American English

American English (AmE) is the dialect of the English language used mostly in the United States of America. It is estimated that approximately two thirds of native speakers of English live in the United States.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> American English is also sometimes called United States English or U.S. English.

1 History
2 Phonology
3 Differences in British English and American English
4 English words that arose in the U.S.
5 English words obsolete outside the U.S.
6 Regional differences
7 See also
8 Further reading
9 References
10 External links

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History

English was inherited from British colonization. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America in the 17th century. In that century, there were also speakers in North America of the Dutch, French, German, myriad Native American, Spanish, Swedish, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Finnish languages.

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Phonology

Template:IPA notice In many ways, compared to British English, American English is conservative in its phonology. The conservatism of American English is largely the result of the fact that it represents a mixture of various dialects from the British Isles. Dialect in North America is most distinctive on the East Coast of the continent; this is largely because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of British English at a time when those varieties were undergoing changes. The interior of the country was settled by people who were no longer closely connected to England, as they had no access to the ocean during a time when journeys to Britain were always by sea. As such, the inland speech is much more homogeneous than the East Coast speech and did not imitate the changes in speech from England.

Image:Non rhotic-whites-usa.png Most North American speech is rhotic, as English was in most places in the 17th century. Rhoticity was further supported by Hiberno-English, Scottish English, and West Country English. In most varieties of North American English, the sound corresponding to the letter "R" is a retroflex or alveolar approximant rather than a trill or a tap. The loss of syllable-final r in North America is confined mostly to the accents of eastern New England, New York City and surrounding areas, South Philadelphia, and the coastal portions of the South. Dropping of syllable-final r sometimes happens in natively rhotic dialects if r is located in unaccented syllables or words and the next syllable or word begins in a consonant. In England, lost 'r' was often changed into Template:IPA (schwa), giving rise to a new class of falling diphthongs. Furthermore, the 'er' sound of (stressed) fur or (unstressed) butter, which is represented in IPA as stressed Template:IPA or unstressed Template:IPA is realized in American English as a monophthongal r-colored vowel. This does not happen in the non-rhotic varieties of North American speech.

Some other British English changes in which most North American dialects do not participate:

The shift of Template:IPA to Template:IPA (the so-called "broad A") before Template:IPA alone or preceded by Template:IPA. This is the difference between the British Received Pronunciation and American pronunciation of bath and dance. In the United States, only linguistically conservative eastern-New-England speakers took up this innovation.
The shift of intervocalic Template:IPA to glottal stop Template:IPA, as in Template:IPA for bottle. This change is not universal for British English (and in fact is not considered to be part of Received Pronunciation), but it does not occur in most North American dialects. Newfoundland English and the dialect of New Britain, Connecticut are notable exceptions.

On the other hand, North American English has undergone some sound changes not found in Britain, at least not in standard varieties. Many of these are instances of phonemic differentiation and include

The [[Phonological history of the low back vowels#Father-bother merger|merger of Template:IPA and Template:IPA]], making father and bother rhyme. This change is nearly universal in North American English, occurring almost everywhere except for parts of eastern New England, like the Boston accent.
The replacement of the lot vowel with the strut vowel in what, was, of, from, everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody, because, and in some dialects want.
The merger of Template:IPA and Template:IPA. This is the so-called cot-caught merger, where cot and caught are homophones. This change has occurred in eastern New England, in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas, and from the Great Plains westward.
Vowel merger before intervocalic Template:IPA. Which (if any) vowels are affected varies between dialects.
The merger of Template:IPA and Template:IPA after palatals in some words, so that cure, pure, mature and sure rhyme with fir in some speech registers for some speakers.
Dropping of Template:IPA after alveolar consonants so that new, duke, Tuesday, suit, resume, lute are pronounced Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA, Template:IPA.
æ-tensing in environments that vary widely from accent to accent. In some accents, particularly those from Philadelphia to New York City, Template:IPA and Template:IPA can even contrast sometimes, as in Yes, I can Template:IPA vs. tin can Template:IPA.
Laxing of Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA to Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA before Template:IPA, causing pronunciations like Template:IPA, Template:IPA and Template:IPA for pair, peer and pure.
The flapping of intervocalic Template:IPA and Template:IPA to alveolar tap Template:IPA before reduced vowels. The words ladder and latter are mostly or entirely homophonous, possibly distinguished only by the length of preceding vowel. For some speakers, the merger is incomplete and 't' before a reduced vowel is sometimes not tapped following Template:IPA or Template:IPA when it represents underlying 't'; thus greater and grader, and unbitten and unbidden are distinguished. Even among those words where Template:IPA and Template:IPA are flapped, words that would otherwise be homophonous are, for some speakers, distinguished if the flapping is immediately preceded by the diphthongs Template:IPA or Template:IPA; these speakers tend to pronounce writer with Template:IPA and rider with Template:IPA. This is called Canadian raising; it is general in Canadian English, and occurs in some northerly versions of American English as well (often just applying to the diphthong Template:IPA, but not to Template:IPA).
Both intervocalic Template:IPA and Template:IPA may be realized as Template:IPA or Template:IPA, making winter and winner homophones. This does not occur when the second syllable is stressed, as in entail.
The pin-pen merger, by which Template:IPA is raised to Template:IPA before nasal consonants, making pairs like pen/pin homophonous. This merger originated in Southern American English but is now widespread in the Midwest and West as well.

