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Because American English has not gained the status of a separate language, it is best referred to as a distinct variety of English differing from the language spoken in Britain with a respect to a great number of features. In order to understand better the orgin of the differences between BE and AE and in particular the uniqueness of the American variety we must have some notion of the historical development of the nation and its speach. One of the most significiant dates in the history of America is the arrival of the first group of colonists. Led by Capitan John Smith, the first party of extremely courageous English-speaking people stepped on the American continent in 1607. The first colony that came into being in the " Promised Land" was that of Virginia. After the first settlers had reached America and gradually had adjusted themselves to the new environment, it turned out that the New Land could give food and refuge to millions of people, who were brave enough to take the risk of going to the unknown. The majority of the people fleeing from Europe to make a better living in America were Englishman who for a number of reasons decided to leave their mother country. These considerations were mainly economic, political and religious. The land offered predictable or unpredictable danger whose actual nature not all of the settlers realised and foresaw. As they had predicated, they had to face other problems which were generally of two kinds. One was that of the economic dependence on Britain which considered America to be just a colony, treating it only as a source of raw materials. The British government desired that ready-made products should be imported from England. All the same, regardless of what British wishes were, the colonists began their own manufacturing. In order to prevent or stop the American progress toward economic independence, the British authorities decided to send over some of their troops, allegedly to protect the colonists against Indian assult. On September 5, 1774 as definite manifestation of the common complains, the colonists gathered at the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. A few months later, the first group of American soldiers were ready to face the British army in the military battle. The fights that were in the beginning confied to Massachusetts very quickly spread to the remaining colonial territories. The other danger or hardship that the colonists were exposed to was of an entirely different kind. It was created by natural conditions that the new comers encountered in the new land. All in all, the new environment to which the colonists were confined undoubtedly exerted a considerable impact on the various aspects of the further development of American society. This perfectly true in the realm which is of interest to us - the language. The divergence of linguistic forms between the English spoken in America and that spoken in Britain was initiated as a natural result of the language being spoken by to distant groups of people whose language operated in different social conditions. One of the facts recorded about American variety of English is the preservation of older linguistic forms that in Britain under the operation of various laws were transformed to others (eg. the relation of the flat a as in fast, grass and pass which became the broad a in the English spoken in British Isles). Also, some vocabulary items were repleaced in England by different words whereas in America they have been in curent use until the present time. The word fall (British autumn) serves as a good exapmle. Moreover, what reshaped the language in America were the specific natural conditions already mentioned. The previously unknown animals, plants, and objects had to be given some names, hence Indian borrowings like: sequoia, pecan, racoon, woodchuck, moose; Spanish: mustang, tortilla, and many others. Another contribution to the remodeling of the English language in America was that caused by social, political and economic arrangements of the new society. The specific American conditions determined to a large of extent the structure of the new government and economic establishment whose pecular nature was also reflected in the new language. Instances from the nineteenth century can be quoted especially. The period of famous flocking to the West provided examples like saloon (British: pub); an eighteen century french borrowing which orginally signified just what it meant in French, namely- a drawing room. Later having undergone certain changes of meaning, the word started being used in various parts of America to signify a place where alcoholic drinks were sold to be drunk on the premises. The influence of the social, political and economic life of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries upon AE was comperatively small. Having became equainted with the natural environment and having reached a certain level of stability, the people seemed to felt less need for linguistic concern in