Differences between British English and American English

Differences between British English and American English
Main article: American and British English differencesAmerican English and British English (BrE) differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, was written by Noah Webster in 1828; Webster intended to show that the United States, which was a relatively new country at the time, spoke a different dialect from Britain.Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and normally do not affect mutual intelligibility; these include, but are not limited to: Different use of some verbal auxiliaries; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns; different preferences for the past forms of a few verbs (e.g. learn, burn, sneak, dive, get); different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (e.g. AmE in school, BrE at school). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules.Differences in orthography are also fairly trivial. Some of the forms that now serve to distinguish American from British spelling (color for colour, center for centre, traveler for traveller, etc.) were introduced by Noah Webster himself; others are due to spelling tendencies in Britain from the 17th century until the present day (e.g. -ise for -ize, programme for program, skilful for skillful, chequered for checkered, etc.), in some cases favored by the francophile tastes of 19th century Victorian England, which had little effect on AmE.The most noticeable differences between AmE and BrE are at the levels of pronunciation and vocabulary. Phonology In many ways, compared to British English, American English is conservative in its phonology. Accents in North America are most distinctive on the East Coast of the continent partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of British English at a time when those varieties were undergoing changes[citation needed]. Also, many speech communities on the East Coast have existed in their present locations longer than others. The interior of the United States, however, was settled by people from all regions of the existing U.S. and, as such, developed a far more generic linguistic pattern.The red areas are those where non-rhotic pronunciations are found among some white people in the United States. AAVE-influenced non-rhotic pronunciations may be found among black people throughout the country.[2]Most North American speech is rhotic, as English was in most places in the 17th century. Rhoticity was further supported by Hiberno-English, Scottish English, and West Country English. In most varieties of North American English, the sound corresponding to the letter "R" is a retroflex or alveolar approximant rather than a trill or a tap. The loss of syllable-final r in North America is confined mostly to the accents of eastern New England, New York City and surrounding areas, South Philadelphia, and the coastal portions of the South. Dropping of syllable-final r sometimes happens in natively rhotic dialects if r is located in unaccented syllables or words and the next syllable or word begins in a consonant. In England, lost 'r' was often changed into [ə] (schwa), giving rise to a new class of falling diphthongs. Furthermore, the 'er' sound of fur or butter, is realized in American English as a monophthongal r-colored vowel (stressed [ɝ] or unstressed [ɚ] as represented in the IPA). This does not happen in the non-rhotic varieties of North American speech.Some other British English changes in which most North American dialects do not participate:The shift of /æ/ to /ɑ/ (the so-called "broad A") before /f/, /s/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /v/ alone or preceded by a homorganic nasal. This is the difference between the British Received Pronunciation and American pronunciation of bath and dance. In the United States, only eastern New England speakers took up this innovation, although even there it is becoming increasingly rare.The realization of intervocalic /t/ as a glottal stop [ʔ] ( as in [bɒʔəl] for bottle). This change is not universal for British English and is not considered to be a feature of Received Pronunciation. This is not a property of most North American dialects. Newfoundland English is a notable exception.