British English vs. American English

American English holds a prominent place among world varieties of the language, and yet Americans do not all speak English in the same way. American English shows differences from place to place and from social group to social group, at every level of scale. We can, however, still make useful distinctions between American English and other world varieties by referring to Standard American English (SAE), a generalization at the national level of scale abstracted from the speech of educated Americans.

North American settlement by English speakers began in the seventeenth century, amounting at that time to about 150,000 migrants from all parts of Britain. While there were certainly cultural influences from Old World regions, mortality and continuing immigration during early settlement created a dynamic demographic situation out of which American culture, and American English, would eventually emerge. Right from the beginning, it was also possible to see differences between the speech of different colonies, but also to make generalizations about how American English at the ‘national’ level of scale might differ from British English. The common explanation by linguists for what happened to language in America is ‘language contact’, and the words ‘language contact’ can lead us to expect that somehow languages came into contact with each other, in the same way that Fischer proposed that whole cultures came to the New World. American English began to form by self-organization out of the complex system of linguistic interactions in the new colonies, a process that continues to this day and explains how we can have different, changing American English voices in different places and social settings.

Regional and social varieties and the American variety as a whole derive from the massive number of interactions in English conducted by members of regional and social groups, and, at the top level of scale, by all participants in American culture. SAE, on the other hand, is an institutional construct. It has no native speakers. It is, however, a fact of life for American speakers in formal settings, especially in the educational system.

SAE began with Noah Webster. Webster was interested in the creation of a specifically American variety of English, a national language for a new country: The author wishes to promote the honor and prosperity of the confederated republics of America …This country must in some future time be distinguished by the superiority of her literary improvements, as she is already by the liberality of her civil and ecclesiastical constitutions. Europe is grown old in folly, corruption and tyranny. For America in her infancy to adopt the maxims of the Old World would be to stamp the wrinkles of decrepit old age upon the bloom of youth, and to plant the seeds of decay in a vigorous constitution.

‘Spelling reform was only part of Webster’s agenda for perfecting English, but it was to be the most effective part’. Webster’s spellings clearly differentiate SAE from other world varieties. His successful changes come in four classes:

· dropping of final k after c in words of more than one syllable (e.g. music for musick)

· uniform use of – or for - ourin words of more than one syllable (e.g. honor for honour)

· uniform use of – er for – re (e.g. theater for theatre)

· - se for - cein defense, offense, pretense but not in fence