a relative plateau of linguistic change, i.e., the fundamental process that English in America underwent were finished by the time. This is true particulary as far as vocabulary and pronunciation are concerned. The syntactic component of the language had been manifesting more contemporary innovations. The traditional division of the U.S. for pronunciation purposes is into Eastern (including New England and New York C., although this has pronunciation characteristic of its own), Southern (stretching from Virginia to Texas and to all points southward), and General (all remaining area). General American (GA) can thus be regarded as that form of American which dosent have marked regional characteristics (and is in this way comparable to RP) and is somtimes refered to as "Network English" There are two major areas of systemic differences between RP and GA. Firstly, GA lacks ofthe RP diphtongs / / which corresponds in GA to sequences of short vowel plus /r/ e.g. beard, fare, dour / /, / /, / /. This reflects the allied distributional difference between RP and GA, namely that unlike in RP, where /r/ occurs only before vowels, GA /r/ can occur before consonants and before pause. Secondly, GA has no / /. Most commonly those vowels which have / / in RP are pronauced with /a:/ in GA, e.g. cod, spot, pocket, bottle. But limited subset has /o:/, e.g. across, gone, often, cought, orange. Moreover for an increasing number of GA speakers, not only do RP / / and / /fall together but /o:/ also falls in with this group; for such speakers cod, calm and cause will have the same vowel. The main difference of lexical incidence concerns words which in RP have /a:/ while in GA they have / /. Like the change from / / to /o:/ this change commonly involves the context before a voiceless fricative, or alternatively, before a nasal fallowed by another consonant; thus RP /pa:st/ - GA /p st/, RP /a:ft / - GA / fter/ RP /pla:nt/ - GA /pl nt/. Allied to the pronunciation of /r/ in pre-consonantal positioned, there is considerable re-alignment of vowels before /r/, so that merry and marry may be pronauced the same whilst short and sport may have different vowels (/ / in the former and [o] corresponding to RP / / in the latter). Differences of realization are always numerous between any two systems of English pronunciation and only the most salient will be mentioned. Among the vowels this includes the realization of diphtongs / /and / / as monophthongs [e:] and [o:]; hence late [le:t] and load [lo:d]. Among the consonants /r/ is either fonetically / / i.e. the tip of the tongue is curled further backwards than in RP, or else a similar auditory effect is achieved by bunching the body of the tongue upwards and backwards; /t/ intervocalically is usually a voiced tap in GA, e.g. better [ber ]and may sometimes become [d] producing a neutralization between /t/ and /d/; and /l/ is generally dark [³] in other positions. A wholesale change in the realization of a short vowel in GA is increasingly reported, sometimes called the "Northern Cities Shift" although it now seems more widely spread than this. The vowel principally affected by this shift is / / which becames closer to [ ] or [ ], or even [e] or [ ]. This affects both those words like sad which have / / in RP and those words like after where the GA / / corresponds to /a:/ in RP. After the American colonies became independend there appeared a number of language reformers and revolutionaries who, among other things, suggested a variety of changes in spelling system of American language. The most significiant spelling differences which can be classified under the fallowing headings: 1. American -or versus British -our AE BE honor honour armored armoured favor favour color colour flavor flavour labor labour 2. American -z versus British -s This divergence is conspicious in primarily two word; groups: a. Many AE verbs ending in -ize correspond to BE verbs ending in -ise AE BE emphasize emphasise organize organaise analyze analyse idealize idealise criticize criticise b. Similarly, AE nouns ending in -ization correspond to BE nouns ending in -isation. This spelling difference coincides accidentally with the pronunciation divergence. Both -isation and -ization are pronouced in AE and in BE. AE BE organization organisation characterization characterisation secularization secularisation generalization generalisation EXAMPLES PERTAINING TO POINTS 2a AND 2b IN COMPARISON WITH THOSE OF POINT ONE ARE TIPICAL INSTANCES OF PREFERENCES. THIS ESPECIALLY REFERS TO BE WHICH VERY OFTEN IN BOTH CASES 2a AND 2b EMPLOYS -Z AS WELL AS -S. AE IS MUCH MORE CONSISTENT IN THIS RESPECT. Z IN BOTH -IZE (-ISE) AND -IZATION (-ISATION) WORDS IS ALMOST ALWAYS USED. 3. American -er versus British -re AE BE theater theatre center centre fiber fibre liter litre cider cidre 4.American single consonant versus British double consonant before a suffix in unstressed syllables. AE BE traveled travelled traveler traveller traveling travelling woolen woollen councilor councillor marvelous marvellous rivaled