Currently, 67 countries have English as their official language, says Britanica. Each of these countries have similarities and slight differences in their dialects. It is estimated that around two billion people use English as their primary language for communication around the world. With all these slight differences it begs the question, how did we get to this dialect of present day English in the United States?
English belongs to the Indo-European language family, and is related to most other European languages. The parent tongue of English called proto-Indo-European was spoken about 5,000 years ago by nomads that roamed the southeast European plains. One of the language groups English stems from is Germanic, which is divided into three groups: East, North, and South. Though these languages are closely related, German remains to be more conservative than English which has an elaborate system of inflections. Frisian is a language spoken in the Dutch province of Friesland and is the closest relative of Modern English, and Icelandic is the most closely related to Old English in its grammatical structure.
Most commonly compared are the dialects of British English and American English. The English language came to the US between the 16th and 17th centuries. At this time, spelling had not yet been standardized. Cambridge University says it took until the first dictionaries were created in the 1750’s for the writing to be set in stone. Spelling differences in the dialects are most commonly seen in the usage of vowels and double consonants. In British English the letter ‘U’ is often seen used unnecessarily in words such as ‘colour’ instead of ‘color.’ This is because when the British dictionaries were created they tried to preserve the spelling of words that stemmed from other languages.
The grammar in each dialect is different; in British English, collective nouns are often treated as plural, such as the word ‘team.’ They’d say, “the team are playing well” when in American English these words are treated as singular where we’d say, “the team is playing well.” Prepositions in both dialects are also different. In British English it is more common to say ‘at’ as opposed to ‘on’ when talking about something such as an upcoming date or event. The present perfect tense is something used in British English to describe a recent past event, saying things like “I’ve just eaten” rather than “I just ate.”
The most prominent difference, to the ear, in the dialects is the pronunciations. Vowel sounds are some of the most noticeable differences in spoken language. The ‘a’ in bath is pronounced as a long ‘a’ in British English, but more like a short ‘a’ in American English. American English tends to pronounce the ‘r’ sounds of words more clearly when it is often not pronounced in British English.
Each dialect can be even more subjective within smaller regions of each country. The difference between these dialects can be seen in daily speech and written word. Even though both stemmed from the same place, they’ve evolved to fit their countries. But no matter the grammar or accent, communication is still the same.
