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a). American Indian languages and their influenceb). German influence c). Spanish influence d). French contributions g) . English of American Blacks e). Yiddish borrowings f). Slavic / Russian borrowings Key Words and Proper Names: allophone, archaic, borrowing, conformity, consonant, daring, deviate, designate, disparity, drawling manner of speech, duration, impatience of forms, divergence, glide, intrinsic, literati, miscellaneous, morphology, mother-tongue speakers, nasalization, neologism, parent stem, pidgin, purist, replenishment, resourcefulness, restlessness, rhotacism,run amok, schwa, self-consciousness, slang, set expression, stress pattern, subjunctive mood, tongue-tip, transitive verb, unconquerable speech habits, vagary, vowel, wigwam words; Creole, Dzhudezmo, Hebrew, Noah Webster, Slavic, Standard American English (SAE) and Received Pronunciation (RP), Yiddish. 1. British English vs. American English From the language of a small country on the edge of Europe English has grown into a word language. About 400 million people speak English as their first language; of them more than 318 million live in the U.S. and some 60 million in the U.K. In over 70 countries English is used as a second language. Estimates for the number of English speakers range from 400 million to 2 billion. There are also millions of learners of English as a foreign language. The two best-known variants of English are American English (AE) and British English (BE). Once it was even suggested that American English should be called American language with the argument that “the American form of the English language was plainly departing from the parent stem, and it seemed likely that the differences between American and English would go on increasing.” Historically, the roots of the differences that separate AE from BE lie in the disparity of the environment and traditions of the American and British people starting with the 17th century. The British lived under a relatively stable social order and in a mild climate with a characteristic respect for what was customary and of good report. The Americans, though partly of the same blood, in order to survive in a wild and unfriendly environment had to be on the move. They did not acquire the habit of conformity. The conditions of life in their new country placed a high value upon the qualities of curiosity and courage, and so the language they spoke acquired the character of restlessness and the impatience of forms. Everything that differed English spoken in America from the language the Britons spoke used to be and even now it is called Americanism. The term Americanism was first used in 1781. It denotes (a) any word or combination of words which, taken into the English language in the U.S., has not gained acceptance in England, or, if accepted, has retained its sense of foreignness; and (b) any word оr combination of words which, becoming archaic in England, has continued to be in good usage in the U.S. The first class is the larger and has the longer history. These words are called neologisms. The neologisms of 17th-18th centuries reflect different aspects of the new life of American colonists in America: moccasin – мокасин, anorak – куртка с капюшоном, squaw – индианка, totem – тотем, medicine-man – шаман индейского племени, warpath – поход североамериканских индейцев; gap – горный проход, backwoods – лесная глушь, lot – участок земли, caucus – (старейшина) закрытое собрание членов политической партии или фракции. The archaisms showed themselves more slowly. They had to go out of use in England before their survival in America was noticeable. But by the beginning of the 18th century there had been a considerable body of them, and all through that century the number increased. BE was changing rapidly, but in America the language was holding to its old forms. There was very little fresh emigration to the colonies, and their own people seldom visited England. Thus, by the end of the 18th century the word, say, guess already became an Americanism, though it had been in almost universal use in England in Shakespeare’s days. During the two decades before the Civil War of 1861-65, everyday AE became almost unintelligible to an Englishman. It was bold and lawless in its vocabulary, careless of grammatical niceties, and further disfigured by a drawling manner of speech. After the Civil War, there was an increase of national self-consciousness, and efforts were made to police (i.e. toclean up) the language. But the spirit of the language and that of the American people was against such reforms. Moreover, under the very noses of the purists a new and vigorous American slang came into being, and simultaneously the common speech began to run amok. The visiting Englishman found AE very difficult. The slang puzzled him even more than did American peculiarities of pronunciation. Of late, the increase of travel and other inter-communications between England and America tended to halt the differentiation of the two variants. AE was more marked, perhaps, before the World Wars than since. Today, urbanization, quick transport, and television have leveled out some dialectal differences in the U.S. So, the history of AE counts more than four centuries. The first (early) period (beginning of the 17th – end of the 18th centuries) is characterized by the formation of American dialects of the English language. The second period (19th-20th centuries) is characterized by the creation of American variant of the English language. These two periods are almost equal in their duration, but are different in importance. Here, we may add one more period (the second half of the 20th centuries -present time) characterized by some kind of convergence of two great variants of