> > The King James Bible, the works of Shakespeare, and the works of John Milton are most often cited as the quintessential works in the English language. They were written around the time it is often said English was at the height of its development as a language.
> >
> > American English is more akin to the English found in these quintessential works than modern British English is.
>
> Um... Do you have some particular examples in mind of how this is so?
>
>
> > (I'm also told that the American accent is more similar to that spoken in Shakespeare's day, too, but I'm doubtful about how anyone would know.)
>
> It's supposedly the regional accents spoken by folks in the Appalachians/the Ozark Mountains/West Virginia (take your pick) which are allegedly similar to Elizabethan English. I think this is more a folk myth based on some structural grammatical similarities of the mountain dialects to Shakespearean writing, rather than on an accent that actually sounds Elizabethan.

What I've heard sometime ago was that the Hightiders on the US East coast are the ones with the accents like the Elizabethans.

Here's the only link I could find, which basically says the same thing.