North American English
There are a considerable number of different accents within the regions of both the United States and Canada, originally deriving from the accents prevalent in different English, Scottish and Irish regions of the British Isles and corresponding to settlement patterns of these peoples in the colonies. These were developed and built upon as new waves of immigration, and migration across the North American continent, brought new accents and dialects to new areas, and as these ways of speaking merged and assimilated with the population. It is claimed that despite the centuries of linguistic changes there is still a resemblance between the English East Anglia accents which would have been used by early English settlers in New England (including the Pilgrims), and modern Northeastern United States accents. Similarly, the accents of Newfoundland have some similarities to the accents of Scotland and Ireland.
Broad and general accents
Sometimes a third category is also distinguished: a "cultivated accent" that is considered particularly cultured, stylish, affluent, or even contrived, associated with the educated upper class of a given region. All three distinctions are well studied varieties within South African, New Zealand, and Australian English phonology. The capitalized term "broad" before a location is common in the United Kingdom, such as "Broad Lancashire" or "Broad Yorkshire". The alleged mainstream English accent of the United States has been called "General American" since the early-mid 20th century.