The formation of American English

American English (American English or American English) is a form of English used in the United States. It is the most important language in America. According to the census of 1990, 97% American residents can use English "very well" or "very well", and only 0.8% people don't use English at all, compared with 3.6% in 1890. By 2005, more than two-thirds of native English speakers will use American English.

history

When Britain was colonized in North America, English began to be introduced into North America. The first wave of English-speaking immigrants was in the17th century. At the same time, there are people who use Dutch, French, Spanish and Swedish in North America.

Jamestown, Virginia was founded in 1607 (the first British colony in North America).

Plymouth Colony in New England was established in Plymouth, Massachusetts on 1602.

1664, British troops occupied New Holland.

1763, Britain acquired the French colony New France and the Spanish colony Florida.

speech sound

Compared with British English, American English tends to be conservative in phonology in many aspects. Some people think that some rural accents in North America are the same as English in Elizabeth I's time, and they are still under discussion. However, compared with the local accent of contemporary England, the standard American English in the midwest and north of the United States is closer to17th century English in pronunciation. The main reason why American English pronunciation is conservative is that it is a mixture of British Isles dialects. Because of its close relationship with England, Britain was still in an advantageous position at that time, and the American East Coast accent changed with the development of British English. There is relatively little contact between the inland areas of the United States and Britain, which largely retains the original accent.

Most contemporary North American English has a rolling tongue (also called rolling tongue), and the letter R should also be "voiced" before the consonant; Although there is no tongue curl in British English today, it has spread all over England in the17th century. Influenced by Irish English and Scottish English, tongue rolling has been further developed in the United States. In most North American English dialects, the letter R is pronounced as a rolling semi-vowel, not a trill. The sound "er" in fur (stressed) and butter (unstressed) is marked as [? ] and [? ], but in American English, it is a "rolled tongue vowel".

Other changes in British English are not reflected in American English, such as:

Consonants [f], [s], [θ], [? ], [z], [v] or [n], [? ] Change the voice to [ɑ]. Therefore, there are obvious differences between British English and American English in the pronunciation of such words as bath and dance. This change has not happened anywhere else in the United States except New England.

[t] change the voice to glottic plug [? ], such as bottle pronunciation /b? L/. However, it should be noted that this change is not common in British English, nor is it included in British "standard pronunciation"; Most dialects in North America have not changed at all, but this change is very obvious on the east coast of the United States, including Newfoundland English in Canada.

On the other hand, the pronunciation of North American English has changed for hundreds of years, but these changes have not happened in Britain (at least in standard accent). Many of them belong to phoneme changes:

[1:] and [? ] two sounds are combined into [ɑ:], which makes the parent and both rhyme. It is very common in North American English, and this change has taken place in almost all American accents except Boston accent.

[? ] and [? :] Two sounds are merged into [? :], also known as cot-catched merger, that is, cot and catched become homophones. This change takes place in the accents in eastern New England, around Pittsburgh and in the western Great Plains.

In the letters r, [], [? ] and [? ] Three sounds are combined into []. For many American English speakers, Mary, Merry and Mary are homophones. But sometimes this situation is not obvious, only two are homophones.

Before the letter r, [? ] and [me? ] two sounds are merged into [? ], Sirius and serious become homophones, mirrors and more recent rhymes.

Before the letter r, [? ] and [? ] two sounds are merged into [? ], furry rhymes with hurry.

In some parts of North America, there are some words [] and [? ] These two sounds merge into [? ], healing, purity, maturity and affirmation all rhyme with fir.

After [n], [d], [t], [s], [z] and [l], the sound [j] disappears, so new, duke, Tuesday, suit, resume and duke are pronounced as /nu? /,/Du? k/、/tu？ zde？ /,/Sue? t/、/zu？ M/,/Lu? t/。

[Different accents? ] the sound is lengthened and changed. This is obvious in the accents from Pennsylvania to new york, such as "Yes, I can? N] "and" tin cans [ke? n].

Before weakening vowels, both [t] and [d] sounds become gum tapping sounds. For example, ladder and latter are almost homophones, which may only be distinguished by the lengthening of the preceding vowel. Sometimes this kind of merger is incomplete, and the situation is different in different places.

The [t] sound between [n] and unstressed vowels will disappear, resulting in the same pronunciation of winter and winner. This is not the case with the stress of the syllable where T is located.

In many North American accents, before nasal consonants, [? ] the voice rises to [? ] sound, causing pen and pin to sound the same. This change originated from the southern dialect of the United States and has spread throughout the central and western regions.

