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The American Language; An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States, first published in 1919, is a book written by H. L. Mencken about the English language as spoken in the United States.
The British Empire at its height covered one quarter of the Earth's land surface, and the English language adopted foreign words from many countries. British English and North American English, the two major varieties of the language, are together spoken by 400 million people. The total number of English speakers worldwide may exceed one ...
Diagram of the changes in English vowels during the Great Vowel Shift. The Great Vowel Shift was a series of pronunciation changes in the vowels of the English language that took place primarily between the 1400s and 1600s [1] (the transition period from Middle English to Early Modern English), beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English.
In 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English language to try to establish a norm for speaking and writing American English that was independent of the British standard. Within Britain, non-standard or lower class dialect features were increasingly stigmatised, leading to the quick spread of the prestige varieties among ...
The Mother Tongue: Discusses the early stages of the English language, including Old English and Middle English. A Muse of Fire: Discusses the influence of William Shakespeare and the King James Bible on the English language as well as how Early Modern English took root in the American colonies and its influence on contemporary American English.
English is the most commonly spoken language in the U.S., where it is estimated that two thirds of all native speakers of English live. [93] The American English dialect developed from English colonization. It serves as the de facto official language, the language in which government business is carried out. According to the 1990 census, 94% of ...
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Several pronunciation patterns contrast American and British English accents. The following lists a few common ones. Most American accents are rhotic, preserving the historical /r/ phoneme in all contexts, while most British accents of England and Wales are non-rhotic, only preserving this sound before vowels but dropping it in all other contexts; thus, farmer rhymes with llama for Brits but ...