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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 ...
In Australian English, New Zealand English, most English of England and some American English, /oʊ/ is fronted to [ɵw], [əw], or [ɛw] Resistance occurs in most varieties of Northern England English, [33] as well as Scottish English, [34] Northern American English and New York City English. [32] In many varieties /ʌ/ is fronted to [ʌ̟ ...
The United States has never had an official language at the federal level, [127] but English is commonly used at the federal level and in states without an official language. 32 of the 50 states, in some cases as part of what has been called the English-only movement, have adopted legislation granting official or co-official status to English.
The American Language; An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States (2nd ed.). Bartleby.com. ISBN 1-58734-087-9; Mencken, Henry Louis (1923). The American Language; An Inquiry into the Development of English in the United States (3rd ed.). New York City: Alfred A. Knopf. OCLC 551316331.
Noah Webster: A Grammatical Institute of the English Language. [45] 1809. William Hazlitt: A New and Improved Grammar of the English Tongue; 1818. William Cobbett: A Grammar of the English Language, In a Series of Letters. [46] 1850. William Chauncey Fowler: English grammar: The English language in its elements and forms. [47] 1874.
The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change (abbreviated ANAE; formerly, the Phonological Atlas of North America) is a 2006 book that presents an overview of the pronunciation patterns in all the major dialect regions of the English language as spoken in urban areas of the United States and Canada.