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American English

American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English,[b] is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States.[5] English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances is the de facto common language used in government, education and commerce. Since the 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.[6][7][8][9][10][11]

American English
RegionUnited States
Native speakers
225 million, all varieties of English in the United States (2010 census)[1]
25.6 million L2 speakers of English in the United States (2003)
Early forms
Latin (English alphabet)
Unified English Braille[2]
Official status
Official language in
None federally
United States
(32 US states, five non-state US territories) (see article)
Language codes
ISO 639-3
GlottologNone
IETFen-US[3][4]
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

American English varieties include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other English dialects around the world.[12] Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic or cultural markers is popularly called "General" or "Standard" American, a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. and associated nationally with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech. However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single "mainstream" American accent.[13][14] The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in the 20th century.[15]

History

The use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America during the early 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, dialects from many different regions of England and the British Isles existed in every American colony, allowing a process of extensive dialect mixture and leveling in which English varieties across the colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in Britain.[16][17] English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers from Western Europe and Africa. Additionally, firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English (particularly in contrast to the diverse regional dialects of British English) became common after the mid-18th century,[18] while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased.[19] Since the 18th century, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant and enslaved speakers of diverse languages.[20][8][21]

Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups' geographic settlement, their de jure or de facto segregation, and patterns in their resettlement. This can be seen, for example, in the influence of the Scotch-Irish immigration in Appalachia developing Appalachian English and the Great Migration bringing African-American Vernacular English to the Great Lakes urban centers.[20][22]

Phonology

Any phonologically unmarked North American accent is known as "General American" (akin to Received Pronunciation in British English, which has been referred to as "General British"). This section mostly refers to such General American features.

Conservative phonology

Studies on historical usage of English in both the United States and the United Kingdom suggest that spoken American English did not simply deviate away from period British English, but is conservative in some ways, preserving certain features contemporary British English has since lost.[23]

Full rhoticity (or R-fulness) is typical of American accents, pronouncing the phoneme /r/ (corresponding to the letter ⟨r⟩) in all environments, including after vowels, such as in pearl, car and court.[24][25] Non-rhotic American accents, those that do not pronounce ⟨r⟩ except before a vowel, such as some Eastern New England, New York, a specific few (often older) Southern, and African American vernacular accents, are often quickly noticed by General American listeners and perceived to sound especially ethnic, regional or "old-fashioned".[24][26][27]

Rhoticity is common in most American accents, although it is now rare in England because during the 17th-century British colonization nearly all dialects of English were rhotic, and most North American English simply remained that way.[28] The preservation of rhoticity in North America was also supported by continuing waves of rhotic-accented Scotch-Irish immigrants, most intensely during the 18th century (and moderately during the following two centuries) when the Scotch-Irish eventually made up one-seventh of the colonial population. Scotch-Irish settlers spread from Delaware and Pennsylvania throughout the larger Mid-Atlantic region, the inland regions of both the South and North and throughout the West: American dialect areas that were all uninfluenced by upper-class non-rhoticity and that consequently have remained consistently rhotic.[29] The pronunciation of ⟨r⟩ is a postalveolar approximant [ɹ̠] ( listen) or retroflex approximant [ɻ] ( listen),[30] but a unique "bunched tongue" variant of the approximant r sound is also associated with the United States, perhaps mostly in the Midwest and the South.[31]

American accents that have not undergone the cot–caught merger (the lexical sets LOT and THOUGHT) have instead retained a LOTCLOTH split: a 17th-century distinction in which certain words (labeled as the CLOTH lexical set) separated away from the LOT set. The split, which has now reversed in most British English, simultaneously shifts this relatively recent CLOTH set into a merger with the THOUGHT (caught) set. Having taken place prior to the unrounding of the cot vowel, it results in lengthening and perhaps raising, merging the more recently separated vowel into the THOUGHT vowel in the following environments: before many instances of /f/, /θ/, and particularly /s/ (as in Austria, cloth, cost, loss, off, often, etc.), a few instances before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long, wrong), and variably by region or speaker in gone, on, and certain other words.[32]

The standard accent of southern England, Received Pronunciation (RP), has evolved in other ways compared to which General American has remained relatively conservative. Examples include the modern RP features of a trap–bath split and the fronting of /oʊ/, neither of which is typical of General American accents. Moreover, American dialects do not participate in H-dropping, an innovative feature that now characterizes perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England.

Innovative phonology

However, General American is also innovative in a number of ways:

