North American English
North American English | |
---|---|
Region | Northern America (United States, Canada) |
Early forms | |
Dialects | American English, Canadian English and their subdivisions |
Latin (English alphabet) Unified English Braille[1] | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | nort3314 |
IETF | en-021 |
North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures,[2] plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar of American English and Canadian English, the two spoken varieties are often grouped together under a single category.[3][4] Canadians are generally tolerant of both British and American spellings, with British spellings of certain words (e.g., colour) being favored in more formal settings and in Canadian print media; for some other words the American spelling prevails over the British (e.g., tire rather than tyre).[5]
Dialects of American English spoken by United Empire Loyalists who fled the American Revolution (1775–1783) have had a large influence on Canadian English from its early roots.[6] Some terms in North American English are used almost exclusively in Canada and the United States (for example, the terms diaper and gasoline are widely used instead of nappy and petrol). Although many English speakers from outside North America regard those terms as distinct Americanisms, they are just as common in Canada, mainly due to the effects of heavy cross-border trade and cultural penetration by the American mass media.[7] [better source needed] The list of divergent words becomes longer if considering regional Canadian dialects, especially as spoken in the Atlantic provinces and parts of Vancouver Island where significant pockets of British culture still remain.
There are a considerable number of different accents within the regions of both the United States and Canada. In North America, different English dialects of immigrants from England, Scotland, Ireland, and other regions of the British Isles mixed together in the 17th and 18th centuries. These were developed, built upon, and blended together as new waves of immigration, and migration across the North American continent, developed new dialects in new areas, and as these ways of speaking merged with and assimilated to the greater American dialect mixture that solidified by the mid-18th century.[8]
Dialects
American English
Ethnic American English
- African-American English
- American Indian English
- Cajun English
- Chicano English
- Miami Latino English
- New York Latino English
- Pennsylvania Dutch English
- Yeshiva English
Regional American English
- Midland American English
- New York City English
- Northern American English
- Philadelphia English
- Southern American English
- Western American English
- Western Pennsylvania ("Pittsburgh") English
Canadian English
- Aboriginal Canadian English
- Atlantic Canadian English
- Ottawa Valley English
- Quebec English
- Standard Canadian English
Table of accents
Below, thirteen major North American English accents are defined by particular characteristics:
Accent name | Most populous urban center | Strong /aʊ/ fronting | Strong /oʊ/ fronting | Strong /u/ fronting | Strong /ɑr/ fronting |
Cot–caught merger | Pin–pen merger | /æ/ raising system | Other defining criteria[11] |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
African-American | Mixed | No | No | No | Mixed | Yes[12] | pre-nasal | Southern drawl / African-American Vowel Shift / Variable non-rhoticity | |
Atlantic Canadian | Halifax | Mixed | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | various | Canadian raising |
General American | No | No | No | No | Mixed | No | pre-nasal | ||
Inland Northern U.S. | Chicago | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | general | Northern Cities Vowel Shift |
Mid-Atlantic U.S. | Philadelphia | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | split | |
Midland U.S. | Indianapolis | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Mixed | Mixed | pre-nasal | |
New York City | New York City | Yes | No | No[13] | No | No | No | split | Variable non-rhoticity |
North-Central (Upper Midwestern) U.S. | Minneapolis | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | pre-nasal & pre-velar | |
Northern New England | Boston | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No | pre-nasal | |
Southern U.S. | San Antonio | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Mixed | Yes | pre-nasal | Southern drawl / Southern Vowel Shift |
Standard Canadian | Toronto | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | pre-nasal & pre-velar | Canadian raising / Canadian Vowel Shift |
Western U.S. | Los Angeles | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | pre-nasal | |
Western Pennsylvania | Pittsburgh | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Mixed | pre-nasal | /aʊ/ glide weakening |
Phonology
A majority of North American English (for example, in contrast to British English) includes phonological features that concern consonants, such as rhoticity (full pronunciation of all /r/ sounds), conditioned T-glottalization (with satin pronounced [ˈsæʔn̩], not [ˈsætn̩]), T- and D-flapping (with metal and medal pronounced the same, as [ˈmɛɾɫ̩]), L-velarization (with filling pronounced [ˈfɪɫɪŋ], not [ˈfɪlɪŋ]), as well as features that concern vowel sounds, such as various vowel mergers before /r/ (so that, Mary, marry, and merry are all commonly pronounced the same), raising of pre-voiceless /aɪ/ (with price and bright using a higher vowel sound than prize and bride), the weak vowel merger (with affected and effected often pronounced the same), at least one of the LOT vowel mergers (the LOT–PALM merger is completed among virtually all Americans and the LOT–THOUGHT merger among nearly half, while both are completed among virtually all Canadians), and yod-dropping (with tuesday pronounced /ˈtuzdeɪ/, not /ˈtjuzdeɪ/). The last item is more advanced in American English than Canadian English.
See also
- Belizean English
- Caribbean English
- Commonwealth English
- Comparison of American and British English
- List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom
- List of words having different meanings in British and American English
- North American French
- North American Spanish
- Regional accents of English
References
- ^ "Unified English Braille (UEB)". Braille Authority of North America (BANA). 2 November 2016. Archived from the original on 23 November 2016. Retrieved 2 January 2017.
- ^ Chambers, J.K. (1998). "Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making". The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2nd ed.). p. xi.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006)
- ^ Trudgill, Peter & Jean Hannah. (2002). International English: A Guide to the Varieties of Standard English, 4th. London: Arnold. ISBN 0-340-80834-9.
- ^ Patti Tasko. (2004). The Canadian Press Stylebook: A Guide for Writers and Editors, 13th. Toronto: The Canadian Press. ISBN 0-920009-32-8, p. 308.
- ^ M.H. Scargill. (1957). "Sources of Canadian English", The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 56.4, pp. 610-614.
- ^ John Woitkowitz (2012). "Arctic Sovereignty and the Cold War: Asymmetry, Interdependence, and Ambiguity". Retrieved 2012-03-13.
- ^ Longmore, Paul K. (2007). "'Good English without Idiom or Tone': The Colonial Origins of American Speech". The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. MIT. 37 (4): 513–542.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:148)
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:148)
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:146)
- ^ Labov (1972), p. 19.
- ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006:101, 103)
Bibliography
- Chambers, J.K. (1998). "Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making," in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., p. xi.
- Clark, Joe (2008). Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours: How to Feel Good About Canadian English (e-book). ISBN 978-0-9809525-0-6.
- Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (2006), The Atlas of North American English, Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter, ISBN 3-11-016746-8