North American English

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North American English is the variety of the English language of North America, including that of the United States and Canada. Because of their shared histories (Chambers 1998) and the similarities between the pronunciation, vocabulary and accent of American English and Canadian English, the two spoken languages are often grouped together under a single category (Labov, Ash, & Boberg, 2006; Trudgill & Hannah, 2002).^[1][2] Although Canadian spellings are a combination of US and British usage (Clark 2008), and Canadians are tolerant of both British and US spellings (Chambers 1998), the written and spoken languages of the two countries are very closely related. North American English is distinguished from British English, spoken in England and Wales, Scotland, Ireland and Commonwealth countries including as Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, those in the Caribbean and on the Indian subcontinent.

Many terms in North American English are used almost exclusively in the two countries, such as diaper and gasoline. Although many English speakers from outside North America regard these words as distinctive Americanisms, they are just as ubiquitous in Canada.

There are a considerable number of different accents within the regions of both the United States and Canada, originally deriving from the accents prevalent in different English, Scots and Irish regions and corresponding to settlement patterns of these peoples in the colonies. These were developed and built upon as new waves of immigration, and migration across the North American continent, brought new accents and dialects to new areas, and as these ways of speaking merged and assimilated with the population. It is claimed that despite the centuries of linguistic changes there is still a resemblance between the English East Anglia accents which would have been used by early English settlers in New England (including the Pilgrims), and modern Northeastern United States accents. Similarly, the accents of Newfoundland are similar to Scots Irish^{[citation needed]} while the Appalachian dialect retains Scots Irish features.

See also

• North American English regional phonology
• Northern American English
• American and British English differences
• American English
• Americanisms
• Canadian English
• List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom
• List of words having different meanings in British and American English
• Regional accents of English

Notes

References

• Chambers, J.K. (1998). "Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making," in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., p. xi.
• Clark, Joe (2008). Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours: How to Feel Good About Canadian English (e-book). ISBN 978-0-9809525-0-6.