  • Unrounded LOT: The American phenomenon of the LOT vowel (often spelled ⟨o⟩ in words like box, don, clock, notch, pot, etc.) being produced without rounded lips, like the PALM vowel, allows father and bother to rhyme, the two vowels now unified as the single phoneme /ɑ/. The father–bother vowel merger is in a transitional or completed stage in nearly all North American English. Exceptions are in northeastern New England English, such as the Boston accent, as well as variably in some New York accents.[33][34]
  • Cot–caught merger in transition: There is no single American way to pronounce the vowels in words like cot /ɑ/ (the ah vowel) versus caught /ɔ/ (the aw vowel), largely because of a merger occurring between the two sounds in some parts of North America, but not others. American speakers with a completed merger pronounce the two historically separate vowels with the same sound (especially in the West, northern New England, West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, and the Upper Midwest), but other speakers have no trace of a merger at all (especially in the South, the Great Lakes region, southern New England, and the Mid-Atlantic and New York metropolitan areas) and so pronounce each vowel with distinct sounds ( listen).[35] Among speakers who distinguish between the two, the vowel of cot (usually transcribed in American English as /ɑ/), is often a central [ɑ̈] ( listen) or advanced back [ɑ̟], while /ɔ/ is pronounced with more rounded lips and/or phonetically higher in the mouth, close to [ɒ] ( listen) or [ɔ] ( listen), but with only slight rounding.[36] Among speakers who do not distinguish between them, thus producing a cot–caught merger, /ɑ/ usually remains a back vowel, [ɑ] ( listen), sometimes showing lip rounding as [ɒ]. Therefore, even mainstream Americans vary greatly with this speech feature, with possibilities ranging from a full merger to no merger at all. A transitional stage of the merger is also common in scatterings throughout the United States, most consistently in the American Midlands lying between the historical dialect regions of the North and the South, while younger Americans, in general, tend to be transitioning toward the merger. According to a 2003 dialect survey carried out across the United States, about 61% of participants perceive themselves as keeping the two vowels distinct and 39% do not.[37] A 2009 follow-up survey put the percentages at 58% non-merging speakers and 41% merging.[38]
  • STRUT in special words: The STRUT vowel, rather than the one in LOT or THOUGHT (as in Britain), is used in function words and certain other words like was, of, from, what, everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody, and, for many speakers because and rarely even want, when stressed.[39][40][41][42]
  • Vowel mergers before intervocalic /r/: The mergers of certain vowels before /r/ are typical throughout North America, the only exceptions existing primarily along the East Coast:
    • Mary–marry–merry merger in transition: According to the 2003 dialect survey, nearly 57% of participants from around the country self-identified as merging the sounds /ær/ (as in the first syllable of parish), /ɛr/ (as in the first syllable of perish), and /ɛər/ (as in pear or pair).[43] The merger is already complete everywhere except along some areas of the Atlantic Coast.[44]
    • Hurry–furry merger: The pre-/r/ vowels in words like hurry /ʌ/ and furry /ɜ/ are merged in most American accents to [ə~ɚ]. Only 10% of American English speakers acknowledge the distinct hurry vowel before /r/, according to the same dialect survey aforementioned.[45]
    • Mirror–nearer merger in transition: The pre-/r/ vowels in words like mirror /ɪ/ and nearer /i/ are merged or very similar in most American accents. The quality of the historic mirror vowel in the word miracle is quite variable.[46]
  • Americans vary slightly in their pronunciations of R-colored vowels such as those in /ɛər/ and /ɪər/, which sometimes monophthongizes towards [ɛɹ] and [ɪɹ] or tensing towards [eɪɹ] and [i(ə)ɹ] respectively. That causes pronunciations like [pʰeɪɹ] for pair/pear and [pʰiəɹ] for peer/pier.[47] Also, /jʊər/ is often reduced to [jɚ], so that cure, pure, and mature may all end with the sound [ɚ], thus rhyming with blur and sir. The word sure is also part of the rhyming set as it is commonly pronounced [ʃɚ].
  • Yod-dropping: Dropping of /j/ after a consonant is much more extensive than in most of England. In most North American accents, /j/ is "dropped" or "deleted" after all alveolar and interdental consonants (everywhere except after /p/, /b/, /f/, /h/, /k/, and /m/) and so new, duke, Tuesday, assume are pronounced [nu], [duk], [ˈtʰuzdeɪ], [əˈsum] (compare with Standard British /nju/, /djuk/, /ˈtjuzdeɪ/, /əˈsjum/).[48]
  • T-glottalization: /t/ is normally pronounced as a glottal stop [ʔ] when both after a vowel or a liquid and before a syllabic [n̩] or any non-syllabic consonant, as in button [ˈbʌʔn̩] ( listen) or fruitcake [ˈfɹuʔkʰeɪk] ( listen). In the absolute final position after a vowel or liquid, /t/ is also replaced by, or simultaneously articulated with, glottal constriction:[49] thus, what [wʌʔ] or fruit [fɹuʔ]. (This innovation of /t/ glottal stopping may occur in British English as well and variably between vowels.)
  • Flapping: /t/ or /d/ becomes a flap [ɾ] ( listen) both after a vowel or /r/ and before an unstressed vowel or a syllabic consonant other than [n̩], including water [ˈwɔɾɚ] ( listen), party [ˈpʰɑɹɾi] and model [ˈmɑɾɫ̩]. This results in pairs such as ladder/latter, metal/medal, and coating/coding being pronounced the same. Flapping of /t/ or /d/ before a full stressed vowel is also possible but only if that vowel begins a new word or morpheme, as in what is it? [wʌɾˈɪzɨʔ] and twice in not at all [nɑɾɨɾˈɔɫ]. Other rules apply to flapping to such a complex degree in fact that flapping has been analyzed as being required in certain contexts, prohibited in others, and optional in still others.[50] For instance, flapping is prohibited in words like seduce [sɨˈdus], retail [ˈɹitʰeɪɫ], and monotone [ˈmɑnɨtʰoʊn], yet optional in impotence [ˈɪmpɨɾɨns, ˈɪmpɨtʰɨns].
  • Both intervocalic /nt/ and /n/ may commonly be realized as [ɾ̃] (a nasalized alveolar flap) (flapping) or simply [n], making winter and winner homophones in fast or informal speech.
  • L-velarization: England's typical distinction between a "clear L" (i.e. [l] ( listen)) and a "dark L" (i.e. [ɫ] ( listen)) is much less noticeable in nearly all dialects of American English; it is often altogether absent,[51] with all "L" sounds tending to be "dark," meaning having some degree of velarization,[52] perhaps even as dark as [ʟ] ( listen) (though in the initial position, perhaps less dark than elsewhere among some speakers).[53] The only notable exceptions to this velarization are in some Spanish-influenced American English varieties (such as East Coast Latino English, which typically shows a clear "L" in syllable onsets) and in older, moribund Southern speech, where "L" is clear in an intervocalic environment between front vowels.[54]
  • Weak vowel merger: The vowel /ɪ/ in unstressed syllables generally merges with /ə/ and so effect is pronounced like affect, and abbot and rabbit rhyme. The quality of the merged vowel varies considerably based on the environment but is typically more open, like [ə], in word-initial or word-final position, but more close, like [ɪ~ɨ], elsewhere.[55]
  • Raising of pre-voiceless /aɪ/: Many speakers split the sound /aɪ/ based on whether it occurs before a voiceless consonant and so in rider, it is pronounced [äɪ], but in writer, it is raised to [ʌɪ] (because [t] is a voiceless consonant while [d] is not). Thus, words like bright, hike, price, wipe, etc. with a following voiceless consonant (such as /t, k, θ, s/) use a more raised vowel sound compared to bride, high, prize, wide, etc. Because of this sound change, the words rider and writer ( listen), for instance, remain distinct from one another by virtue of their difference in height (and length) of the diphthong's starting point (unrelated to both the letters d and t being pronounced in these words as alveolar flaps [ɾ]). The sound change also applies across word boundaries, though the position of a word or phrase's stress may prevent the raising from taking place. For instance, a high school in the sense of "secondary school" is generally pronounced [ˈhɐɪskuɫ]; however, a high school in the literal sense of "a tall school" would be pronounced [ˌhaɪˈskuɫ]. The sound change began in the Northern, New England, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the country,[56] and is becoming more common across the nation.
  • Many speakers in the Inland North, Upper Midwestern, and Philadelphia dialect areas raise /aɪ/ before voiced consonants in certain words as well, particularly [d], [g] and [n]. Hence, words like tiny, spider, cider, tiger, dinosaur, beside, idle (but sometimes not idol), and fire may contain a raised nucleus. The use of [ʌɪ], rather than [aɪ], in such words is unpredictable from the phonetic environment alone, but it may have to do with their acoustic similarity to other words that with [ʌɪ] before a voiceless consonant, per the traditional Canadian-raising system. Some researchers have argued that there has been a phonemic split in those dialects, and the distribution of the two sounds is becoming more unpredictable among younger speakers.[57]
  • Some speakers from California, other Western states including those in the Pacific Northwest, and the Upper Midwest realize final /ɪŋ/ as [in] when /ɪ/ ("short i") is raised to become [i] ("long ee") before the underlying /ŋ/ is converted to [n], so that coding, for example, is pronounced [ˈkoʊdin], homophonous with codeine.[58][59]
  • Conditioned /æ/ raising (especially before /n/ and /m/): The raising of the /æ/ or TRAP vowel occurs in specific environments that vary widely from region to region but most commonly before /n/ and /m/. With most American speakers for whom the phoneme /æ/ operates under a somewhat-continuous system, /æ/ has both a tense and a lax allophone (with a kind of "continuum" of possible sounds between both extremes, rather than a definitive split). In those accents, /æ/ is overall realized before nasal stops as tenser (approximately [eə̯]), while other environments are laxer (approximately the standard [æ]); for example, note the vowel sound in [mæs] for mass, but [meə̯n] for man). In the following audio clip, the first pronunciation is the tensed one for the word camp, much more common in American English than the second ( listen).
    • In some American accents, however, specifically those from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City, [æ] and [eə̯] are indeed entirely-separate (or "split") phonemes, for example, in planet [pʰlænɨʔ] vs. plan it [pʰleənɨʔ]. They are called Mid-Atlantic split-a systems. The vowels move in the opposite direction (high and forward) in the mouth compared to the backed Standard British "broad a", but both a systems are probably related phonologically, if not phonetically since a British-like phenomenon occurs among some older speakers of the eastern New England (Boston) area for whom /æ/ changes to /a/ before /f/, /s/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /v/ alone or when preceded by a homorganic nasal.
/æ/ raising in North American English[60]
Following
consonant
Example
words[61]
New York City,
New Orleans[62]
Baltimore,
Philadelphia[63]
Midland US,
New England,
Pittsburgh,
Western US
Southern
US
Canada,
Northern
Mountain US
Minnesota,
Wisconsin
Great Lakes
US
Non-prevocalic
/m, n/
fan, lamb, stand [ɛə][64][A][B] [ɛə][64] [ɛə~ɛjə][67] [ɛə][68] [ɛə][69]
Prevocalic
/m, n/
animal, planet,
Spanish
[æ]
/ŋ/[70] frank, language [ɛː~eɪ~æ][71] [æ~æɛə][67] [ɛː~ɛj][68] [eː~ej][72]
Non-prevocalic
/ɡ/
bag, drag [ɛə][A] [æ][C] [æ][64]
Prevocalic /ɡ/ dragon, magazine [æ]
Non-prevocalic
/b, d, ʃ/
grab, flash, sad [ɛə][A] [æ][73] [ɛə][73]
Non-prevocalic
/f, θ, s/
ask, bath, half,
glass
[ɛə][A]
Otherwise as, back, happy,
locality
[æ][D]
  1. ^ a b c d In New York City and Philadelphia, most function words (am, can, had, etc.) and some learned or less common words (alas, carafe, lad, etc.) have [æ].[65]
  2. ^ In Philadelphia, the irregular verbs began, ran, and swam have [æ].[66]
  3. ^ In Philadelphia, bad, mad, and glad alone in this context have [ɛə].[65]
  4. ^ In New York City, certain lexical exceptions exist (like avenue being tense) and variability is common before /dʒ/ and /z/ as in imagine, magic, and jazz.[74]
    In New Orleans, [ɛə] additionally occurs before /v/ and /z/.[75]
  • "Short o" before r before a vowel: In typical North American accents (both U.S. and Canada), the historical sequence /ɒr/ (a short o sound followed by r and then another vowel, as in orange, forest, moral, and warrant) is realized as [oɹ~ɔɹ], thus further merging with the already-merged /ɔr/–/oʊr/ (horsehoarse) set. In the U.S., a small number of words (namely, tomorrow, sorry, sorrow, borrow, and morrow) usually contain the sound [ɑɹ] instead and thus merge with the /ɑr/ set (thus, sorry and sari become homophones, both rhyming with starry).[36]
General American /ɑr/ and /ɔr/ followed by a vowel, compared with other dialects
Received
Pronunciation
General
American
Metropolitan New
York
, Philadelphia,
some Southern US,
some New England
Canada
Only borrow, sorrow, sorry, (to)morrow /ɒr/ /ɑːr/ /ɒr/ or /ɑːr/ /ɔːr/
Forest, Florida, historic, moral, porridge, etc. /ɔːr/
Forum, memorial, oral, storage, story, etc. /ɔːr/ /ɔːr/

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

  • Horse–hoarse merger: This merger makes the vowels /ɔ/ and /o/ before /r/ homophones, with homophonous pairs like horse/hoarse, corps/core, for/four, morning/mourning, war/wore, etc. homophones. Many older varieties of American English still keep the sets of words distinct, particularly in the extreme Northeast, the South (especially along the Gulf Coast), and the central Midlands,[76] but the merger is evidently spreading and younger Americans rarely show the distinction.
  • Wine–whine merger: This produces pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, Wales/whales, wear/where, etc. homophones, in most cases eliminating /ʍ/, also transcribed /hw/, the voiceless labiovelar fricative. However, scatterings of older speakers who do not merge these pairs still exist nationwide, perhaps most strongly in the South.[76]

Vocabulary

The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as English-speaking British-American colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from the Native American languages.[77] Examples of such names are opossum, raccoon, squash, moose (from Algonquian),[77] wigwam, and moccasin. American English speakers have integrated traditionally non-English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon; for instance, en masse, from French; cookie, from Dutch; kindergarten from German,[78] and rodeo from Spanish.[79][80][81][82] Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish, and the word corn, used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the maize plant, the most important crop in the U.S.

Most Mexican Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812, with the opening of the West, like ranch (now a common house style). Due to Mexican culinary influence, many Spanish words are incorporated in general use when talking about certain popular dishes: cilantro (instead of coriander), queso, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas, burritos, and guacamole. These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants. New forms of dwelling created new terms (lot, waterfront) and types of homes like log cabin, adobe in the 18th century; apartment, shanty in the 19th century; project, condominium, townhouse, mobile home in the 20th century; and parts thereof (driveway, breezeway, backyard).[citation needed] Industry and material innovations from the 19th century onwards provide distinctive new words, phrases, and idioms through railroading (see further at rail terminology) and transportation terminology, ranging from types of roads (dirt roads, freeways) to infrastructure (parking lot, overpass, rest area), to automotive terminology often now standard in English internationally.[83] Already existing English words—such as store, shop, lumber—underwent shifts in meaning; others remained in the U.S. while changing in Britain. Science, urbanization, and democracy have been important factors in bringing about changes in the written and spoken language of the United States.[84] From the world of business and finance came new terms (merger, downsize, bottom line), from sports and gambling terminology came, specific jargon aside, common everyday American idioms, including many idioms related to baseball. The names of some American inventions remained largely confined to North America (elevator [except in the aeronautical sense], gasoline) as did certain automotive terms (truck, trunk).[citation needed]

New foreign loanwords came with 19th and early 20th century European immigration to the U.S.; notably, from Yiddish (chutzpah, schmooze, bupkis, glitch) and German (hamburger, wiener).[85][86] A large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from OK and cool to nerd and 24/7), while others have not (have a nice day, for sure);[87][88] many are now distinctly old-fashioned (swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such as hijacking, disc jockey, boost, bulldoze and jazz, originated as American slang.

