American English

1. IINTRODUCTION 

1. THE HISTORY AND REASONS FOR THE FORMATION OF AMERICAN ENGLISH

2. DIFFERENCES IN AMERICAN AND BRITISH ENGLISH

3. AMERICAN ENGLISH IN THE WORLD 

4. CONCLUSION

AMERICAN ENGLISH

1. INTRODUCTION

            English is the first language for around three hundred and fifty thousand people, the mother tongue of twelve nations, the official or semiofficial language of thirty-three nations. It is the most popular language of international communication. It is spoken and written by hundreds of million people of different nationalities, e.g., more than three thousand newspapers and magazines are published in English in India. It is the language of science, business, and information technology and communication today.

English has become the "new Latin” of our modernity.  In different countries it is a must for most technical jobs, such as pilots, scientists. A huge amount of people on the Earth speak and study English. Its influence is very increasable. It can influence not only the dictionary, but also the linguistic structure of other languages.

American English began to develop as soon as the first colonists from England arrived to the New World. It had more success than British being cleaner and more correct. The settlers who came from many different parts of Great Britain were together in new and risky conditions, so they tried to keep only common in speech to all of them.

It is interesting to know that today's American English has signs of British English of 17 and even 16 centuries, which are quite archaic for modern British.
The difference between the American and British variants was more significant at the beginnning of the twentieth century, but later thanks to the mass media, especially radio and television, this discrepancy was softened.

1. THE HISTORY OF THE FORMATION OF AMERICAN ENGLISH

            Today English has various dialects. For example, after the colonization of America, a new type of English was born - American English. The word “canoe”, e.g., was not used in Great Britain; it appeared first in a book by Captain John Smith in 1608. The colonists had to find new words to describe the things they discovered in America. Many American words are different from those used in England.

            The English language came to North America in the seventeenth century. It is about four centuries old. It became a direct contrary to the standards adopted in England at that time. In colonial times most critics thought that American English was inferior to British English.  

            There are two main periods of development of the English language in America: 

- The early period from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, this is characterized by the formation of the American dialects; 

- The late period (the nineteenth – the twentieth centuries) is characterized by the creation of the American Standard English.

            The first English settlers founded Jamestown in North America in 1607. In November 1620 Plymouth was founded by the puritans who arrived on the ship “Mayflower”. The inhabitants of these two settlements spoke their own dialects. In the seventeenth - eighteenth centuries the number of immigrants was growing, they brought a great variety of languages and dialects with them. They needed a common language.

New words were added for animals, plants, food. The settlers borrowed words from Indian languages for such strange trees as the persimmon and hickory and for such strange animals as raccoons.

          They made new combinations of English words, such as bullfrog or backwoods, or gave old English words new meanings, such as corn (it means in British any grain, especially wheat). Some of the new terms were needed because there were new and unknown things. Others can be explained only on the general theory that languages are always changing, and American English is no exception.

            But many of the colonists continued to maintain links with England. The American version of English has not established itself as a literary yet, because America did not have its own national culture. For a long time most of the books read in America came from England, and a surprising amount of Americans read those books.

After the Revolutionary War, Americans wanted to be independent of British influence in language. American writers such as James Fennimore Cooper began to use American expressions in their books.

The languages of Dutch and French settlers, and of the huge numbers of immigrants entering the US in 19th and 20th centuries, also contributed to the development of American English. Inventions such as electric lighting, the typewriter, telephone and television added large numbers of words to the language.

            In Great Britain American English was still considered to be an “impure” form of the language. It was until the Civil War, when writers (Mark Twain among them) became popular in England. Only then American English was accepted in Great Britain.

1. GRAMMATICAL AND LEXICAL - SEMANTIC FEATURES OF AMERICAN ENGLISH

            In this chapter we are going to examine the grammatical features of American English and British English.

            There are thousands of differences in detail between British and American English, and they make together enough difficulties.

LEXICAL DIFFERENCE

            Let’s focus on a description of lexical differences of everyday language that could lead to a complete failure of communication.

            The American lexicographer and educator Noah Webster had already published the first American English dictionary in 1806, discussing the necessity for an American language, because England was too far away to be used as a model. The passion for complete independence from all English authorities culminated in his ‘Compendious Dictionary of English Language’ in which he proposed the creation of an independent dialect to accommodate the written language to the spoken language.

            Vocabulary differences give the right to treat the two varieties as two completely different languages It is by the reason of numerous borrowing from the Spanish and Indian languages that was not in British English.

Therefore, it can be said that only a direct contact with the other language or a specific study on the differences can improve mutual intelligibility between the two varieties of English, admitting and respecting their differences.

GRAMMATICAL DIFFERENCES

            We’ve read the book written by John Algeo “British or American English. A Handbook of Word and Grammar Patterns” and have found some grammatical differences of American variant:

1.                  British normally uses the perfect in the environment of adverbs like already, ever, just and yet. American has a tendency to use the simple preterit in such cases, although the perfect is also acceptable.