the same language. But is it true? Do they really tend to converge? Differences in vocabulary: The replenishment of the vocabulary of AE went in two ways: 1) by appearance of new words or by change of a word meaning; 2) by borrowing from other languages. The noun frontier, for instance, has acquired in America an additional meaning – a newly settled, scarcely populated territory bordering on deserted and uninhabited zones. You will not find it on the map. It is in the hearts and minds of Americans. It is not a fixed place but a moving zone, as well as a state of mind: the border between settlements and wilderness known as the frontier. As a result many new set expressions became widely used: frontier man, frontier country, frontier town. Probably the most “difficult” category of differences between AE and BE includes the words which are found in both variants, but which have different meaning in each. Some familiar examples are store, rock, lumber and corn. What Englishmen call a shop was called a store by Americans as early as 1770, and long before that time corn in AE had come to signify not grains in general, but only maize. The use of rock to designate any stone, however small, goes back still further, and so does the use of lumber for timber. Many of these differences were produced by changes in English usage. Thus cracker, in England, once meant precisely what it now means in the U.S. When the English abandoned it for biscuit, the Americans stuck to cracker, and used biscuit to designate a soft puffy cookie. Also, shoe came to be substituted in America for the English boot. To designate the English shoe American used the word slipper. Pavement in AE means any paved road whereas in BE it means the same as sidewalk in AE. Differences in clothing vocabulary can be quite tricky, too: what are called pants in AE are called trousers in BE; pants in BE mean the same as underwear in AE; shorts in AE mean the same as men’s underwear in BE, a certain type of a shirt that in AE is called turtle neck is in BE polo neck; etc. Most easily BE accepted the word groups indicating: 1) notions not having any strict definition in BE, e.g., commuter - житель пригородного района, который работает в городе, trailer - прицеп, know-how - производственный опыт, технологии; baby-sit - присматривать за ребенком за плату; 2) cultural borrowings, e.g., milk shake - молочный коктейль, sundae -мороженое с фруктовым сиропом; 3) names of American realia, e.g., rodeo - соревнования ковбоев, sheriff - шериф, Secretary of State - государственный секретарь, министр иностранных дел, congressman - член конгресса /в особенности член палаты представителей/, administration - управление, правительство, министерство; 4) emotionally colored equivalents of stylistically neutral words in BE, e.g., graft = corruption, gimmick = trick, brainwashing = indoctrination. There are, however, a lot of concepts for which there are different words or expressions in AE and BE. The words connected with cars and driving are often cited as examples of such differences, probably because so many differences are found in them, e.g., AE windshield – BEwindscreen,AE hood - BEbonnet, AE parking light – BE sidelight, AE license plate - BE number plate, AE trunk – BEboot, AE driver’s license – BEdriving licence, AE gas – BE petrol, AE truck – BElorry, AE rent a car – BEhirea car. Miscellaneous differences from other fields include: AE duplex – BEsemi-detached, AE apartment building – BEblock of flats, AE row houses – BEterraced houses, AE baggage – BEluggage, AE elevator – BE lift, AE to mail a letter – BE to posta letter, AE cellular phone – BEmobile phone, AE a polka-dot shirt – BE a spotted/dotted shirt. When speaking about lexico-semantic differences one should pay attention to structural variants of words in BE and AE. They differ in affixes while lexical meaning remains the same: e.g.,
Certain words and set expressions do not have equivalents both in British and American variants: e.g.,
Differences in pronunciation: There are clear distinctions in how Americans and Britons, as they may be generally categorized, use their language. So there exist two established forms of the English pronunciation: Standard American English (SAE) and Received Pronunciation (RP). Standard American English in the simplest terms is said to be “the English language as used in the U.S.” Received Pronunciation is difficult to define, but in his book Ian Morris-Wilson defines RP as “the standard pronunciation of the educated Englishman”. The most notable differences in pronunciation between SAE and RP include differences in both word stress patterns and the articulation of single phonemes within words. For example, words with different stress pattern in SAE and RP: RP SAE ciga’rette ‘cigarette a’ddress ‘address, mous’tache ‘mustache ‘garage ga’rage brochure bro’chure ‘harassment ha’rassment One characteristic of SAE which clearly deviates from RP is the rhotacism of some vowels to make a post-vocalic [r].E.g., RP SAE Card [ka:d] [ka:rd] Normal [no:ml] [no:rml] Another characteristic very common in SAE is nasalization, which Morris-Wilson explains as a nasal quality given to vowel sounds preceding a nasal consonant. This is often referred to as ‘nasal twang’, which is “one of the features of American English which many English people find disagreeable: they consider it to be indicative of laziness, untidiness, slovenliness, etc.”, e.g., can’t, dance. AE has more allophones for [t, d] than RP. One of these often occurs in SAE when a single alveolar stop becomes a voiced tap of the tongue-tip between two vowels, of which the second vowel is unstressed. RP SAE Better [‘beta] [‘bera] City [‘siti] [‘siri] Ladder [’laeda] [’laela] One characteristic of RP which differs from SAE is the tendency to lose or