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The early period is the formation of the spoken American language, its divergence from the British version. Approximate boundaries of this stage: between the arrival of the first British settlers in America in the early 17 th century and the beginning of the American Civil War in the 19th century.
The late period is the consolidation of the established norms of the American dialect, the formation of a literary language. This stage dates back approximately from the time of the Civil War to the present day.
The formation of American English
In 1607, the first English colony appeared in North America. The British were not the only ones who settled on the new mainland: Germans, French, Dutch, Spaniards, Swedes, Norwegians and even Russians came here. But the British dominated, their share among emigrants was about 80%. The newcomers mingled with each other, and they needed a common language. Since there were more Englishmen, everyone else naturally began to speak English - if not immediately, then after one or two generations. English has become the connecting language and the basis for the American dialect.
The English language in the UK at that time was even more heterogeneous than it is today. There were many regional and social dialects. Representatives of different classes and people from different counties spoke English in different ways. Among the immigrants to America, members of the lower and middle classes prevailed, the aristocrats almost did not try to seek happiness in a new place. Thus, a simpler and rougher version of English arrived on the American coast, which served as the basis for the development of the American dialect. For this reason, the grammar, spelling and phonetics of American are now simpler than British.
Most of the British settlers came from Puritan East England. They were law-
abiding people with strict moral rules and a special tendency to conservatism. They
clung to their native language and did not welcome significant changes in it. Perhaps
for this reason, the American language has changed less in four centuries than the
British one. The American dialect has a lot of archaic features left over from the early
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17th century. For example, Americans continue to say either and neither with a long i:, whereas the British have long replaced it with the diphthong ai. In American English, the meaning of the word mad as ”angry ” or the word sick as ”sick” has remained obsolete for the English. Even the intonation of the American is much closer to the English of the 17th century than in the British version.
It would seem that the heterogeneous population of America should have led to the emergence of all kinds of dialects and linguistic differences. In practice, it turned out that, on the contrary, American English is surprisingly uniform. Of course, there are dialects in it, but there are fewer of them, and they are closer to each other than in the UK. The fact is that the first inhabitants of America constantly moved from place to place. The mixing of cultures took place very intensively and continuously, due to which individual dialects did not have time to form in certain places. People unconsciously sought to speak a single standard language, usually literate and recognized among authorities. So the American version of English has become more homogeneous.
The early period of the development of the American English language
The early period of the history of the American dialect was characterized by intensive enrichment of vocabulary. Grammar or pronunciation changes slowly and imperceptibly, while new words appear literally before our eyes. And for several decades, American English has acquired hundreds of new words that never existed in the British version.
The vocabulary was replenished for several reasons. First, the colonists encountered many new phenomena that needed to be named. Secondly, they constantly communicated with representatives of other peoples and encountered other languages, replenishing their vocabulary with their help. Thirdly, the newly minted Americans were building society and the state from scratch, creating new institutions, laws and documents that also needed names.
There were two main ways of the origin of American words. The first is
actually Americanisms, which were specially invented to denote new phenomena. As
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a rule, these were already familiar words with a new meaning or new terms based on already existing English words. For example, in the USA, the phrase public school began to be called a free municipal school, whereas in the UK it is a private institution. Unknown in Britain, eggplants were dubbed an "egg-shaped plant” - eggplant. [3]
The second source of new words in American is borrowings. Some of the vocabulary was borrowed from other immigrants: for example, the word boss is from German, canyon is from Spanish, and tutor is from French. Some words were taken from the languages of local Indians. So the terms squash, skunk, opossum appeared in American English.
The late period of the development of American English
In the 19th century, the United States expanded significantly, and industry began to develop in the country. During this period, new vocabulary also appeared, mainly related to the development of cities, transport and infrastructure. For example, the words subway, downtown, dormitory, tram appeared in American English. [4] Grammar has been somewhat simplified; pronunciation has acquired standard features throughout the country.
In the 19th century, the scientific study of the American language began. Linguists became interested in the peculiarities of the dialect, its differences from the British version, its potential. Some researchers considered American English simplified and advocated the expulsion of Americanisms from speech in order to get closer to the ideal - the British dialect. Others, on the contrary, were proud of the American language, studied Americanisms with interest, fixed the peculiarities of the dialect and advocated its strengthening.
Linguist Noah Webster made a significant contribution to the study and development of the American version of English. He wanted to introduce unified standards for the dialect and for this purpose wrote a huge linguistic work - a dictionary, according to which several generations of Americans have studied for a
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