Some combinations of British English and American English include:

Before the letter r, [? :] and [] are combined into [? :], leading to horse/hoarseness, corps/core, for/ four, morning/funeral and other homophones. There are still differences between these words in the ancient dialects of East New England and new york-New Jersey, but today, this change also permeates these areas widely. There may be some differences between South Coast English and Black English, but [? ] has largely merged with the chord [u].

The sound [h] before [w] disappears. Such as wine/ whoops, wet/wheel, Wales/wheels, wear/where and other homophones. These words are still different in some dialects in the south and west of the United States, but today the trend of merging is more and more extensive.

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Differences between American English and British English

There are some minor differences in spelling and grammar between American English and British English. One of them is that American English regularizes irregular spelling in British English. Different from the language reform in the 20th century (such as the alphabet reform in Turkey and the spelling reform in Norway), the spelling change in the United States was not promoted by the government, but initiated by the editors of textbooks or dictionaries.

The first dictionary in the United States was compiled by noah webster in 1828. At that time, America was a new country. Webster wrote this dictionary to show that the American dialect is different from the English dialect at that time, and it contains many words that are different from the standard writing. Many times it was first initiated by Webster. Webster also supported the simplification of many words at that time. However, many (not all) simplified characters advocated by him are different from the original characters and are commonly used by people every day, which further confuses the situation at that time.

Many American English words are reduced from standard British English. Some, such as centre, have been replaced by center, and there are many different ways to write it. But American English prefers words with longer pronunciations, while British English prefers to omit them: for example, American English often uses transportation, while British English often uses transport. In addition, British English uses more reverse word formation: for example, verbs derived from the word burger become burglaze in American English and burgle in British English.

American loanwords (not common in Britain)

Influenced by the languages of non-English speaking countries, American English has undergone further changes. For example, many American words come from Spanish and Indian.

The following are some commonly used American loanwords (not commonly used in British English, many of which are spread through the influence of American entertainment industry):

From African languages:

gumbo

From Dutch:

Cookies. Cookies.

Death passage, stream

From French (many words only appear in Louisiana):

Banquette elevated sidewalk, shooting cribs (often used locally)

Pie pancakes with stuffing

Sausage, pig blood sausage

milk coffee

Chowder

Soup stewed with vegetables and seafood (commonly used locally)

Assorted rice

A small gift given to customers by lagniappe store (usually used locally)

New Orleans French toast

A canoe made by hollowing out the trunk (usually used locally)

Nut candy

Zydeco chaidico dance (commonly used locally)

From India:

Changzhaowan

Chinook Chinook wind (dry warm wind blowing down from the mountain)

pumpkin

Boiled corn beans

From Spanish:

Adobe adobe (originally in Arabic)

Arroyo valley, river bed

Barrio administrative district (especially Latin ethnic residential area)

American donkey

bravo

Festivals (especially Saint's Day celebrated by parades and dances in Spain and Latin America)

Frijoles kidney bean

Manor manor

Men (only men in English)

Mesa Pingdingshan

soon

From Yiddish:

ungainly person

Kvetch complains

Smoked salmon

Schleip struggled to carry.

Idiot, idiot, idiot

waste

Clumsy person

From Japanese:

Tycoon tycoon (former Japanese character: Dajun) (original author, this is from the "big official" in Cantonese in the past, not Japanese? This is not an "official" of a government official, but an old-fashioned "official" who calls the young master a big official. )

Honcho boss, head (original Japanese character: monitor)

Please refer to the differences between American English and British English for more details.

regional difference

In written language, although American English has been quite standardized in the United States, different colloquial slang still exists. There are several distinct regions (such as new york and New Jersey) with different pronunciations and different vocabularies.

Traditionally, most people think that "American Putonghua" and its accent (ordinary Americans, sometimes called "standard Midwest Americans") are unwritten standard dialects and accents. However, many linguists claim that since 1960s or 1970s, California English has become the de facto standard because of its core position in American entertainment industry. Others think that although the entertainment circle is in California, it still uses Midwest American English. It is generally believed that some features of California English, especially the phenomenon of cot-catch merger, do not belong to the standard category.

Great changes have taken place in North American dialects on the east coast. Boston, Philadelphia, Charleston (South Carolina) and New Orleans are important cultural centers, which have great influence on the surrounding areas in accent and language use.

African American English also contains many unique forms.