Everything about North American English totally explained
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 often grouped together under a single category (Labov, Ash, & Boberg, 2006; Trudgill & Hannah, 2002). North American English is distinguished from the varieties of English that are spoken in the
United Kingdom and
Commonwealth of Nations countries such as
Australia,
New Zealand and
South Africa, those in the
Caribbean and on the
Indian subcontinent. Despite the fact that Canadian spellings often (but not always) follow 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're 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 spelling and punctuation (
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
Scots Irish 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's still a resemblance between the English
East Anglia accents which would have been used by early English settlers in New England (including the
Pilgrims), and modern
Northeastern United States accents. Similarly, the accents of
Newfoundland is similar to
Scots while
Appalachian dialect retains
Scots Irish features.
Further Information
Get more info on 'North American English'.
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