American English has always shown a marked tendency to use words in different parts of speech and nouns are often used as verbs.[89] Examples of nouns that are now also verbs are interview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, hashtag, head, divorce, loan, estimate, X-ray, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, bad-mouth, vacation, major, and many others. Compounds coined in the U.S. are for instance foothill, landslide (in all senses), backdrop, teenager, brainstorm, bandwagon, hitchhike, smalltime, and a huge number of others. Other compound words have been founded based on industrialization and the wave of the automobile: five-passenger car, four-door sedan, two-door sedan, and station-wagon (called an estate car in England).[90] Some are euphemistic (human resources, affirmative action, correctional facility). Many compound nouns have the verb-and-preposition combination: stopover, lineup, tryout, spin-off, shootout, holdup, hideout, comeback, makeover, and many more. Some prepositional and phrasal verbs are in fact of American origin (win out, hold up, back up/off/down/out, face up to and many others).[91]

Noun endings such as -ee (retiree), -ery (bakery), -ster (gangster) and -cian (beautician) are also particularly productive in the U.S.[89] Several verbs ending in -ize are of U.S. origin; for example, fetishize, prioritize, burglarize, accessorize, weatherize, etc.; and so are some back-formations (locate, fine-tune, curate, donate, emote, upholster and enthuse). Among syntactical constructions that arose are outside of, headed for, meet up with, back of, etc. Americanisms formed by alteration of some existing words include notably pesky, phony, rambunctious, buddy, sundae, skeeter, sashay and kitty-corner. Adjectives that arose in the U.S. are, for example, lengthy, bossy, cute and cutesy, punk (in all senses), sticky (of the weather), through (as in "finished"), and many colloquial forms such as peppy or wacky.

A number of words and meanings that originated in Middle English or Early Modern English and that have been in everyday use in the United States have since disappeared in most varieties of British English; some of these have cognates in Lowland Scots. Terms such as fall ("autumn"), faucet ("tap"), diaper ("nappy"; itself unused in the U.S.), candy ("sweets"), skillet, eyeglasses, and obligate are often regarded as Americanisms. Fall for example came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year."[92][better source needed] Gotten (past participle of get) is often considered to be largely an Americanism.[8][93] Other words and meanings were brought back to Britain from the U.S., especially in the second half of the 20th century; these include hire ("to employ"), I guess (famously criticized by H. W. Fowler), baggage, hit (a place), and the adverbs overly and presently ("currently"). Some of these, for example, monkey wrench and wastebasket, originated in 19th century Britain. The adjectives mad meaning "angry," smart meaning "intelligent," and sick meaning "ill" are also more frequent in American (and Irish) English than British English.[94][95][96]

Linguist Bert Vaux created a survey, completed in 2003, polling English speakers across the United States about their specific everyday word choices, hoping to identify regionalisms.[97] The study found that most Americans prefer the term sub for a long sandwich, soda (but pop in the Great Lakes region and generic coke in the South) for a sweet and bubbly soft drink,[98] you or you guys for the plural of you (but y'all in the South), sneakers for athletic shoes (but often tennis shoes outside the Northeast), and shopping cart for a cart used for carrying supermarket goods.

Differences between American and British English

American English and British English (BrE) often differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a much lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, known as Webster's Dictionary, was written by Noah Webster in 1828, codifying several of these spellings.

Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and do not normally affect mutual intelligibility; these include: typically a lack of differentiation between adjectives and adverbs, employing the equivalent adjectives as adverbs he ran quick/he ran quickly; different use of some auxiliary verbs; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns; different preferences for the past forms of a few verbs (for example, AmE/BrE: learned/learnt, burned/burnt, snuck/sneaked, dove/dived) although the purportedly "British" forms can occasionally be seen in American English writing as well; different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (for example, AmE in school, BrE at school); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (AmE to the hospital, BrE to hospital; contrast, however, AmE actress Elizabeth Taylor, BrE the actress Elizabeth Taylor). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other,[99] and American English is not a standardized set of dialects.

Differences in orthography are also minor. The main differences are that American English usually uses spellings such as flavor for British flavour, fiber for fibre, defense for defence, analyze for analyse, license for licence, catalog for catalogue and traveling for travelling. Noah Webster popularized such spellings in America, but he did not invent most of them. Rather, "he chose already existing options on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology."[100] Other differences are due to the francophile tastes of the 19th century Victorian era Britain (for example they preferred programme for program, manoeuvre for maneuver, cheque for check, etc.).[101] AmE almost always uses -ize in words like realize. BrE prefers -ise, but also uses -ize on occasion (see: Oxford spelling).

There are a few differences in punctuation rules. British English is more tolerant of run-on sentences, called "comma splices" in American English, and American English requires that periods and commas be placed inside closing quotation marks even in cases in which British rules would place them outside. American English also favors the double quotation mark ("like this") over the single ('as here').[102]

Vocabulary differences vary by region. For example, autumn is used more commonly in the United Kingdom, whereas fall is more common in American English. Some other differences include: aerial (United Kingdom) vs. antenna, biscuit (United Kingdom) vs. cookie/cracker, car park (United Kingdom) vs. parking lot, caravan (United Kingdom) vs. trailer, city centre (United Kingdom) vs. downtown, flat (United Kingdom) vs. apartment, fringe (United Kingdom) vs. bangs, and holiday (United Kingdom) vs. vacation.[103]

AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BrE 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). However, while individuals usually use one or the other, both forms will be widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems.

Varieties

The map above shows the major regional dialects of American English (in all caps) plus smaller and more local dialects, as demarcated primarily by Labov et al.'s The Atlas of North American English,[104] as well as the related Telsur Project's regional maps. Any region may also contain speakers of a "General American" accent that resists the marked features of their region. Furthermore, this map does not account for speakers of ethnic or cultural varieties (such as African-American English, Chicano English, Cajun English, etc.).

While written American English is largely standardized across the country and spoken American English dialects are highly mutually intelligible, there are still several recognizable regional and ethnic accents and lexical distinctions.

Regional accents

The regional sounds of present-day American English are reportedly engaged in a complex phenomenon of "both convergence and divergence": some accents are homogenizing and leveling, while others are diversifying and deviating further away from one another.[105]

Having been settled longer than the American West Coast, the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents, and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions, each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse: New England, the Mid-Atlantic states (including a New York accent as well as a unique Philadelphia–Baltimore accent), and the South. As of the 20th century, the middle and eastern Great Lakes area, Chicago being the largest city with these speakers, also ushered in certain unique features, including the fronting of the LOT /ɑ/ vowel in the mouth toward [a] and tensing of the TRAP /æ/ vowel wholesale to [eə]. These sound changes have triggered a series of other vowel shifts in the same region, known by linguists as the "Inland North".[106] The Inland North shares with the Eastern New England dialect (including Boston accents) a backer tongue positioning of the GOOSE /u/ vowel (to [u]) and the MOUTH /aʊ/ vowel (to [ɑʊ~äʊ]) in comparison to the rest of the country.[107] Ranging from northern New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota, another Northern regional marker is the variable fronting of /ɑ/ before /r/,[108] for example, appearing four times in the stereotypical Boston shibboleth Park the car in Harvard Yard.[109]

 
The red dots show every U.S. metropolitan area where over 50% non-rhotic speech was documented among some of that area's white speakers in the 1990s. Non-rhoticity may be heard among black speakers throughout the whole country.[110]

Several other phenomena serve to distinguish regional U.S. accents. Boston, Pittsburgh, Upper Midwestern, and Western U.S. accents have fully completed a merger of the LOT vowel with the THOUGHT vowel (/ɑ/ and /ɔ/, respectively):[111] a cot–caught merger, which is rapidly spreading throughout the whole country. However, the South, Inland North, and a Northeastern coastal corridor passing through Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore typically preserve an older cot–caught distinction.[106] For that Northeastern corridor, the realization of the THOUGHT vowel is particularly marked, as depicted in humorous spellings, like in tawk and cawfee (talk and coffee), which intend to represent it being tense and diphthongal: [oə].[112] A split of TRAP into two separate phonemes, using different a pronunciations for example in gap [æ] versus gas [eə], further defines New York City as well as Philadelphia–Baltimore accents.[65]

Most Americans preserve all historical /ɹ/ sounds, using what is known as a rhotic accent. The only traditional r-dropping (or non-rhoticity) in regional U.S. accents variably appears today in eastern New England, New York City, and some of the former plantation South primarily among older speakers (and, relatedly, some African-American Vernacular English across the country), though the vowel-consonant cluster found in "bird," "work," "hurt," "learn," etc. usually retains its r pronunciation, even in these non-rhotic American accents. Non-rhoticity among such speakers is presumed to have arisen from their upper classes' close historical contact with England, imitating London's r-dropping, a feature that has continued to gain prestige throughout England from the late 18th century onwards,[113] but which has conversely lost prestige in the U.S. since at least the early 20th century.[114] Non-rhoticity makes a word like car sound like cah or source like sauce.[115]

New York City and Southern accents are the most prominent regional accents of the country, as well as the most stigmatized and socially disfavored.[116][117][118][119] Southern speech, strongest in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas, is often identified by Americans as a "country" accent,[120] and is defined by the /aɪ/ vowel losing its gliding quality: [aː], the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift, including a "Southern drawl" that makes short front vowels into distinct-sounding gliding vowels.[121] The fronting of the vowels of GOOSE, GOAT, MOUTH, and STRUT tends to also define Southern accents as well as the accents spoken in the "Midland": a vast band of the country that constitutes an intermediate dialect region between the traditional North and South. Western U.S. accents mostly fall under the General American spectrum.

Below, ten major American English accents are defined by their particular combinations of certain vowel sounds:

Accent name Most populous urban center Strong /aʊ/ fronting Strong /oʊ/ fronting Strong /u/ fronting Strong /ɑr/ fronting Cot–caught merger Pin–pen merger /æ/ raising system
General American No No No No Mixed No pre-nasal
Inland Northern Chicago No No No Yes No No general
Mid-Atlantic states Philadelphia Yes Yes Yes No No No split
Midland Indianapolis Yes Yes Yes No Mixed Mixed pre-nasal
New York City New York City Yes No No[122] No No No split
North-Central (Upper Midwestern) Minneapolis No No No Yes Mixed No pre-nasal & pre-velar
Northern New England Boston No No No Yes Yes No pre-nasal
Southern San Antonio Yes Yes Yes No Mixed Yes Southern
Western Los Angeles No No Yes No Yes No pre-nasal
Western Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Yes Yes Yes No Yes Mixed pre-nasal

General American

In 2010, William Labov noted that Great Lakes, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and West Coast accents have undergone "vigorous new sound changes" since the mid-nineteenth century onwards, so they "are now more different from each other than they were 50 or 100 years ago", while other accents, like of New York City and Boston, have remained stable in that same time-frame.[105] However, a General American sound system also has some debated degree of influence nationwide, for example, gradually beginning to oust the regional accent in urban areas of the South and at least some in the Inland North. Rather than one particular accent, General American is best defined as an umbrella covering an American accent that does not incorporate features associated with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. Typical General American features include rhoticity, the father–bother merger, Mary–marry–merry merger, pre-nasal "short a" tensing, and other particular vowel sounds.[c] General American features are embraced most by Americans who are highly educated or in the most formal contexts, and regional accents with the most General American native features include North Midland, Western New England, and Western accents.

