American English

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American English

American English grew from English settlers colonising America.

Squanto

The British settlers made use of the Native Americans and their existing settlements in order to survive.
A native named ‘Squanto’ who learned English from being enslaved by some English fisherman taught the settlers how to farm and grow food.
As a result, the Americans now hold Thanksgiving.

Lexical borrowings

We get some lexical borrowings from the Native Americans like skunk, squash and wigwam.
Despite these changes, initially, there were very few changes to the English lexicon in order to preserve the original English.

Place names

The English settlers wanted place names which reminded them of home and so we have many place names prefixed with ‘New’, like ‘New York’ and ‘New Hampshire’.
In addition, the settlers were from all over the England, so there was no clear majority on accent, meaning there is much less variation in American accents.

Webster

As America and Britain moved further away from each other and, post-revolution, America decided it wanted to be as separate from Britain as possible, they became less similar to each other.
Noah Webster wrote a book which was to be used in school called the ‘Blue Back Speller’, which made edits to the orthography of words.

Blue Back Speller

In this, Webster wanted to simplify orthography, and so:
- Removed the ‘u’ from words like colourful.
- Reversed the ‘re’ digraph in words like ‘theatre’.
- Eliminated double letters in words like ‘travelled’.
- Removed the end/final position in words like ‘axe’.

The Debate: AmE v BE

The debate over America’s influence on Britain fiercely divides linguists. Here are some of the arguments:

American English

As America grew into an economic and political power, it began to create new words, which have ultimately seeped into British English.
Some estimates say that we use 300 to 400 Americanisms every single day (and according to Engel, this is more for teenagers).

Engel

Engel – passionate believer that Americanisms are bad. He says that:
- Americanisms are ‘ugly’.
- AmE (American English) is driving out BE (British English).
- BE has lost identity as a result of AmE.
- English is in crisis.

Murphy

Lynne Murphy – an American living in Britain who believes that there is nothing wrong with Americanisms:
- Americanisms are not ruining BE.
- The exchange works both ways.
- BE and AmE are still very different.

Pyles and Algeo

Pyles and Algeo argue that the differences between AmE and BE are trivial and that there is no ‘essential difference’ between the two.

Case Studies

How do varieties of English differ from British Standard English? Covered below are case studies of South African English (SAE), African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Indian English.

South African English (SAE)

Lexically: ‘robot’ is used instead of traffic light.
Grammatically: unstandardised plurality in words like ‘furniture’ and repetition of words to increase meaning (‘the teddy is a big big tiger’).
Phonologically: /p/, /t/ and /k/ are stressed in word initial positions.

African American Vernacular English (AAVE)

Lexically: ‘homie’, ‘blood’ and ‘fam’ are all used as terms of endearment.
Grammatically: multiple negation is in use, ‘ain’t’ is popular and the copula is elided.
Phonologically: the /in/ is used instead of the /iŋ/.

Indian English

Lexically: use of ‘upgradation’ as a noun.
Grammatically: use of the progressive form of a stative verb (e.g. ‘he is thinking he knows the answer’ rather than ‘he thinks he knows the answer’.
Phonologically: /ɔ/ (or) is articulated as /o/ (oo).