Some mergers found in most varieties of both American and British English include:

The horse-hoarse merger of the vowels Template:IPA and Template:IPA before 'r', making pairs like horse/hoarse, corps/core, for/four, morning/mourning etc. homophones.
The wine-whine merger making pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, Wales/whales, wear/where etc. homophones, in most cases eliminating Template:IPA, the voiceless labiovelar fricative. Many older varieties of southern and western American English still keep these distinct, but the merger appears to be spreading.

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Differences in British English and American English

Main article: American and British English differences

American English has both spelling and grammatical differences from English as used elsewhere (especially British English), some of which were made as part of an attempt to rationalize the spelling used in Britain at the time. Unlike many 20th century language reforms (for example, Turkey's alphabet shift, Norway's spelling reform) the American spelling changes were not driven by government, but by textbook writers and dictionary makers. On the other hand, subsequent spelling changes in Britain (such as -ise in lieu of -ize, sceptical instead of skeptical, jewellery in place of jewelry, etc.) did not affect American English.

The first American dictionary was written by Noah Webster in 1828. At the time the United States was a relatively new country and Webster's particular contribution was to show that the region spoke a different dialect from Britain, and so he wrote a dictionary with many spellings differing from the standard. Many of these changes were initiated unilaterally by Webster.

Webster also argued for many "simplifications" to the idiomatic spelling of the period. Somewhat ironically, many, although not all, of his simplifications fell into common usage alongside the original versions with simple spelling modifications.

Many words are shortened and differ from other versions of English. Spellings such as center are used instead of centre in other versions of English. Conversely, American English sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas British English uses clipped forms, such as AmE transportation and BrE transport or where the British form is a back-formation, such as AmE burglarize and BrE burgle (from burglar).

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English words that arose in the U.S.

A number of words that arose in the United States have become common, to varying degrees, in English as it is spoken internationally. Although its origin is disputed, most etymologies of "OK" place its widespread usage in America of the early 19th century. Other American introductions include "belittle," "gerrymander" (from Elbridge Gerry), "blizzard", "teenager", and many more.

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English words obsolete outside the U.S.

A number of words that originated in the English of the British Isles are still in everyday use in North America, but are no longer used in most varieties of British English. The most conspicuous of these words are fall, the season, and gotten as a past participle of get. Americans are more likely than Britons to name a flowing body of water a creek if its breadth or volume is judged insufficient for it to be a river. The word diaper goes back at least to Shakespeare, and usage was maintained in the U.S. and Canada, but was replaced in the British Isles with nappy.

Some of these words are still used in various dialects of the British Isles, but not in formal standard British English. Many of these older words have cognates in Lowland Scots.

The subjunctive mood ("America, America, God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good..."; "the City Attorney suggested that the matter not be tabled") is livelier in North American English than it is in British English; it appears in some areas as a spoken usage, and is considered obligatory in more formal contexts in American English. British English has a strong tendency to replace subjunctives with auxiliary verb constructions.

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Regional differences

Main article: American English regional differences

Spoken American English is not homogeneous throughout the country, and various regional and ethnic variants exist. These differences affect both pronunciation and the lexicon, and can make one accent a little difficult for speakers of another accent to understand. General American is the name given to any American accent that is relatively free of noticeable regional influences. It enjoys high prestige among Americans, but is not a standard accent in the way that Received Pronunciation is in England.

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