic Gods & Goddesses that has survived, but the regional dialects and accents remain different and isolated to other parts of England, Scotland and Wales too.
The different regions across the islands had different settlers amongst them which influenced the different accents and dialects across the different nations on the British Islands.

The West Country was known in history as King Arthurs Land... (some say King Arthur was a myth, but still).... King Alfreds West Country too. The largest hill fort in Europe (Maiden Castle) is found in my native Dorset in south-west England (aka West Country England). It was built by the local warriors to keep out the Romans.

A mass grave of beheaded Vikings (confirmed by their teeth) discovered in my native Pagan Dorset showing the local people kept the Vikings out of the south-west.
(Self-defence against an invasion).

Yorkshire in the north-east was under Danelaw once when England was divided in half, with the Danes ruling over the north-east, and King Alfred of Wessex ruling over the south-west and Wales (and saving the main English language as we know it).
The city of York stems from a Viking name (and I think they have more Norse terms in their regional dialects as a result of the Viking invasions and settlement and rule in that region of Britain).

King Alfred protected the south-west and Wales from the Danelaw ruling over north-east England and saved the English language and the regional dialects.

Cornwall is an ancient country with rhotic accents too. Shakespeare used a rhotic accent and a lot of terms that the British call 'Americanisms' are actually old English (The worlds 'Trash' and 'diaper' are 2 examples of old English that Shakespeares used). (Video explaining more on this below).

Many English people mock and ridicule those with West Country rhotic accents... even though the rhotic accents and West Country dialects sign of heritage and culture. Most of the stereotypes of Country & Western accents in the West Country are bad stereotypes of farmers, when not everyone in the south-west has a rhotic accent. The relaxed pace of life and warmer sunny weather and palm trees in the south make people more relaxed and they talk at a slower pace to the stress-out quick-speaking city-slickers in London.
A newsreader from Devon points out in the link below on the West Country accents that the dialects was the court language of King Alfred... Englands first King.

http://www.smittenbybritain.com/regi...-west-country/

The first King of England, King Alfreds English of the West Country.
http://http://www.englishproject.org/resources/first-kings-english-alfred-language-maker

There is such a vast range of accents and dialects across the 6000 British Isles (even varying across the cities too), which also sounds different with each generation and the movement of people. The Sheltand Isles, Cumbria, Orkney Isles have some interesting Nordic and North Germanic dialects. Some linguists say Cumbrians are more likely to be understood in Oslo than to people in southern England.

Considering how global a language English has become (video below on the way English is used in the world today), with more speakers of the language worldwide than the amount of native speakers in Britain, we still keep Manx, Cornish, Gaelic and Welsh alive in Britain!

The English language has the worlds widest vocabulary and over 15000 French words that arrived via the Norman conquest of the ruling classes, upper middle classes, particularly in the south-east... and there was a linguistic divide in England for a while with the so-called 'commoners' speaking in the old regional dialects, whilst the new ruling classes spoke in a more nasal sounding French.... until the two languages merged.

There's also a large amount of Latin and Greek vocabulary (imported via the Romans), Germanic and Norse words (including Pagan weekday names), over 15,000 French words (forced into the English language via the Norman conquest) and many other foreign descent words are found in the constantly evolving English language, which was imported via the British Empire for the names of exotic fruits, etc, back into the English language.
English is very different today than the type of English spoken 1000 years ago in Anglo-Saxon literature such as Beowulf, which would be a bit difficult for many native English speakers to understand today.

The language which we call English is a result of many different European languages merging in England to from the language which we call English today. It has the worlds largest vocabulary. I've noticed news readers and film actors from the 50's or 80's era sound very different and their accents sound dated compared to accents today. The Queen sounds different to her daughter Princess Anne, and Princess Annes accent is different to her daughter Zara. The US accents sounds different compared to how people spoke in old films.

Researchers in New Zealanders have noticed that the accents of Kiwis are sounding different and stronger and less closer to British accents with each generation (news video article below). Kiwis are now pronouncing 'milk' as 'mulk'.
So accents do change with the generations.

A lot of movement of non-Devonshire people into Devon has now resulted in the Devonshire accent being diluted today.
But the West Saxon dialects are still heard to this day in the West Country, and Cornwall still keeps its Cornish language alive.

Each different accent indicates a persons own regional upbringing and family heritage, but I've noticed the West Country accent sounds the closest to Irish accents and to north American continent accents. They're different accents with different paces, but they are the closest British Isle accents to north American and Irish accents out of all the 6000+ British Isle accents due to being rhotic. I've not heard anywhere else that uses a rhotic accent on the British Islands other than the West Country of England and Cornwall.

The Aussies sound slightly similar to Cockneys (East Londoners) to me. I can distinguish one from the other very easily, as with Cornish, Irish and US accents... but I still hear some similarities. And I hear some Scottish sounds in some of the vowels (in the English speaking areas of Canada) with regards to Canadian accents.

I decided to do some research and saw this short thread on another site asking the same question and I found others had noticed a similarity between the rhotic accents too.
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=300478
Someone said a lot of Cornish miners settled in the US and the Cornish use the letter 'z' for 's'.
Many Irish people settled in the US and so did West Country farmers.

This Cornish man singing a song in the video below has a distinct rhotic accent and this is an example of the similarity I hear with Irish and northern American accents..... different, but the closest of all the British accents heard on the island to the Irish accents and North American continent rhotic accents.


What do people think? Where do the different accents in the Celtic speaking nations and regions and in the English speaking nations originate?