Concept

American English

Overview

American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the U.S., as well as the common language used in government, education, and commerce in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and in all U.S. territories except Puerto Rico. Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.

Varieties of American English include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other forms of English around the world. Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers is known in linguistics as General American; it covers a fairly uniform accent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. especially associated with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech. However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single mainstream American accent. The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in the 20th century.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) For the better Supplying of _Foreign Plantations_, Converting the Savage _Americans_ to CHRISTIANITY, By a COLLEGE to be erected in the _Summer Islands_, otherwise called the Isles of _Bermuda_. _The harvest is truly great, but the…
George Berkeley, A Proposal for the Better Supplying of Churches in Our Foreign Plantations, and for Converting the Savage Americans to Christianity, By a Co
The author is tied to American English in the knowledge graph.
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Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I must confess that I view with alarm the theory that language is merely a means of communication, and not also a vehicle of beauty. This tendency is world-wide, but naturally it has advanced in America. In a more or less authoritative book published by the Children’s Foundation,[1] I find some remarks on the teaching of English which seem to exemplify the tendency I deplore. For…
Bertrand Russell, Education and the good life
States what American English is.
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But in the majority of inferior languages, the process of “agglutination,” as it is called, has gone far enough to produce considerable stability in the compound words: there is a manifest integration. How small is the degree of this integration, however, when compared with that reached in well-developed languages is shown both by the great length of the compound words used for things and acts of constant…
Herbert Spencer, First Principles
States what American English is.
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Philosophers who discussed American English

Related ideas

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Cooperation

Place in the tradition

Part of Secular humanism.

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