I’ve got a step brother, born and raised here but to displaced persons from Eastern Europe that came over after the war. So he grew up speaking the language. Some years back while he was still young, he visited the old country. He could talk fine with other people his age there, but they told him “you speak like an old man.” He was speaking a “stuck in time” version of the language.
This is what happens to communities that have a wave of immigration, especially when it comes to refugee populations.
They are a snapshot of their culture in that period and it mostly stays stuck in time, especially with regards to language.
Meanwhile, a couple of decades on, the country’s language has continued to develop and change as all languages do but the migrant language remains basically as it was.
French Canadians are a good example of this, since the split was 300 years ago
Isn’t there a thing that Bostonians sound more like old English than the English?
No, they have simply developed in a different direction that is in some ways more conservative and in some ways more innovative. It’s not a really a good comparison to a single generation of an immigrant family.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