completely omit the schwa vowel in certain suffixes, i.e. to ‘clip’ the ends, while SAE may give such words two stresses and omit nothing. E.g., dictionary, cemetery, category and ceremony. There are also differences between RP and SAE in the use of [j]. The speakers of SAE may use the [j] glide or may not in certain words. RP generally does use it, which can be seen in the following examples: RP SAE tune [tju:n] [tju:n, tu:n] new [nju:] [nju:, nu:] It is next to impossible to dwell here upon all divergences of both variants in phonetics - sounds, stress, accent, intonation. Examples are numerous, here are only some more, to illustrate the fact: clerk is pronounced in BE as [kla:k], and in AE as [kle:rk]; advertisement in BE is [aed've:tisment], and in AE – [,aedve:r'taizment]. We may also mention the difference in pronouncing such words as grass, path, task, etc. (RP - [a:], SAE – semi-long front [ae]). Those differences mentioned above are the most evident ones and perhaps those which can be considered the most important as well. Differences in grammar: One of the grammar aspects that should be paid attention to is singular and plural forms of nouns. In BE, singular nouns that describe multiple people are often treated as plural. The singular form is usually used in AE. For example, BE the team are worried; AE the team is worried. Americans use the plural when the individual membership is clear, for example, the team take their seats (not the team takes its seat(s)), although it is often rephrased to avoid the singular/plural decision, as in the team members take their seats. The difference occurs in proper nouns as well: BE New England are the champions. AE New England is the champion. But both The Patriots are the champions. Another aspect is the use of tenses. BE uses the Present Perfect tense to talk about an event in the recent past and with the words already, just and yet. In American usage, these meanings can be expressed with the Past Simple (to express a fact) or the Present Perfect (to imply an expectation), e.g., I've just got home. / I just got home. - I've already eaten. / I already ate. The subjunctive mood is more common in AE in expressions such as: They suggested that he apply for the job. BE would have They suggested that he should apply for the job or even “They suggested that he applied for the job. One can notice differences in verb morphology as well, e.g. verb past tenses with -ed: Americans tend to use dreamed, leaped, learned, spelled; Commonwealth more commonly uses dreamt, leapt, learnt, spelt. Intransitive verbs often become transitive in AE, e.g., BE: The workers protested against the decision. AE: The workers protested the decision. There are numerous cases of different phrases with verb-adverb combinations, e.g., AE look out the window – BE look out of the window; AE to fill out a blank – BE to fill in a form; AE to be filled up (about a hotel) – BE to be full up; AE wash up – BE wash your hands, as well as of divergences in phrase structures, e.g., AE go get it – BE go and get it. Another example is the use of prepositions before days. Where British people would say: She resigned on Thursday, Americans often say: She resigned Thursday, but both forms are common in American usage. Occasionally, the preposition is also absent when referring to months: I'll be here December. Besides there are many more differences connected with the use of prepositions in different contexts. AE could more easily than BE form noun ending with -ette (-et)with the diminutive meaning, e.g., luncheonette, dinette, dinerette - небольшое кафе, or to show gender, such as conductorette. Similarly, AE more extensively uses the suffix - wisein the meaning of ‘with regard to’ or ‘in terms of’, e.g., instruction wise, tax wise, and price wise, weather-wise. Also popular among Americanisms is the prefix super-, e.g., superhighway, superfilm, superweapon, to supersize and also the verb suffix -ize-, e.g., organize. Equally registered tendency of AE is to use the morphological forms of the type get-got- gotten. Worth of mentioning is the usage of expressive compound words: trigger-happy – агрессивно нaстроенный, mastermind - гений, gangland - преступный мир, tinny-tiny - крошечный, saggy-baggy – мешковатый as well as forming verbs from nouns: to politic - вести кампанию, to deed - передавать по акту, or forming nouns with the help of verbs followed by adverbs: walk-up - дом без лифта, shut-out - победа с сухим счетом. Such examples are numerous, they are widely used in BE and other variants of English, which meets the needs of communication. Spelling: AE spelling differs from BE spelling largely because of one man, American lexicographer Noah Webster. In addition to his well-known “An American Dictionary of the English Language” (1828), Webster published “The American Spelling Book” (1783), with many subsequent editions, which became most widely used schoolbooks in American history. Webster’s books sought to standardize spelling in the U.S. by promoting the use of the American language intentionally different from BE. The development of a specifically American variety of English mirrored the new country’s separate political development. Webster’s most successful changes were spellings with -or instead of -our (honor, labor for the BE honour, labour); with -er instead of -re (center, theater for the British centre, theatre); with an -s instead of a -c (defense, license for the British defence, licence); with a final -ck instead of -que (check, mask for the British cheque, masque); and without a final -k (traffic, public, now also used in BE, for the older traffick, publick). Later spelling reform created a few other differences, such as program for British programme. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||