differences between: AMERICAN ENGLISH

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differences betweenAMERICAN ENGLISH BRITISH
ENGLISH

• Lauren Carney
• Lindsay Munnelly

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bringing english to america.

• Early 1600s
• The first wave of English-speaking settlers
  arrive in North America as part of the British
  colonization movement. They bring English, now
  an emigrant language, to native North
  Americans in addition, the settlers and their
  families continue to speak their own native
  tongue.
• The process of an emigrant languages evolution
• 1) The language evolves from a
  specific homeland language.
• 2) The emigrant language begins to change
  course because of
• lack of direct contact with the
  homeland.
• 3) The emigrant language continues
  to evolve away from
• the homeland, gradually
  creating a new dialect.
• 4) The homeland dialect continues to
  evolve as well, diverging
• further away from the emigrant
  dialect of the language.

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over the next 400 years

• Between the end of the 17th century and the 21st
  century, many gradual changes to the form of the
  English language have taken place under this
  process.
• The process caused the Americans and the British
  to diverge so drastically in terms of the forms
  of their languages that they are now considered
  two separate English language dialects.
• 1806 Noah Webster publishes his first
  dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the
  English Language.
• Up until this time, English
  dictionaries included strictly British
• vocabulary, spellings, and
  pronunciations.
• Webster was convinced that an
  outline of a common,
• American, national language
  would unify his country.

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Websters Dictionaries.

• 1828 publishes American Dictionary of the
  English Language
• 1890 Merriam brothers who received the rights
  to Websters dictionaries after his death
  publish Websters First International Dictionary,
  an all-encompassing look at the English language
• Noah Websters intentions?
• To prove that Americans spoke a
  different
• dialect than the British but a
  dialect that was in no
• way inferior he believed it deserved a
  unique
• documentation of its own
  trends
• Merriams intentions?
• "The purpose of the dictionary
  is to provide a record of
• the language as it is used by
  educated people who
• have been speaking and writing
  it all their lives.
• -- H. Bosley Woolf
  Merriam's editorial director

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British English history.

• West-Germanic
• A borrowing language enriched by Anglo-Saxon,
  Scandinavian, and Norman influences
• Evolved over many centuries experienced many
  shifts/changes
• Spread of British English is attributed to trade
  and commerce throughout the established British
  Empire

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Visible Changes?

• There are quite a few noticeable differences
  between the British English dialect and the
  evolved dialect of American English.
• These are the ones we will cover
• Spelling
• Pronunciation accent
• Pronunciation affixes
• Pronunciation stress
• Grammar
• Vocabulary

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Spelling.
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Spelling, continued.

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Spelling, continued.

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Spelling, continued.
Other word-specific differences --
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Spelling last one!.
Base words that end in L normally double the L in
British English when a suffix is added.
The letter can double in American as well but
ONLY IF the stress is on the second syllable of
the base word.
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Pronunciation accent

• The British accent was created by a mixture of
  the Midland and Southern dialects of the Middle
  Ages.
• There are many sub-dialects and varying accents
  under British English.
• American English was not so strongly influenced
  by the accent as Australia or New Zealand, for
  example the Americas broke away from British
  control much earlier and were distanced from
  direct speakers of the language as a result.

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Pronunciation accent

• British English non-rhotic
• American English rhotic
• This means that R is only pronounced in
  British English when it is immediately followed
  by a vowel sound.
• R in British English is either not pronounced
  or replaced with a schwa

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Pronunciation accent

• American English has fewer vowel distinctions
  before intervocalic R sounds. This means that,
  in American English
• merry, marry, and Mary
  often sound the same
• mirror rhymes with nearer
• furry rhymes with hurry
• British English has three open back vowels while
  American English has only two or even one

Most American English speakers use the same vowel
for short O as for broad A father and
bother often rhyme.
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Pronunciation accent

• Other vowel pronunciation differences
• British English broad A
• American English short A
• in most words when A is followed by N followed
  by another consonant,
• or S, F, or TH like plant, pass, laugh
• British English has a distinct length difference
  between short and long vowels the long
  vowels begin diphthongs
• American English often loses the distinction
  between unstressed /?/ and /?/ as in roses and
  Rosas in British English, it is maintained
  because of the non-rhotic nature of the language
  in order to make words like batted and battered
  sound distinctly different.
• American English experiences a yod-dropping after
  all alveolar consonants i.e. /ju/ British
  English speakers always retain /j/ after /n/
  i.e. new in British English is /nju?/ but in
  American English it is /nu?/, retain or coalesce
  it after /t/ and /d/ i.e. due in British English
  is /dju/ but in American English it is /du/.

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Pronunciation accent

• There are also many individual pronunciation
  differences that depend on the particular
  vocabulary word and the speaker who is
  pronouncing it.