Other varieties

Although no longer region-specific,[123] African-American Vernacular English, which remains the native variety of most working- and middle-class African Americans, has a close relationship to Southern dialects and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans, including hip hop culture. Hispanic and Latino Americans have also developed native-speaker varieties of English. The best-studied Latino Englishes are Chicano English, spoken in the West and Midwest, and New York Latino English, spoken in the New York metropolitan area. Additionally, ethnic varieties such as Yeshiva English and "Yinglish" are spoken by some American Orthodox Jews, Cajun Vernacular English by some Cajuns in southern Louisiana, and Pennsylvania Dutch English by some Pennsylvania Dutch people. American Indian Englishes have been documented among diverse Indian tribes. The island state of Hawaii, though primarily English-speaking, is also home to a creole language known commonly as Hawaiian Pidgin, and some Hawaii residents speak English with a Pidgin-influenced accent. American English also gave rise to some dialects outside the country, for example, Philippine English, beginning during the American occupation of the Philippines and subsequently the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands; Thomasites first established a variation of American English in these islands.[124]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ en-US is the language code for U.S. English, as defined by ISO standards (see ISO 639-1 and ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) and Internet standards (see IETF language tag).
  2. ^ and variously abbreviated AmE, AE, AmEng, USEng, and en-US[a]
  3. ^ Dialects are considered "rhotic" if they pronounce the r sound in all historical environments, without ever "dropping" this sound. The father–bother merger is the pronunciation of the unrounded /ɒ/ vowel variant (as in cot, lot, bother, etc.) the same as the /ɑ/ vowel (as in spa, haha, Ma), causing words like con and Kahn and like sob and Saab to sound identical, with the vowel usually realized in the back or middle of the mouth as [ɑ~ɑ̈]. Finally, most of the U.S. participates in a continuous nasal system of the "short a" vowel (in cat, trap, bath, etc.), causing /æ/ to be pronounced with the tongue raised and with a glide quality (typically sounding like [ɛə]) particularly when before a nasal consonant; thus, mad is [mæd], but man is more like [mɛən].

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  • Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006). The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-016746-7.
  • Longmore, Paul K. (2007). "'Good English without Idiom or Tone': The Colonial Origins of American Speech". The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. MIT. 37 (4): 513–542. doi:10.1162/jinh.2007.37.4.513. JSTOR 4139476. S2CID 143910740.
  • Trudgill, Peter (2004). New-Dialect Formation: The Inevitability of Colonial Englishes.
  • Wells, John (2008). Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Pearson. ISBN 978-1-4058-8118-0. Retrieved February 20, 2021.
  • Wells, John C. (1982). Accents of English. Volume 1: An Introduction (pp. i–xx, 1–278), Volume 2: The British Isles (pp. i–xx, 279–466), Volume 3: Beyond the British Isles (pp. i–xx, 467–674). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-52129719-2 , 0-52128540-2 , 0-52128541-0 .
  • Zawadzki, P.A.; Kuehn, D.P. (1980). "A cineradiographic study of static and dynamic aspects of American English /r/". Phonetica. 37 (4): 253–266. doi:10.1159/000259995. PMID 7443796. S2CID 46760239.

Further reading

History of American English

  • Bailey, Richard W. (2004). "American English: Its origins and history". In E. Finegan & J. R. Rickford (Eds.), Language in the USA: Themes for the twenty-first century (pp. 3–17). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Finegan, Edward. (2006). "English in North America". In R. Hogg & D. Denison (Eds.), A history of the English language (pp. 384–419). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

External links

  • Do You Speak American: PBS special
  • Dialect Survey of the United States, by Bert Vaux et al., Harvard University.
  • Phonological Atlas of North America at the University of Pennsylvania
  • Dictionary of American Regional English
  • Dialect maps based on pronunciation

