What is American English and how did it come about?

The English language is such a widely spoken language around the world. In a majority of countries it is known as the mother tongue language.
English language can be traced all the way back to 5AD (5^th century). It was first brought over to England by German invaders. From this English has develop greatly to what it is today; Modern English. There are now millions of people speaking English as their first language and approximately two thirds of them live in America. So you ask, how?

In 1607 the first expedition to America had taken place. Virginia and New England were the first states of America to be introduced to the English language. The settlers from Virginia had a mixed range of people but they were mainly from the "West Country" like Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. The Americans developed their accent in many ways such as pronouncing the /s/ with /z/ and their /r/ strongly. However over the years their accent has changed, but there are still some similar aspects of pronunciation, such as /r/ this is still strongly pronounced by Americans, e.g. /ka:r/. This is also known as rhotic. Settlers from New England came from the east of England, these settlers have a non - rhotic feature in their speech. This is where they don't pronounce their /r/ sounds when it is after a vowel. This has changed over time significantly but there are still some areas which will have similar accents of language from the first settlers. Now all over America there are varied accents and dialects and it is hard to try and specify them into groups.

I found a site that shows the difference usage of specific words between the English Harry Potter books and the American Harry Potter books. http://www.uta.fi/FAST/US1/REF/potter.html. One of the main reasons why some words had to be changed to American English was because some of the American children may not have understood certain words and they may have a different meaning. An example would be "fringe" this in English is a type of way to get your hair cut but in America they call it "bangs" also in America there is a drama series called "Fringe"

America is a superpower of the world and has advanced greatly since the world wars: technology, TV, films, radio, and music. This has influenced language greatly and there are some aspects of it that have travelled to the different parts of the world. These specific terms from the US are called Americanisms.
There are some words which are pronounced the same in both English languages but they are not spelt the same e.g. plough — plow, colour — color, centre — center, cheque — check, defence — defense, tyre — tire, ageing — aging. The first word is the British English spelling and the second is the American English spelling.
American English has become so developed that it is significantly different from British English. American English has a combination of different words from different countries (loan words/borrowings). All of these put together make up the new type of English that is used by the Americans.

To finish off this site http://dare.wisc.edu/?q=node/1, leads to the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE). This dictionary was created to show the different language used in America. It contains phrases/words used throughout parts of America that stand out and are different to Standard English. The information was conducted with face to face interviews within different communities.