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Pronunciation affixes

• -ary, -ery, -ory, -bury, -berry, -mony
• When the syllable before these affixes is
  stressed, American and British English pronounce
  these endings in a similar way /?ri(?)/
• When it is unstressed, American English uses a
  full vowel rather than a schwa while British
  English retains the reduced vowel or elides it
  completely.
• i.e. military American /'m?l?t?ri?/
  and British /'m?l?t?ri?/ or /'m?l?tri?/
• Exceptions, in which the full vowel is used in
  American English even though the preceding
  syllable is stressed library, primary, rosemary
• -berry American English usually always uses a
  full vowel British English uses a full
• vowel after an unstressed syllable and a
  reduced one after a stressed syllable
• /b?ri?/
  /b?ri?/ or
  /bri?/
• example strawberry British
  /'str??b?ri?/ American /'str?b?ri/

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Pronunciation affixes

• Adverbs -arily, -erily or -orily
• British English speakers follow the American
  practice of shifting the stress to the
  antepenultimate syllable i.e. militarily is
  /?m?l?'t?r?li?/ not /'m?l?tr?li?/
• -ile
• When words end in an unstressed -ile, British
  English speakers pronounce them with a full
  vowel /a?l/ while American speakers pronounce
  them with either a reduced vowel /?l/ or a
  syllabic /l/ i.e. in British English, fertile
  rhymes with fur tile in American English, it
  would rhyme with turtle
• examples of words this applies to
• mobile, fragile, sterile, missile, versatile,
  etc.
• examples of exceptions to this difference
• reptile, exile, turnstile, senile, etc.
• -ine
• When unstressed, this affix can be pronounced as
  /a?n/ (like feline), /i(?)n/ (like morphine), or
  /?n/ (like medicine). Generally speaking,
  British English uses /a?n/ most often while
  American English favors /in/ or /?n/ i.e.
  crystalline

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Pronunciation stress

• In the case of French loanwords, American English
  has final-syllable stress while British English
  has penultimate or antepenultimate stress.
• British English first-syllable stress
• adult, ballet, baton, pastel, vaccine
• British English second-syllable stress
• escargot, fiancee

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Pronunciation stress

• There are also other words borrowed from French
  that feature stress differences.
• American first-syllable British last-syllable
• address, mustache, cigarette, magazine
• American 1st-syllable British 2nd-syllable
• liaison, Renaissance
• American 2nd-syllable British last-syllable
• New Orleans

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Pronunciation stress

• Most two syllable verbs that end in ate have
  first syllable stress in American English and
  second-syllable stress in British English (i.e.
  castrate, locate)
• Derived adjectives with the ending
• -atory differ in both dialects for British
  English, the stress shifts to at whereas
  American English will stress the same syllable as
  the corresponding ate verb (i.e. regulatory,
  celebratory, laboratory)

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Grammar.

• VERBS
• morphology
• American -- "-ed"
• British -- "-t"
• i.e. learned/learnt, dreamed/dreamt
• British English rarely use gotten instead,
  got
• is much more common.
• Past participles often vary
• i.e. saw American sawed British
  sawn
• tenses
• British English employs the present perfect to
  talk about a recent event i.e. Ive already
  eaten, Ive just arrived home.
• auxiliaries
• British English often uses shall and shant
• American English uses will and wont

• NOUNS
• In British English, collective nouns can take
  either singular or plural verb forms, depending
  on whether the emphasis is on the body or the
  members within it.
• i.e.A committee was appointed.
• The committee were unable
• to agree.

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Creation of American Lexicon.

• From the beginning, Americans borrowed words from
  Native American languages for unfamiliar objects
  i.e. opossum, squash, moccasin
• They took many loanwords from other colonizing
  nations i.e. cookie, kill, and stoop from Dutch
  levee , prairie, and gopher from French
  barbecue, canyon, and rodeo from Spanish
• British words were obviously borrowed, but often
  evolved to mean new things in an American
  landscape i.e. creek, barrens, trail, bluff,
  etc.
• With the development of the new continent, new
  words were necessarily brought in to describe new
  things split-level in real estate,
  carpetbagger in politics, commuter in
  transportation, and a variety of vocabulary to
  distinguish among professions.
• Many words originated as American slang
  hijacking, boost, jazz, etc.

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Vocabulary.

• American
• British
• English
• sometimes
• have
• different
• words for
• the same
• things --

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More Vocabulary.
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More Vocabulary.

• American and British English speakers often use
  the same words but intend very different meaning
  with them

http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_words_having_
different_meanings_in_British_and_American_English
for more examples!
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Sources.

• Intemann, Dr. F. Teaching English Grammar and
  Lexis.
• http//www-public.tu-bs.de8080/intemann/BA/gramm
  ar-lexis/bara-ristau-schubert.pdf
• Jones, Susan. List of American vs. British
  Spelling.
• http//www2.gsu.edu/wwwesl/egw/jones/spelling.htm
  
• Wallechinsky, David Irving Wallace. Trivia on
  History of Merriam-Websters Dictionary Part 1.
• http//www.trivia-library.com/b/history-of-merriam
  -webster-dictionary-part-1.htm
• Wikipedia. British English.
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_English
• Wikipedia. American and British English
  Differences.
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_and_British_
  English_differences