american, english, english, redirects, here, political, organization, english, organization, english, language, throughout, north, america, north, other, uses, disambiguation, sometimes, called, united, states, english, english, varieties, english, language, n. U S English redirects here For the political organization see U S English organization For the English language throughout North America see North American English For other uses see American English disambiguation American English sometimes called United States English or U S English b is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States 5 English is the most widely spoken language in the United States and in most circumstances is the de facto common language used in government education and commerce Since the 20th century American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide 6 7 8 9 10 11 American EnglishRegionUnited StatesNative speakers225 million all varieties of English in the United States 2010 census 1 25 6 million L2 speakers of English in the United States 2003 Language familyIndo European GermanicWest GermanicNorth Sea GermanicAnglo FrisianAnglicEnglishNorth American EnglishAmerican EnglishEarly formsOld English Middle English 17th century Modern EnglishWriting systemLatin English alphabet Unified English Braille 2 Official statusOfficial language inNone federallyUnited States 32 US states five non state US territories see article Language codesISO 639 3 GlottologNoneIETFen US sup id cite ref wikidata db6aa4cd71e98871be7bb80f20a410240db4b647 v3 3 0 class reference a href cite note wikidata db6aa4cd71e98871be7bb80f20a410240db4b647 v3 3 3 a sup sup id cite ref wikidata 3298c60607da76dd0e5d5af3f0165b02954fb1f8 v3 4 0 class reference a href cite note wikidata 3298c60607da76dd0e5d5af3f0165b02954fb1f8 v3 4 4 a sup This article contains IPA phonetic symbols Without proper rendering support you may see question marks boxes or other symbols instead of Unicode characters For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA American English varieties include many patterns of pronunciation vocabulary grammar and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other English dialects around the world 12 Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local ethnic or cultural markers is popularly called General or Standard American a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U S and associated nationally with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech However historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single mainstream American accent 13 14 The sound of American English continues to evolve with some local accents disappearing but several larger regional accents having emerged in the 20th century 15 Contents 1 History 2 Phonology 2 1 Conservative phonology 2 2 Innovative phonology 3 Vocabulary 4 Differences between American and British English 5 Varieties 5 1 Regional accents 5 2 General American 5 3 Other varieties 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 Bibliography 10 Further reading 10 1 History of American English 11 External linksHistory EditThe use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas The first wave of English speaking settlers arrived in North America during the early 17th century followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries During the 17th and 18th centuries dialects from many different regions of England and the British Isles existed in every American colony allowing a process of extensive dialect mixture and leveling in which English varieties across the colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in Britain 16 17 English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century s first immigration of non English speakers from Western Europe and Africa Additionally firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English particularly in contrast to the diverse regional dialects of British English became common after the mid 18th century 18 while at the same time speakers identification with this new variety increased 19 Since the 18th century American English has developed into some new varieties including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant and enslaved speakers of diverse languages 20 8 21 Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups geographic settlement their de jure or de facto segregation and patterns in their resettlement This can be seen for example in the influence of the Scotch Irish immigration in Appalachia developing Appalachian English and the Great Migration bringing African American Vernacular English to the Great Lakes urban centers 20 22 Phonology EditFor all phonemes of American English see General American Phonology For the phonologies of regional American dialects see North American English regional phonology Any phonologically unmarked North American accent is known as General American akin to Received Pronunciation in British English which has been referred to as General British This section mostly refers to such General American features Conservative phonology Edit Studies on historical usage of English in both the United States and the United Kingdom suggest that spoken American English did not simply deviate away from period British English but is conservative in some ways preserving certain features contemporary British English has since lost 23 Full rhoticity or R fulness is typical of American accents pronouncing the phoneme r corresponding to the letter r in all environments including after vowels such as in pearl car and court 24 25 Non rhotic American accents those that do not pronounce r except before a vowel such as some Eastern New England New York a specific few often older Southern and African American vernacular accents are often quickly noticed by General American listeners and perceived to sound especially ethnic regional or old fashioned 24 26 27 Rhoticity is common in most American accents although it is now rare in England because during the 17th century British colonization nearly all dialects of English were rhotic and most North American English simply remained that way 28 The preservation of rhoticity in North America was also supported by continuing waves of rhotic accented Scotch Irish immigrants most intensely during the 18th century and moderately during the following two centuries when the Scotch Irish eventually made up one seventh of the colonial population Scotch Irish settlers spread from Delaware and Pennsylvania throughout the larger Mid Atlantic region the inland regions of both the South and North and throughout the West American dialect areas that were all uninfluenced by upper class non rhoticity and that consequently have remained consistently rhotic 29 The pronunciation of r is a postalveolar approximant ɹ listen or retroflex approximant ɻ listen 30 but a unique bunched tongue variant of the approximant r sound is also associated with the United States perhaps mostly in the Midwest and the South 31 American accents that have not undergone the cot caught merger the lexical sets LOT and THOUGHT have instead retained a LOT CLOTH split a 17th century distinction in which certain words labeled as the CLOTH lexical set separated away from the LOT set The split which has now reversed in most British English simultaneously shifts this relatively recent CLOTH set into a merger with the THOUGHT caught set Having taken place prior to the unrounding of the cot vowel it results in lengthening and perhaps raising merging the more recently separated vowel into the THOUGHT vowel in the following environments before many instances of f 8 and particularly s as in Austria cloth cost loss off often etc a few instances before ŋ as in strong long wrong and variably by region or speaker in gone on and certain other words 32 The standard accent of southern England Received Pronunciation RP has evolved in other ways compared to which General American has remained relatively conservative Examples include the modern RP features of a trap bath split and the fronting of oʊ neither of which is typical of General American accents Moreover American dialects do not participate in H dropping an innovative feature that now characterizes perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England Innovative phonology Edit However General American is also innovative in a number of ways Unrounded LOT The American phenomenon of the LOT vowel often spelled o in words like box don clock notch pot etc being produced without rounded lips like the PALM vowel allows father and bother to rhyme the two vowels now unified as the single phoneme ɑ The father bother vowel merger is in a transitional or completed stage in nearly all North American English Exceptions are in northeastern New England English such as the Boston accent as well as variably in some New York accents 33 34 Cot caught merger in transition There is no single American way to pronounce the vowels in words like cot ɑ the ah vowel versus caught ɔ the aw vowel largely because of a merger occurring between the two sounds in some parts of North America but not others American speakers with a completed merger pronounce the two historically separate vowels with the same sound especially in the West northern New England West Virginia western Pennsylvania and the Upper Midwest but other speakers have no trace of a merger at all especially in the South the Great Lakes region southern New England and the Mid Atlantic and New York metropolitan areas and so pronounce each vowel with distinct sounds listen 35 Among speakers who distinguish between the two the vowel of cot usually transcribed in American English as ɑ is often a central ɑ listen or advanced back ɑ while ɔ is pronounced with more rounded lips and or phonetically higher in the mouth close to ɒ listen or ɔ listen but with only slight rounding 36 Among speakers who do not distinguish between them thus producing a cot caught merger ɑ usually remains a back vowel ɑ listen sometimes showing lip rounding as ɒ Therefore even mainstream Americans vary greatly with this speech feature with possibilities ranging from a full merger to no merger at all A transitional stage of the merger is also common in scatterings throughout the United States most consistently in the American Midlands lying between the historical dialect regions of the North and the South while younger Americans in general tend to be transitioning toward the merger According to a 2003 dialect survey carried out across the United States about 61 of participants perceive themselves as keeping the two vowels distinct and 39 do not 37 A 2009 follow up survey put the percentages at 58 non merging speakers and 41 merging 38 STRUT in special words The STRUT vowel rather than the one in LOT or THOUGHT as in Britain is used in function words and certain other words like was of from what everybody nobody somebody anybody and for many speakers because and rarely even want when stressed 39 40 41 42 Vowel mergers before intervocalic r The mergers of certain vowels before r are typical throughout North America the only exceptions existing primarily along the East Coast Mary marry merry merger in transition According to the 2003 dialect survey nearly 57 of participants from around the country self identified as merging the sounds aer as in the first syllable of parish ɛr as in the first syllable of perish and ɛer as in pear or pair 43 The merger is already complete everywhere except along some areas of the Atlantic Coast 44 Hurry furry merger The pre r vowels in words like hurry ʌ and furry ɜ are merged in most American accents to e ɚ Only 10 of American English speakers acknowledge the distinct hurry vowel before r according to the same dialect survey aforementioned 45 Mirror nearer merger in transition The pre r vowels in words like mirror ɪ and nearer i are merged or very similar in most American accents The quality of the historic mirror vowel in the word miracle is quite variable 46 Americans vary slightly in their pronunciations of R colored vowels such as those in ɛer and ɪer which sometimes monophthongizes towards ɛɹ and ɪɹ or tensing towards eɪɹ and i e ɹ respectively That causes pronunciations like pʰeɪɹ for pair pear and pʰieɹ for peer pier 47 Also jʊer is often reduced to jɚ so that cure pure and mature may all end with the sound ɚ thus rhyming with blur and sir The word sure is also part of the rhyming set as it is commonly pronounced ʃɚ Yod dropping Dropping of j after a consonant is much more extensive than in most of England In most North American accents j is dropped or deleted after all alveolar and interdental consonants everywhere except after p b f h k and m and so new duke Tuesday assume are pronounced nu duk ˈtʰuzdeɪ eˈsum compare with Standard British nju djuk ˈtjuzdeɪ eˈsjum 48 T glottalization and flapping mountain glottalized t source source ˈmaʊnʔn partner glottalized t source source ˈpʰɑɹʔnɚ leader d flapping source source ˈɫiɾɚ cattle t flapping source source ˈkʰaeɾɫ party t flapping source source ˈpʰɑɹɾi Optional flapping in certain contexts relatively without flapping source source ˈɹɛɫɨtʰɪvɫi relatively with optional flapping source source ˈɹɛɫɨɾɪvɫi T glottalization t is normally pronounced as a glottal stop ʔ when both after a vowel or a liquid and before a syllabic n or any non syllabic consonant as in button ˈbʌʔn listen or fruitcake ˈfɹuʔkʰeɪk listen In the absolute final position after a vowel or liquid t is also replaced by or simultaneously articulated with glottal constriction 49 thus what wʌʔ or fruit fɹuʔ This innovation of t glottal stopping may occur in British English as well and variably between vowels Flapping t or d becomes a flap ɾ listen both after a vowel or r and before an unstressed vowel or a syllabic consonant other than n including water ˈwɔɾɚ listen party ˈpʰɑɹɾi and model ˈmɑɾɫ This results in pairs such as ladder latter metal medal and coating coding being pronounced the same Flapping of t or d before a full stressed vowel is also possible but only if that vowel begins a new word or morpheme as in what is it wʌɾˈɪzɨʔ and twice in not at all nɑɾɨɾˈɔɫ Other rules apply to flapping to such a complex degree in fact that flapping has been analyzed as being required in certain contexts prohibited in others and optional in still others 50 For instance flapping is prohibited in words like seduce sɨˈdus retail ˈɹitʰeɪɫ and monotone ˈmɑnɨtʰoʊn yet optional in impotence ˈɪmpɨɾɨns ˈɪmpɨtʰɨns Both intervocalic nt and n may commonly be realized as ɾ a nasalized alveolar flap flapping or simply n making winter and winner homophones in fast or informal speech L velarization England s typical distinction between a clear L i e l listen and a dark L i e ɫ listen is much less noticeable in nearly all dialects of American English