North American English
North American English is a collective term used for the varieties of the
English language that are spoken in the
United States and
Canada. Because of the considerable similarities in pronunciation, vocabulary and accent between
American English and
Canadian English, the two spoken languages are sometimes grouped together under a single category, as distinguished from the varieties of English that are spoken in the
United Kingdom and
British Commonwealth countries such as
Australia,
New Zealand and
South Africa.
Hiberno-English is used in
Ireland. Despite the Canadian spellings sometimes following British usage, the collective term "North American English" is sometimes also used to designate the written language of the two countries.
Many terms in North American English are used almost exclusively in the two countries alone, such as "
diaper", "
gasoline", and "
elevator". Although many English speakers from outside North America regard these words as distinctive "
Americanisms", they are just as ubiquitous in Canada. Differences between American and Canadian English are somewhat more apparent in the written form, where Canadians retain much, though not all, of the standard British
orthography; however, this affects less than one percent of all words regardless of the dialect in the world.
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 and Scottish 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 close resemblance between the English
East Anglia accents which would have been used by the
Pilgrim Fathers and modern
Northeastern United States accents. Similarly, the accents of
Newfoundland is similar to
Scots while
Appalachian dialect retains
Scots Irish features.
*
American English*
Canadian English*
American and British English differences*
List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom*
Canadian words*
List of words having different meanings in British and American English*
Americanisms
*
Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg. 2006.
The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3110167468.