“I just returned the book” instead of “I’ve just returned the book”.

2.      English has two main verb signals of future time: “will” or “shall” and “be going to”. In general, British favors “will” or “shall”, and American - “be going to”, notably in American conversation and fiction. “Shall” is rare in both varieties, but is more frequent in British than in American.

3.      The passive voice has some distinctive uses in British English.

It was told me in confidence.

4.      “Have” or “have to” is not generally used as an operator, especially in American English.

“I don’t have a clue” and “I haven’t a clue”.

5.             To / in THE hospital instead of to/in hospital in British English.

6.              On the weekend/ on weekend instead of at the weekend/at weekend.

7.             On a street instead of in a street.

8.             Past Participle of "got" is "gotten"

9.             To burn, to spoil and other verbs, which can be regular or irregular in the British variant, in the American variant are always regular.

10.         British English may use the in certain expressions of time where American English would have no determiner: all the afternoon/morning/evening -  all afternoon/morning/evening; in the night - at night   

SPELLING

       When it comes to different spellings there isn’t really that much to say because in the near future the world will more or less agree on one uniform version.

 
      British English has a tendency to keep the spelling of many words of French origin whereas Americans try to spell more closely to the way they pronounce words and they remove letters not needed, which makes sense to me. Here are some examples:

  Again, these are to our opinion examples for the most important spelling differences between British and American English. Of course, there are more of them and the purpose of this article is not to elaborate on orthography but to raise your awareness of the subject so you can make your own observations and draw conclusions.

       British and American English are the reference norms for English as spoken, written, and taught in the rest of the world. For instance, the English-speaking members of the Commonwealth often closely follow British English forms while many new American English forms quickly become familiar outside of the United States.

1. AMERICAN ENGLISH IN THE WORLD

This dialect is rather popular in the world because of its dominance in the fields of cinema, music, technology. The difference between the American and British literary norm is not systematic. Current Americanisms penetrate into Standard English. Cinema and TV are probably the most important channels for the passage of Americanisms into the language of Britain and other languages as well: the Germans adopted the word teenager and the French speak of automatisation. The influence of American publicity is also a vehicle of Americanisms. This is how the British term wireless is replaced by the American radio. The jargon of American film-advertising makes its way into British usage; i.e. of all time (in "the greatest film of all time"). The phrase is now firmly established as standard vocabulary and applied to subjects other than films. The personal visits of writers and scholars to the USA and all forms of other personal contacts bring back Americanisms. 

Cooperation between the USA and the other countries increases from day to day. American English integrates in every side of our life. The USA presents us its culture through movies, music, advertisement, business. All this aspects are reflected in the language. Language is the mirror of the culture. American English has its own special peculiarities, which distinguish it from other variants of the English language. It has its own historical, cultural background which is of certain interest for linguists and speakers of English in the whole world.

CONCLUSION

In this paper we researched the unique featuresof American English.  We tried to find and explain the etymology of some American English words.

So it was found out that North America has given the English vocabulary thousands of words, word combinations and phrases. Several thousand are now used in English; others, however, died within a few years after their creation. The process of creation new lexical items started as soon as the colonists borrowed names for strange animals, plants, and other objects from the Native American languages. The early settlers also borrowed many names from French and Spanish.

Some people think that if English becomes the official language of the United States that will help keep states and people together. Others think that the American official language is unnecessary. They argue that a common language does not always lead to social harmony.

Working on this paper on American English is extremely beneficial; it has expanded our knowledge greatly. We got a more well - rounded education in linguistics now. The work also helped us to expand our knowledge of the history.  

            It is not true that Brit­ish Eng­lish is more tra­di­tional or that Amer­ican Eng­lish is sim­pli­fied. 

In our opinion, American English is easier and it is also more convenient. We just want to tell everyone who is thinking of learning English that you don’t have to divide it into several parts.

The practical value of the given work is following:

This work paper includes a short vocabulary of American English words and phrases.  It can be used in the English classes when studying the American History.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1.    Антрушина Г.Б., О.В.Aфaнaсьевa О.В. Лексикология английского языкa. - М. Дрофa. 1999

2.    J.Algeo. British or American English. Cambridge University Press.2006

3.    Аракин В. Д. История английского языка: Учеб. пособие для пед. ин-тов по спец. "Иностр. яз.". - М.: Просвещение, 1985

4.    English Learners Digest, №3 2004

5.    Murphy Raymond. English Grammar in Use. -  Cambridge University Press, 1997.

6.    Мюллер. Aнгло-русский словaрь. 

7.    Швейцер A.Д. Литерaтурный aнглийский язык в СШA и Aнглии / A.Д. Швейцер. - М., 2003

Internet Sources

8.    https://xreferat.com/31/2926-1-characteristic-features-of-american-english.html

9.    http://www.homeenglish.ru/Articlesosnovn.htmОсновные лексические и грaммaтические рaзличия между бритaнским и aмерикaнским вaриaнтом aнглийского языкa