it is often altogether absent 51 with all L sounds tending to be dark meaning having some degree of velarization 52 perhaps even as dark as ʟ listen though in the initial position perhaps less dark than elsewhere among some speakers 53 The only notable exceptions to this velarization are in some Spanish influenced American English varieties such as East Coast Latino English which typically shows a clear L in syllable onsets and in older moribund Southern speech where L is clear in an intervocalic environment between front vowels 54 Weak vowel merger The vowel ɪ in unstressed syllables generally merges with e and so effect is pronounced like affect and abbot and rabbit rhyme The quality of the merged vowel varies considerably based on the environment but is typically more open like e in word initial or word final position but more close like ɪ ɨ elsewhere 55 Raising of pre voiceless aɪ Many speakers split the sound aɪ based on whether it occurs before a voiceless consonant and so in rider it is pronounced aɪ but in writer it is raised to ʌɪ because t is a voiceless consonant while d is not Thus words like bright hike price wipe etc with a following voiceless consonant such as t k 8 s use a more raised vowel sound compared to bride high prize wide etc Because of this sound change the words rider and writer listen for instance remain distinct from one another by virtue of their difference in height and length of the diphthong s starting point unrelated to both the letters d and t being pronounced in these words as alveolar flaps ɾ The sound change also applies across word boundaries though the position of a word or phrase s stress may prevent the raising from taking place For instance a high school in the sense of secondary school is generally pronounced ˈhɐɪskuɫ however a high school in the literal sense of a tall school would be pronounced ˌhaɪˈskuɫ The sound change began in the Northern New England and Mid Atlantic regions of the country 56 and is becoming more common across the nation Many speakers in the Inland North Upper Midwestern and Philadelphia dialect areas raise aɪ before voiced consonants in certain words as well particularly d g and n Hence words like tiny spider cider tiger dinosaur beside idle but sometimes not idol and fire may contain a raised nucleus The use of ʌɪ rather than aɪ in such words is unpredictable from the phonetic environment alone but it may have to do with their acoustic similarity to other words that with ʌɪ before a voiceless consonant per the traditional Canadian raising system Some researchers have argued that there has been a phonemic split in those dialects and the distribution of the two sounds is becoming more unpredictable among younger speakers 57 Some speakers from California other Western states including those in the Pacific Northwest and the Upper Midwest realize final ɪŋ as in when ɪ short i is raised to become i long ee before the underlying ŋ is converted to n so that coding for example is pronounced ˈkoʊdin homophonous with codeine 58 59 Conditioned ae raising especially before n and m The raising of the ae or TRAP vowel occurs in specific environments that vary widely from region to region but most commonly before n and m With most American speakers for whom the phoneme ae operates under a somewhat continuous system ae has both a tense and a lax allophone with a kind of continuum of possible sounds between both extremes rather than a definitive split In those accents ae is overall realized before nasal stops as tenser approximately ee while other environments are laxer approximately the standard ae for example note the vowel sound in maes for mass but mee n for man In the following audio clip the first pronunciation is the tensed one for the word camp much more common in American English than the second listen In some American accents however specifically those from Baltimore Philadelphia and New York City ae and ee are indeed entirely separate or split phonemes for example in planet pʰlaenɨʔ vs plan it pʰleenɨʔ They are called Mid Atlantic split a systems The vowels move in the opposite direction high and forward in the mouth compared to the backed Standard British broad a but both a systems are probably related phonologically if not phonetically since a British like phenomenon occurs among some older speakers of the eastern New England Boston area for whom ae changes to a before f s 8 d z v alone or when preceded by a homorganic nasal vte ae raising in North American English 60 Following consonant Example words 61 New York City New Orleans 62 Baltimore Philadelphia 63 Midland US New England Pittsburgh Western US Southern US Canada Northern Mountain US Minnesota Wisconsin Great Lakes USNon prevocalic m n fan lamb stand ɛe 64 A B ɛe 64 ɛe ɛje 67 ɛe 68 ɛe 69 Prevocalic m n animal planet Spanish ae ŋ 70 frank language ɛː eɪ ae 71 ae aeɛe 67 ɛː ɛj 68 eː ej 72 Non prevocalic ɡ bag drag ɛe A ae C ae 64 Prevocalic ɡ dragon magazine ae Non prevocalic b d ʃ grab flash sad ɛe A ae 73 ɛe 73 Non prevocalic f 8 s ask bath half glass ɛe A Otherwise as back happy locality ae D a b c d In New York City and Philadelphia most function words am can had etc and some learned or less common words alas carafe lad etc have ae 65 In Philadelphia the irregular verbs began ran and swam have ae 66 In Philadelphia bad mad and glad alone in this context have ɛe 65 In New York City certain lexical exceptions exist like avenue being tense and variability is common before dʒ and z as in imagine magic and jazz 74 In New Orleans ɛe additionally occurs before v and z 75 Short o before r before a vowel In typical North American accents both U S and Canada the historical sequence ɒr a short o sound followed by r and then another vowel as in orange forest moral and warrant is realized as oɹ ɔɹ thus further merging with the already merged ɔr oʊr horse hoarse set In the U S a small number of words namely tomorr ow sorr y sorr ow borr ow and morr ow usually contain the sound ɑɹ instead and thus merge with the ɑr set thus sorry and sari become homophones both rhyming with starry 36 vteGeneral American ɑr and ɔr followed by a vowel compared with other dialects Received Pronunciation General American Metropolitan New York Philadelphia some Southern US some New England CanadaOnly borrow sorrow sorry to morrow ɒr ɑːr ɒr or ɑːr ɔːr Forest Florida historic moral porridge etc ɔːr Forum memorial oral storage story etc ɔːr ɔːr Some mergers found in most varieties of both American and British English include the following Horse hoarse merger This merger makes the vowels ɔ and o before r homophones with homophonous pairs like horse hoarse corps core for four morning mourning war wore etc homophones Many older varieties of American English still keep the sets of words distinct particularly in the extreme Northeast the South especially along the Gulf Coast and the central Midlands 76 but the merger is evidently spreading and younger Americans rarely show the distinction Wine whine merger This produces pairs like wine whine wet whet Wales whales wear where etc homophones in most cases eliminating ʍ also transcribed hw the voiceless labiovelar fricative However scatterings of older speakers who do not merge these pairs still exist nationwide perhaps most strongly in the South 76 Vocabulary EditMain article American English vocabulary The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as English speaking British American colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora fauna and topography from the Native American languages 77 Examples of such names are opossum raccoon squash moose from Algonquian 77 wigwam and moccasin American English speakers have integrated traditionally non English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon for instance en masse from French cookie from Dutch kindergarten from German 78 and rodeo from Spanish 79 80 81 82 Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish and the word corn used in England to refer to wheat or any cereal came to denote the maize plant the most important crop in the U S Most Mexican Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812 with the opening of the West like ranch now a common house style Due to Mexican culinary influence many Spanish words are incorporated in general use when talking about certain popular dishes cilantro instead of coriander queso tacos quesadillas enchiladas tostadas fajitas burritos and guacamole These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants New forms of dwelling created new terms lot waterfront and types of homes like log cabin adobe in the 18th century apartment shanty in the 19th century project condominium townhouse mobile home in the 20th century and parts thereof driveway breezeway backyard citation needed Industry and material innovations from the 19th century onwards provide distinctive new words phrases and idioms through railroading see further at rail terminology and transportation terminology ranging from types of roads dirt roads freeways to infrastructure parking lot overpass rest area to automotive terminology often now standard in English internationally 83 Already existing English words such as store shop lumber underwent shifts in meaning others remained in the U S while changing in Britain Science urbanization and democracy have been important factors in bringing about changes in the written and spoken language of the United States 84 From the world of business and finance came new terms merger downsize bottom line from sports and gambling terminology came specific jargon aside common everyday American idioms including many idioms related to baseball The names of some American inventions remained largely confined to North America elevator except in the aeronautical sense gasoline as did certain automotive terms truck trunk citation needed New foreign loanwords came with 19th and early 20th century European immigration to the U S notably from Yiddish chutzpah schmooze bupkis glitch and German hamburger wiener 85 86 A large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin some have lost their American flavor from OK and cool to nerd and 24 7 while others have not have a nice day for sure 87 88 many are now distinctly old fashioned swell groovy Some English words now in general use such as hijacking disc jockey boost bulldoze and jazz originated as American slang American English has always shown a marked tendency to use words in different parts of speech and nouns are often used as verbs 89 Examples of nouns that are now also verbs are interview advocate vacuum lobby pressure rear end transition feature profile hashtag head divorce loan estimate X ray spearhead skyrocket showcase bad mouth vacation major and many others Compounds coined in the U S are for instance foothill landslide in all senses backdrop teenager brainstorm bandwagon hitchhike smalltime and a huge number of others Other compound words have been founded based on industrialization and the wave of the automobile five passenger car four door sedan two door sedan and station wagon called an estate car in England 90 Some are euphemistic human resources affirmative action correctional facility Many compound nouns have the verb and preposition combination stopover lineup tryout spin off shootout holdup hideout comeback makeover and many more Some prepositional and phrasal verbs are in fact of American origin win out hold up back up off down out face up to and many others 91 Noun endings such as ee retiree ery bakery ster gangster and cian beautician are also particularly productive in the U S 89 Several verbs ending in ize are of U S origin for example fetishize prioritize burglarize accessorize weatherize etc and so are some back formations locate fine tune curate donate emote upholster and enthuse Among syntactical constructions that arose are outside of headed for meet up with back of etc Americanisms formed by alteration of some existing words include notably pesky phony rambunctious buddy sundae skeeter sashay and kitty corner Adjectives that arose in the U S are for example lengthy bossy cute and cutesy punk in all senses sticky of the weather through as in finished and many colloquial forms such as peppy or wacky A number of words and meanings that originated in Middle English or Early Modern English and that have been in everyday use in the United States have since disappeared in most varieties of British English some of these have cognates in Lowland Scots Terms such as fall autumn faucet tap diaper nappy itself unused in the U S candy sweets skillet eyeglasses and obligate are often regarded as Americanisms Fall for example came to denote the season in 16th century England a contraction of Middle English expressions like fall of the leaf and fall of the year 92 better source needed Gotten past participle of get is often considered to be largely an Americanism 8 93 Other words and meanings were brought back to Britain from the U S especially in the second half of the 20th century these include hire to employ I guess famously criticized by H W Fowler baggage hit a place and the adverbs overly and presently currently Some of these for example monkey wrench and wastebasket originated in 19th century Britain The adjectives mad meaning angry smart meaning intelligent and sick meaning ill are also more frequent in American and Irish English than British English 94 95 96 Linguist Bert Vaux created a survey completed in 2003 polling English speakers across the United States about their specific everyday word choices hoping to identify regionalisms 97 The study found that most Americans prefer the term sub for a long sandwich soda but pop in the Great Lakes region and generic coke in the South for a sweet and bubbly soft drink 98 you or you guys for the plural of you but y all in the South sneakers for athletic shoes but often tennis shoes outside the Northeast and shopping cart for a cart used for carrying supermarket goods Differences between American and British English EditMain article Comparison of American and British English American English and British English BrE often differ at the levels of phonology phonetics vocabulary and to a much lesser extent grammar and orthography The first large American dictionary An American Dictionary of the English Language known as Webster s Dictionary was written by Noah Webster in 1828 codifying several of these spellings Differences in grammar are relatively minor and do not normally affect mutual intelligibility these include typically a lack of differentiation between adjectives and adverbs employing the equivalent adjectives as adverbs he ran quick he ran quickly different use of some auxiliary verbs formal rather than notional agreement with collective nouns different preferences for the past forms of a few verbs for