rivalled labeled labelled focused focussed dialed dialled In some cases however, the revers phenomenon can be noticed in stressed syllables, i.e., two consonants in AE versus a single consonant in BE, for example; fulfill fulfil fulfillment fulfilment skillful skilful 5.American -se versus British -ce AE BE defense defence license licence offense offence pretense pretence 6. American -i versus British -y AE BE tire tyre siphon syphon 7. In AE the spelling words of Greek and Latin orgin is very often simplified. American -e is use where British -oe or -ae, for example: AE BE anemia aneamia anesthesia anaesthesia encyklopedia encyclopaedia medieval medi(a)eval paleontology palaeontology Also, f is occasionally used in AE where ph is in BE AE BE sulfur sulphur sulfate sulphate sulfa sulpha 8. American –in versus British –en AE BE inquiry enquiry inclosure enclosure 9. American –y versus British –I AE BE gypsy gipsy gayety gaiety 10. In addition to the above-mentioned more or less regular differences, there are some words which don’t fall within any of the groups already discussed. AE BE ax axe aluminum aluminium cozy cosy AE BE curb (noun) kerb check cheque (the bank variety) draft draught hello hallo, hello jail gad, jail jewelry jevellery judgment judgement pajamas pyjamas plow plough reflection reflexion, reflection Finally it should be mentioned that some compound word are spelled either separately with a hyphen or together, depending on the variety: AE BE breakdown break-down blowout blow-out blowup blow-up makeup make-up welldone well-done As has already been mentioned , in order to name the unknown objects the colonists were forced either to borrow words from other languages or to coin their own words and expressions. Those neologism refered to the political, economic, cultural and religious life of the new society. Due to an extensive exchange of films and books as well as the spread of radio and television, a number of orginally American words and expressions also began to be used in Britain. Having accepted a considerable number of the “new forms” the British people do not seem to realize that many lexical items they use in everyday conversation are of American orgin. Despite the operation of the various processes that have been leading to a relative overlap in use of some of the vocabulary items which occur in both varieties of English, a considerable number of words still contrast in the two types of English. These words and expressions refer to a large variety of areas such as education, motorization, entertaiment, politics, cooking, etc. Examples: AE BE baggage car luggage car bug insect can tin, can chicken yard chicken run AE BE closet, cupboard cupboard corporation company diaper nappy elevator lift fix repair French fries chips game match gas petrol ladybug ladybird line /of people/ queue movies cinema parking lot car park rooster cock schedule time-table prom graduation ball subway underground, tube sidewalk pavement, foot-path swimsuit swimming costume truck lorry trunk automobile water heater geyser GRAMMAR The difficulty for presenting a comparison of American and British grammar is created primarily by two factors: 1. Many occurrences which are considered typical AE can also be encountered in some dialects of BE used with varying frequency. 2. Differences in the written language don’t overlap those that show up in the spoken language. The number of instances pertaining to the written language is in fact very small. WORD ORDER Word order in a two varieties of English is basically the same. One can find but a few examples which contribute two differences. One is the adverb too which in AE need to be placed only at the and of a sentence (as it is in BE) but also medially. Then, however, it does not, in fact, mean also but functions as a conjunction signifying moreover, besides. Another example of word order discrepancies is that of I can hardly do it correct in both AE and BE. Americans, however occasionally invert can and hardly yielding I hardly can do it. TENSES 1. Present Tenses Random investigation carried out on the spoken language as well as an examination of selected texts reflecting natural speech shows that AE tends to use Simple Past instead of Present Perfect e.g. He just came instead of He has just come. Simple Present, Present Perfect Continuous and Present Continuous uses remain basically the same. 2. Past Tenses Here the use of Simple Past (in AE) instead of Past Perfect can be observed e.g. AE After he came back home he ate dinner instead of After he had come back home… Past Perfect Continuous is applied in the two varieties of English fundamentally on the same grammatical principles. 3. Future Tenses No differences are conspicious with regard to the Simple Future and Future Continuous Tenses . The only area of discrepancy is Future Time Perfect whose use may alternate in AE with the Simple Present, e.g.
Approximate Word count = 9801
Approximate Pages = 39.2
(250 words per page double spaced)
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