North American English

For the regional dialect in the northern United States, see Northern American English.

North American English
North American English
English
Native toUnited States, Canada
RegionNorthern America
EthnicityNorthern Americans (Americans, Canadians)
Early forms
DialectsAmerican English, Canadian English and their subdivisions
Latin (English alphabet)
Unified English Braille[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3–
Glottolognort3314
IETFen-021

North American English is the most generalized[clarification needed] 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) preferred 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.[further explanation needed]

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]

  1. ^ "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.
  2. ^ Chambers, J.K. (1998). "Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making". The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2nd ed.). p. xi.
  3. ^ Labov, Ash & Boberg (2006)
  4. ^ Trudgill, Peter & Jean Hannah. (2002). International English: A Guide to the Varieties of Standard English, 4th. London: Arnold. ISBN 0-340-80834-9.
  5. ^ 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.
  6. ^ M.H. Scargill. (1957). "Sources of Canadian English", The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 56.4, pp. 610–614.
  7. ^ John Woitkowitz (2012). "Arctic Sovereignty and the Cold War: Asymmetry, Interdependence, and Ambiguity". Archived from the original on 2011-07-02. Retrieved 2012-03-13.
  8. ^ 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.