500 word blog post by Amie Briggs

But it's English?

America and the UK are said to be 'two nations divided by a common language'  but have you ever watched an American TV show or a film and wondered why their 'English' is so different to ours? If there are so many differences, shouldn't it just be referred to as American instead of American English? It's something I seem to question a lot! 

So I started researching and interestingly I discovered that Britain started to colonise North America around about the 18th century and of course took our English language over there with us. However, that doesn't answer why the language differs in so many ways between America and Britain so I did some further research.

Until the 18th century there was no standardised forms of the English language until dictionaries were written in Britain in 1755 by Samuel Johnson and in America by Noah Webster in 1828. As these were essentially new books, the writers decided the spellings hence the differences perhaps between our language and America. So that explains a lot, huh? 

There are differences in spoken language (the accents) as well as written language. In Britain we pronounce Aluminium like /^lumini:um/ but Americans lose the /I:/ sound to make it /æluminum/ despite the same spelling. BUT then there is the opposite kind of change between English and American English in which two words such as 'colour' (UK) and 'color' (US) are spelled the same and are pronounced the same verbally! An explanation for the difference between American English and English in terms of accent in is that around the 18th century non-rhotic (less emphasis on the pronunciation of the /r/ sound) accents were used by those who had gained a higher status to separate them from other classes. Whereas contrary to what I expected, American English has changed far less hence their continued rhotic accent – however New York and Boston, who were more influenced by Britain in the revolutionary war, take on a less rhotic accent.

Looking further into some differences between the languages some of them do make sense due to the difference in culture between the UK and America, such as schooling differences. If you have ever watched an American film involving school then I'm sure that you too have been confused about what they mean when they talk about their different stages in school. Over here, we have a pretty simple schooling structure from primary to junior to secondary and then on to college. Within the UK schooling starts from year 1 in primary school at around 5 years old up to year 13 around 18 years old in college. However America has a different structure ranging from elementary school up to middle school and then high school which ranges from ages 14-18! 

American English and English also use the same words but in different contexts, just to cause even more confusion! For example, we use the term 'bill' as in receiving a letter requesting money that you have spent but America use the term as in a 'dollar bill' (what we know as a note). Interestingly, this has caused a lot of confusion in the past and famously in an account from Winston Churchill in a meeting between America and the UK the term 'bring it to the table' was discussed meaning for concerns to be brought up in the meeting. However, American members of the meeting thought that this meant for their issues to be 'put to the side' which caused an argument! So wouldn't it just be so much easier if our languages were identical? 


Sources 
http://classicalgeek.hubpages.com/hub/why-do-americans-speak-english

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_American_and_British_English


By Amie-Jane Briggs