example AmE BrE learned learnt burned burnt snuck sneaked dove dived although the purportedly British forms can occasionally be seen in American English writing as well different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts for example AmE in school BrE at school and whether or not a definite article is used in very few cases AmE to the hospital BrE to hospital contrast however AmE actress Elizabeth Taylor BrE the actress Elizabeth Taylor Often these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules and most are not stable since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other 99 and American English is not a standardized set of dialects Differences in orthography are also minor The main differences are that American English usually uses spellings such as flavor for British flavour fiber for fibre defense for defence analyze for analyse license for licence catalog for catalogue and traveling for travelling Noah Webster popularized such spellings in America but he did not invent most of them Rather he chose already existing options on such grounds as simplicity analogy or etymology 100 Other differences are due to the francophile tastes of the 19th century Victorian era Britain for example they preferred programme for program manoeuvre for maneuver cheque for check etc 101 AmE almost always uses ize in words like realize BrE prefers ise but also uses ize on occasion see Oxford spelling There are a few differences in punctuation rules British English is more tolerant of run on sentences called comma splices in American English and American English requires that periods and commas be placed inside closing quotation marks even in cases in which British rules would place them outside American English also favors the double quotation mark like this over the single as here 102 Vocabulary differences vary by region For example autumn is used more commonly in the United Kingdom whereas fall is more common in American English Some other differences include aerial United Kingdom vs antenna biscuit United Kingdom vs cookie cracker car park United Kingdom vs parking lot caravan United Kingdom vs trailer city centre United Kingdom vs downtown flat United Kingdom vs apartment fringe United Kingdom vs bangs and holiday United Kingdom vs vacation 103 AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex whereas BrE 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 However while individuals usually use one or the other both forms will be widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems Varieties Edit ENE WNE NYC PHILADELPHIA INLAND NORTH WPA NORTH CENTRAL WEST MIDLAND SOUTH Texas California Appalachia Boston Pacific Northwest Chesapeake amp Outer Banks Maine New Orleans BaltimoreThe map above shows the major regional dialects of American English in all caps plus smaller and more local dialects as demarcated primarily by Labov et al s The Atlas of North American English 104 as well as the related Telsur Project s regional maps Any region may also contain speakers of a General American accent that resists the marked features of their region Furthermore this map does not account for speakers of ethnic or cultural varieties such as African American English Chicano English Cajun English etc While written American English is largely standardized across the country and spoken American English dialects are highly mutually intelligible there are still several recognizable regional and ethnic accents and lexical distinctions Regional accents Edit Main articles Regional vocabularies of American English and North American English regional phonology The regional sounds of present day American English are reportedly engaged in a complex phenomenon of both convergence and divergence some accents are homogenizing and leveling while others are diversifying and deviating further away from one another 105 Having been settled longer than the American West Coast the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse New England the Mid Atlantic states including a New York accent as well as a unique Philadelphia Baltimore accent and the South As of the 20th century the middle and eastern Great Lakes area Chicago being the largest city with these speakers also ushered in certain unique features including the fronting of the LOT ɑ vowel in the mouth toward a and tensing of the TRAP ae vowel wholesale to ee These sound changes have triggered a series of other vowel shifts in the same region known by linguists as the Inland North 106 The Inland North shares with the Eastern New England dialect including Boston accents a backer tongue positioning of the GOOSE u vowel to u and the MOUTH aʊ vowel to ɑʊ aʊ in comparison to the rest of the country 107 Ranging from northern New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota another Northern regional marker is the variable fronting of ɑ before r 108 for example appearing four times in the stereotypical Boston shibboleth Park the car in Harvard Yard 109 The red dots show every U S metropolitan area where over 50 non rhotic speech was documented among some of that area s white speakers in the 1990s Non rhoticity may be heard among black speakers throughout the whole country 110 Several other phenomena serve to distinguish regional U S accents Boston Pittsburgh Upper Midwestern and Western U S accents have fully completed a merger of the LOT vowel with the THOUGHT vowel ɑ and ɔ respectively 111 a cot caught merger which is rapidly spreading throughout the whole country However the South Inland North and a Northeastern coastal corridor passing through Rhode Island New York City Philadelphia and Baltimore typically preserve an older cot caught distinction 106 For that Northeastern corridor the realization of the THOUGHT vowel is particularly marked as depicted in humorous spellings like in tawk and cawfee talk and coffee which intend to represent it being tense and diphthongal oe 112 A split of TRAP into two separate phonemes using different a pronunciations for example in gap ae versus gas ee further defines New York City as well as Philadelphia Baltimore accents 65 Most Americans preserve all historical ɹ sounds using what is known as a rhotic accent The only traditional r dropping or non rhoticity in regional U S accents variably appears today in eastern New England New York City and some of the former plantation South primarily among older speakers and relatedly some African American Vernacular English across the country though the vowel consonant cluster found in bird work hurt learn etc usually retains its r pronunciation even in these non rhotic American accents Non rhoticity among such speakers is presumed to have arisen from their upper classes close historical contact with England imitating London s r dropping a feature that has continued to gain prestige throughout England from the late 18th century onwards 113 but which has conversely lost prestige in the U S since at least the early 20th century 114 Non rhoticity makes a word like car sound like cah or source like sauce 115 New York City and Southern accents are the most prominent regional accents of the country as well as the most stigmatized and socially disfavored 116 117 118 119 Southern speech strongest in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas is often identified by Americans as a country accent 120 and is defined by the aɪ vowel losing its gliding quality aː the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift including a Southern drawl that makes short front vowels into distinct sounding gliding vowels 121 The fronting of the vowels of GOOSE GOAT MOUTH and STRUT tends to also define Southern accents as well as the accents spoken in the Midland a vast band of the country that constitutes an intermediate dialect region between the traditional North and South Western U S accents mostly fall under the General American spectrum Below ten major American English accents are defined by their particular combinations of certain vowel sounds Accent name Most populous urban center Strong aʊ fronting Strong oʊ fronting Strong u fronting Strong ɑr fronting Cot caught merger Pin pen merger ae raising systemGeneral American No No No No Mixed No pre nasalInland Northern Chicago No No No Yes No No generalMid Atlantic states Philadelphia Yes Yes Yes No No No splitMidland Indianapolis Yes Yes Yes No Mixed Mixed pre nasalNew York City New York City Yes No No 122 No No No splitNorth Central Upper Midwestern Minneapolis No No No Yes Mixed No pre nasal amp pre velarNorthern New England Boston No No No Yes Yes No pre nasalSouthern San Antonio Yes Yes Yes No Mixed Yes SouthernWestern Los Angeles No No Yes No Yes No pre nasalWestern Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Yes Yes Yes No Yes Mixed pre nasalGeneral American Edit Main article General American English In 2010 William Labov noted that Great Lakes Philadelphia Pittsburgh and West Coast accents have undergone vigorous new sound changes since the mid nineteenth century onwards so they are now more different from each other than they were 50 or 100 years ago while other accents like of New York City and Boston have remained stable in that same time frame 105 However a General American sound system also has some debated degree of influence nationwide for example gradually beginning to oust the regional accent in urban areas of the South and at least some in the Inland North Rather than one particular accent General American is best defined as an umbrella covering an American accent that does not incorporate features associated with some particular region ethnicity or socioeconomic group Typical General American features include rhoticity the father bother merger Mary marry merry merger pre nasal short a tensing and other particular vowel sounds c General American features are embraced most by Americans who are highly educated or in the most formal contexts and regional accents with the most General American native features include North Midland Western New England and Western accents Other varieties Edit Although no longer region specific 123 African American Vernacular English which remains the native variety of most working and middle class African Americans has a close relationship to Southern dialects and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans including hip hop culture Hispanic and Latino Americans have also developed native speaker varieties of English The best studied Latino Englishes are Chicano English spoken in the West and Midwest and New York Latino English spoken in the New York metropolitan area Additionally ethnic varieties such as Yeshiva English and Yinglish are spoken by some American Orthodox Jews Cajun Vernacular English by some Cajuns in southern Louisiana and Pennsylvania Dutch English by some Pennsylvania Dutch people American Indian Englishes have been documented among diverse Indian tribes The island state of Hawaii though primarily English speaking is also home to a creole language known commonly as Hawaiian Pidgin and some Hawaii residents speak English with a Pidgin influenced accent American English also gave rise to some dialects outside the country for example Philippine English beginning during the American occupation of the Philippines and subsequently the Insular Government of the Philippine Islands Thomasites first established a variation of American English in these islands 124 See also Edit United States portal Language portalAmerican and British English spelling differences Canadian English Dictionary of American Regional English International English International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects International Phonetic Alphabet chart for the English Language List of English words from indigenous languages of the Americas Phonological history of English Regional accents of English Transatlantic accentNotes Edit en US is the language code for U S English as defined by ISO standards see ISO 639 1 and ISO 3166 1 alpha 2 and Internet standards see IETF language tag and variously abbreviated AmE AE AmEng USEng and en US a Dialects are considered rhotic if they pronounce the r sound in all historical environments without ever dropping this sound The father bother merger is the pronunciation of the unrounded ɒ vowel variant as in cot lot bother etc the same as the ɑ vowel as in spa haha Ma causing words like con and Kahn and like sob and Saab to sound identical with the vowel usually realized in the back or middle of the mouth as ɑ ɑ Finally most of the U S participates in a continuous nasal system of the short a vowel in cat trap bath etc causing ae to be pronounced with the tongue raised and with a glide quality typically sounding like ɛe particularly when before a nasal consonant thus mad is maed but man is more like mɛen References Edit English United States at Ethnologue 18th ed 2015 subscription required Unified English Braille UEB Braille Authority of North America BANA November 2 2016 Retrieved January 2 2017 English IANA language subtag registry subject named as en publication date 16 October 2005 retrieved 11 January 2019 United States IANA language subtag registry subject named as US publication date 16 October 2005 retrieved 11 January 2019 Crystal David 1997 English as a Global Language Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 53032 3 Engel Matthew 2017 That s the Way It Crumbles the American Conquest of English London Profile Books ISBN 9781782832621 OCLC 989790918 Fears of British English s disappearance are overblown The Economist July 20 2017 ISSN 0013 0613 Retrieved April 18 2019 a b c Harbeck James July 15 2015 Why isn t American a language BBC Retrieved April 18 2019 Reddy C Rammanohar The Readers Editor writes Why Is American English Becoming Part of Everyday Usage in India Scroll in Retrieved April 18 2019 Cookies or biscuits Data shows use of American English is growing the world over Hindustan Times The Guardian July 17 2017 Retrieved September 10 2020 Goncalves Bruno Loureiro Porto Lucia Ramasco Jose J Sanchez David May 25 2018 Mapping the Americanization of English in Space and Time PLOS ONE 13 5 e0197741 arXiv 1707 00781 Bibcode 2018PLoSO 1397741G doi 10 1371 journal pone 0197741 PMC 5969760 PMID 29799872 Kretzchmar 2004 pp 262 263 Labov 2012 pp 1 2 Kretzchmar 2004 p 262 Do You Speak American What Lies Ahead PBS Retrieved August 15 2007 Kretzchmar 2004 pp 258 9 Longmore 2007 pp 517 520 Longmore 2007 p 537 Paulsen I 2022 The emergence of American English as a discursive variety Tracing enregisterment processes in nineteenth century U S newspapers pdf Berlin Language Science Press doi 10 5281 zenodo 6207627 ISBN 9783961103386 a b Hickey R 2014 Dictionary of varieties of English Wiley Blackwell p 25 Hickey R 2014 Dictionary of varieties of English Wiley Blackwell p 25 Mufwene Salikoko S 1999 