Historically, the English language was assimilated, reworked, and modified by the Native American peoples colonized by the English. The migrations had the most critical linguistic effect because species isolation occurred in addition to the mixing of languages and the formation of new ones. This continuity has set a phenomenal precedent in which American English has become distinct from British English. Accordingly, comparing modern American and British English standards reveals many differences. Classical English lost its softness and melodiousness when it was adopted in America. The Americanization of British English has affected its lexical complexity, for the language has become markedly simpler (Shafer 643). Many Americanisms have appeared because the Americanized language is a descendant of British English. This paper consecutively examines these arguments to confirm the differences between the two versions of English.
Modern British is characterized by many phonetic softenings, unlike its American counterpart. It is worth saying that English is not a native British language, as it comes from the West Germanic ethnological family. Nevertheless, Classical English has been shaped by England’s everyday life and culture (Belas and Hopkins 324). In the United States, the British language took root well, given the historical origins of the European colonizers of America, but the linguistic system was adapted. It refers to phonetics, in which Americans tend to pronounce the phoneme [r] clearly, but miss the [j] in [ju:] after consonants (Graham and Post 7). The accent manifests itself in the phonetic difference in Americans’ use of [ed] instead of the soft [t]. Thus, American English differs from British English in its lack of melodic softness due to the phonetic features of ethnic communities in the United States.
In adapting to the conditions of America, the British language has considerably simplified. In classical British, speakers tend to use a variety of tenses. In contrast, Americans may be limited to the three most candid tenses (Oetting et al. 3450). The formation of word constructions is also becoming simpler. Unlike American “have,” the British use a compound variant of “have got.” American speakers do not use the plural with collective nouns (team, government). On the contrary, the British can use both variants, namely “is” and “are.” Again, the seeming simplification of the language is probably due to the historical features of the United States, filled with non-English-speaking enslaved people and migrants. The Americanization of British English has optimized lexical forms and grammatical rules to simplify the language system.
The difference between British English and American English is also in slang forms and Americanisms. Since American English is historically a descendant of British English, adapting the lexical system for local communities could not help but distort the original language (Hall et al. 644). Americans have significantly changed the phonetic structure of the pronunciation of multifunctional modal verbs. This refers to the transformation of “want to” to “wanna” and “have got” to “gotta. Thus, American English has acquired unique features as a result of evolution. The linguistic systems of the English family are dynamic and unstable. British English, called the classical variant, was transformed by historical adaptation in the United States. Although the general grammatical rules and vocabulary have remained similar, the phonetics and optimization of the language have been modified by ethnographic influences. It is about t the appearance of dialectisms and Americanisms, known only in the territory of North America. Thus, the modern British language differs significantly from the American version, even if preserving the common linguistic core.
Works Cited
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