North American Varieties of English as Byproducts of Population Contacts The Workings of Language From Prescriptions to Perspectives Ed Rebecca Wheeler Westport CT Praeger 15 37 What Is the Difference between Theater and Theatre Wisegeek org May 15 2015 Retrieved June 1 2015 a b Plag Ingo Braun Maria Lappe Sabine Schramm Mareile 2009 Introduction to English Linguistics Walter de Gruyter p 53 ISBN 978 3 11 021550 2 Retrieved July 4 2013 Collins amp Mees 2002 p 178 Collins amp Mees 2002 pp 181 306 Wolchover Natalie 2012 Why Do Americans and Brits Have Different Accents LiveScience Purch Lass Roger 1990 Early Mainland Residues in Southern Hiberno English Irish University Review 20 1 137 148 JSTOR 25484343 Wolfram Walt Schilling Natalie 2015 American English Dialects and Variation John Wiley amp Sons pp 103 104 Halle Best amp Levitt 1999 p 283 Kortmann amp Schneider 2004 p 317 Wells 1982 pp 136 7 203 4 Wells 1982 pp 136 37 203 6 234 245 47 339 40 400 419 443 576 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 171 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 61 a b Wells 1982 p 476 Vaux Bert Golder Scott 2003 Do you pronounce cot and caught the same The Harvard Dialect Survey Cambridge MA Harvard University Linguistics Department Vaux Bert Johndal Marius L 2009 Do you pronounce cot and caught the same Cambridge Online Survey of World Englishes Cambridge Cambridge University According to Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary Eleventh Edition Want meaning and definitions Dictionary infoplease com Retrieved May 29 2013 want The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Fourth Edition 2000 Bartleby com Archived from the original on January 9 2008 Retrieved May 29 2013 Want Definition and More from the Free Merriam Webster Dictionary M w com Retrieved May 29 2013 Vaux Bert and Scott Golder 2003 How do you pronounce Mary merry marry The Harvard Dialect Survey Cambridge MA Harvard University Linguistics Department Kortmann amp Schneider 2004 p 295 Vaux Bert and Scott Golder 2003 flourish Archived 2015 07 11 at the Wayback Machine The Harvard Dialect Survey Cambridge MA Harvard University Linguistics Department Vaux Bert and Scott Golder 2003 the first vowel in miracle The Harvard Dialect Survey Cambridge MA Harvard University Linguistics Department Wells 1982 pp 481 482 Wells 1982 p 247 Seyfarth Scott Garellek Marc 2015 Coda glottalization in American English In ICPhS University of California San Diego p 1 Vaux Bert 2000 Flapping in English Linguistic Society of America Chicago IL p 6 Grzegorz Dogil Susanne Maria Reiterer Walter de Gruyter eds 2009 Language Talent and Brain Activity Trends in Applied Linguistics Walter de Gruyter GmbH p 299 ISBN 978 3 11 021549 6 Wells 1982 p 490 Jones Roach amp Hartman 2006 p xi A Handbook of Varieties of English Bernd Kortmann amp Edgar W Schneider Walter de Gruyter 2004 p 319 Wells 2008 p xxi Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 114 where Canadian raising has traditionally been reported Canada Eastern New England Philadelphia and the North Freuhwald Josef T November 11 2007 The Spread of Raising Opacity lexicalization and diffusion University of Pennsylvania Retrieved September 21 2016 Metcalf Allan 2000 The Far West and beyond How We Talk American Regional English Today Houghton Mifflin Harcourt p 143 ISBN 0618043624 Another pronunciation even more widely heard among older teens and adults in California and throughout the West is een for ing as in I m think een of go een camp een Hunter Marsha Johnson Brian K 2009 Articulators and Articulation The Articulate Advocate New Techniques of Persuasion for Trial Attorneys Crown King Books p 92 ISBN 9780979689505 Regional Accents A distinguishing characteristic of the Upper Midwestern accent is the tendency to turn the ing sound into een with a cheerful Good morneen Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 182 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 pp 173 174 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 pp 173 174 260 261 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 pp 173 174 238 239 a b c Duncan 2016 pp 1 2 a b c Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 173 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 238 a b Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 pp 178 180 a b Boberg 2008 p 145 Duncan 2016 pp 1 2 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 pp 175 177 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 183 Baker Mielke amp Archangeli 2008 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 pp 181 182 a b Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 pp 82 123 177 179 Labov 2007 p 359 Labov 2007 p 373 a b Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 52 a b Skeat Walter William 1892 Principles of English etymology The native element Walter William Skeat At the Clarendon Press p 1 Retrieved June 1 2015 moose etymology You Already Know Some German Words Retrieved January 9 2017 Montano Mario January 1 1992 The history of Mexican folk foodways of South Texas Street vendors o Thesis Repository upenn edu pp 1 421 Retrieved June 1 2015 Gorrell Robert M 2001 What s in a Word Etymological Gossip about Some Interesting English Words Robert M Gorrell ISBN 9780874173673 Retrieved June 1 2015 Bailey Vernon 1895 The Pocket Gophers of the United States U S Department of Agriculture Division of Ornithology and Mammalogy Retrieved June 1 2015 Mencken H L January 1 2010 The American Language A Preliminary Inquiry Into the Development of English H L Mencken ISBN 9781616402594 Retrieved June 1 2015 A few of these are now chiefly found or have been more productive outside the U S for example jump to drive past a traffic signal block meaning building and center central point in a town or main area for a particular activity cf Oxford English Dictionary Elizabeth Ball Carr August 1954 Trends in Word Compounding in American Speech Thesis Louisiana State University The Maven s Word of the Day gesundheit Random House Retrieved May 29 2013 Trudgill 2004 Definition of day noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner s Dictionary Oup com Retrieved May 29 2013 Definition of sure adjective from the Oxford Advanced Learner s Dictionary Oup com Retrieved May 29 2013 a b Trudgill 2004 p 69 The Word American vs British Smackdown Station wagon vs estate car Retrieved April 18 2019 British author George Orwell in English People 1947 cited in OED s v lose criticized an alleged American tendency to burden every verb with a preposition that adds nothing to its meaning win out lose out face up to etc Harper Douglas fall Online Etymology Dictionary A Handbook of Varieties of English Bernd Kortmann amp Edgar W Schneider Walter de Gruyter 2004 p 115 angry Oxford Advanced Learner s Dictionary Archived from the original on March 9 2013 Retrieved May 29 2013 intelligent Oxford Advanced Learner s Dictionary Archived from the original on March 9 2013 Retrieved May 29 2013 Definition of ill adjective from the Oxford Advanced Learner s Dictionary Oald8 oxfordlearnersdictionaries com Archived from the original on May 27 2013 Retrieved May 29 2013 Vaux Bert and Scott Golder 2003 The Harvard Dialect Survey Archived 2016 04 30 at the Wayback Machine Cambridge MA Harvard University Linguistics Department Katz Joshua 2013 Beyond Soda Pop or Coke North Carolina State University Algeo John 2006 British or American English Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 37993 8 Algeo John The Effects of the Revolution on Language in A Companion to the American Revolution John Wiley amp Sons 2008 p 599 Peters Pam 2004 The Cambridge Guide to English Usage Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 62181 X pp 34 and 511 Punctuating Around Quotation Marks blog Style Guide of the American Psychological Association 2011 Retrieved March 21 2015 British vs American English Vocabulary Differences www studyenglishtoday net Retrieved April 18 2019 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 148 a b Labov 2012 a b Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 190 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 pp 230 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 111 Vorhees Mara 2009 Boston Con Pianta Ediz Inglese Lonely Planet p 52 ISBN 978 1 74179 178 5 Labov p 48 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 60 Labov William Ash Sharon Boberg Charles January 1 2005 New England PDF The Atlas of North American English Phonetics Phonology and Sound Change Archived PDF from the original on October 9 2022 This phonemic and phonetic arrangement of the low back vowels makes Rhode Island more similar to New York City than to the rest of New England Trudgill 2004 pp 46 47 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 pp 5 47 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 pp 137 141 Hayes Dean 2013 The Southern Accent and Bad English A Comparative Perceptual Study of the Conceptual Network between Southern Linguistic Features and Identity UNM Digital Repository Electronic Theses and Dissertations pp 5 51 Gordon Matthew J Schneider Edgar W 2008 New York Philadelphia and other northern cities Phonology Varieties of English 2 67 86 Hartley Laura 1999 A View from the West Perceptions of U S Dialects from the Point of View of Oregon Faculty Publications Department of World Languages Sociology amp Cultural Studies 17 Yannuar N Azimova K Nguyen D 2014 Perceptual Dialectology Northerners and Southerners View of Different American Dialects k ta 16 1 pp 11 13 Hayes 2013 p 51 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 p 125 Labov Ash amp Boberg 2006 pp 101 103 Trudgill 2004 p 42 Dayag Danilo 2004 The English language media in the Philippines World Englishes 23 33 45 doi 10 1111 J 1467 971X 2004 00333 X S2CID 145589555 Bibliography EditBaker Adam Mielke Jeff Archangeli Diana 2008 More velar than g Consonant Coarticulation as a Cause of Diphthongization PDF In Chang Charles B Haynie Hannah J eds Proceedings of the 26th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics Somerville Massachusetts Cascadilla Proceedings Project pp 60 68 ISBN 978 1 57473 423 2 Archived PDF from the original on October 9 2022 Boberg Charles 2008 Regional phonetic differentiation in Standard Canadian English Journal of English Linguistics 36 2 129 154 doi 10 1177 0075424208316648 S2CID 146478485 Boyce S Espy Wilson C 1997 Coarticulatory stability in American English r PDF Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 101 6 3741 3753 Bibcode 1997ASAJ 101 3741B CiteSeerX 10 1 1 16 4174 doi 10 1121 1 418333 PMID 9193061 Archived PDF from the original on October 9 2022 Collins Beverley Mees Inger M 2002 The Phonetics of Dutch and English 5 ed Leiden Boston Brill Publishers Delattre P Freeman D C 1968 A dialect study of American R s by x ray motion picture Linguistics 44 29 68 Duncan Daniel 2016 Tense ae is still lax A phonotactics study PDF In Hansson Gunnar olafur Farris Trimble Ashley McMullin Kevin Pulleyblank Douglas eds Supplemental Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Meeting on Phonology Proceedings of the Annual Meetings on Phonology Vol 3 Washington D C Linguistic Society of America doi 10 3765 amp v3i0 3653 Halle Pierre A Best Catherine T Levitt Andrea 1999 Phonetic vs phonological influences on French listeners perception of American English approximants Journal of Phonetics 27 3 281 306 doi 10 1006 jpho 1999 0097 Jones Daniel Roach Peter Hartman James 2006 English Pronouncing Dictionary Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 68086 8 Retrieved February 20 2021 Kortmann Bernd Schneider Edgar W 2004 A Handbook of Varieties of English Walter de Gruyter GmbH amp Company KG ISBN 978 3 11 017532 5 Retrieved February 20 2021 Kretzchmar William A 2004 Kortmann Bernd Schneider Edgar W eds A Handbook of Varieties of English Berlin New York Mouton de Gruyter ISBN 9783110175325 Labov William 2012 Dialect diversity in America The politics of language change University of Virginia Labov William 2007 Transmission and Diffusion PDF Language 83 2 344 387 CiteSeerX 10 1 1 705 7860 doi 10 1353 lan 2007 0082 JSTOR 40070845 S2CID 6255506 Archived PDF from the original on October 9 2022 Labov William Ash Sharon Boberg Charles 2006 The Atlas of North American English Berlin Mouton de Gruyter ISBN 978 3 11 016746 7 Longmore Paul K 2007 Good English without Idiom or Tone The Colonial Origins of American Speech The Journal of Interdisciplinary History MIT 37 4 513 542 doi 10 1162 jinh 2007 37 4 513 JSTOR 4139476 S2CID 143910740 Trudgill Peter 2004 New Dialect Formation The Inevitability of Colonial Englishes Wells John 2008 Longman Pronunciation Dictionary Pearson ISBN 978 1 4058 8118 0 Retrieved February 20 2021 Wells John C 1982 Accents of English Volume 1 An Introduction pp i xx 1 278 Volume 2 The British Isles pp i xx 279 466 Volume 3 Beyond the British Isles pp i xx 467 674 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 52129719 2 0 52128540 2 0 52128541 0 Zawadzki P A Kuehn D P 1980 A cineradiographic study of static and dynamic aspects of American English r Phonetica 37 4 253 266 doi 10 1159 000259995 PMID 7443796 S2CID 46760239 Further reading EditBailey Richard W 2012 Speaking American A History of English in the United States 20th 21st century usage in different cities Bartlett John R 1848 Dictionary of Americanisms A Glossary of Words and Phrases Usually Regarded As Peculiar to the United States New York Bartlett and Welford Garner Bryan A 2003 Garner s Modern American Usage New York Oxford University Press Mencken H L 1977 1921 The American Language An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States 4th ed New York Knopf History of American English Edit Bailey Richard W 2004 American English Its origins and history In E Finegan amp J R Rickford Eds Language in the USA Themes for the twenty first century pp 3 17 Cambridge Cambridge University Press Finegan Edward 2006 English in North America In R Hogg amp D Denison Eds A history of the English language pp 384 419 Cambridge Cambridge University Press External links Edit Look up American English in Wiktionary the free dictionary Wikisource has the text of the 1905 New International Encyclopedia article Americanisms Wikiversity has learning resources about American English Do You Speak American PBS special Dialect Survey of the United States by Bert Vaux et al Harvard University Linguistic Atlas Projects Phonological Atlas of North America at the University of Pennsylvania Speech Accent Archive Dictionary of American Regional English Dialect maps based on pronunciation Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title American English amp oldid 1132584605, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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