American English (gw.bzu.edu.

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American English or U.S. English is the form of the English language used mostly in
the United States of America. It is the primary language used in the United States.
According to the 1990 census, 97 percent of U.S. residents speak English "well" or
"very well." Only 0.8% (8 people out of a thousand) speak no English at all, as
compared with 3.6 percent in 1890. As of 2005, more than two-thirds of native
speakers of English use American English.
History
English was inherited from British colonization. The first wave of English-speaking
immigrants was settled in North America in the 17th century. In that century, there
were also speakers in North America of the Dutch, French, German, myriad Native
American, Spanish, Swedish, and Finnish languages.
Phonology
In many ways, compared to British English, American English is conservative in its
phonology. It is sometimes claimed that certain rural areas in North America speak
"Elizabethan English," and there may be some truth to this, but the standard
American English of the upper Midwest has a sound profile much closer to 17th
century English than contemporary speech in England. The conservatism of American
English is largely the result of the fact that it represents a mixture of various dialects
from the British Isles. Dialect in North America is most distinctive on the East Coast of
the continent; this is largely because these areas were in contact with England, and
imitated prestigious varieties of British English at a time when those varieties were
undergoing changes. The interior of the country was settled by people who were no
longer closely connected to England, as they had no access to the ocean during a
time when journeys to Britain were always by sea. As such the inland speech is much
more homogeneous than the East Coast speech, and did not imitate the changes in
speech from England.

Differences in British English and American English

Main article: American and British English differences
American English has both spelling and grammatical differences from British English,
some of which were made as part of an attempt to rationalize the English spelling
used by British English at the time. Unlike many 20th century language reforms (for
example, Turkey's alphabet shift, Norway's spelling reform) the American spelling
changes were not driven by government, but by textbook writers and dictionary
makers.
The first American dictionary was written by Noah Webster in 1828. At the time
America was a relatively new country and Webster's particular contribution was to
show that the region spoke a different dialect from Britain, and so he wrote a
dictionary with many spellings differing from the standard. Many of these changes
were initiated unilaterally by Webster.
Webster also argued for many "simplifications" to the idiomatic spelling of the
period. Somewhat ironically, many, although not all, of his simplifications fell into
common usage alongside the original versions, resulting in a situation even more
confused than before.
Many words are shortened and differ from other versions of English. Spellings such
as center are used instead of centre in other versions of English. Conversely,
American English sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex,
whereas British English uses clipped forms, such as AmE transportation and BrE
transport or where the British form is a back-formation, such as AmE burglarize and
BrE burgle (from burglar).
Loanwords not common in British English
American English has further changed due to the influx of non-English speakers
whose words sometimes enter American vernacular. Many words have entered
American English from Spanish, Native American languages, and so on.
For detailed differences in British English and American English see American and
British English differences.
Examples of common American English loanwords, not common in British English
(many, however, would be recognized due to the influence of the American
entertainment industry):
From African languages
gumbo
okra, or a stew thickened with okra
From Dutch
cookie
a small baked cake (usually flat and crisp) made from sweetened dough (a biscuit in
British English)
; stoop : a small platform in front of a house reached by a set of steps
caboose
a car at the end of a train used for observing the train and braking the train in case it
separated.
From French (Some of these terms are exclusive to the state of Louisiana)
banquette
a raised sidewalk (usage is more regional)
; beignet : a puffy square pastry covered in powdered sugar
boudin
a spicy link sausage

chowder
a thick seafood stew

jambalaya
rice cooked with herbs, spices, and ham, chicken, or seafood
; lagniappe : an extra or unexpected gift (usage is more regional)
pain perdu
New Orleans-style French toast
; pirogue : a canoe made from a hollowed tree trunk (usage is more regional)
zydeco
a native Louisiana style of music
From Japanese

bonzai
plant (often a pine) that is deliberately miniaturized through specialized pruning. Can
live over 100 years and not exceed 2 feet in height.
; da kine: the best (Hawaiin pidgin)

origami
Traditional paper folding whose products represent animals: a thousand folded
cranes is very lucky esp w/ gold paper & is still appreciated even within totally
"Yankee" families.
; sashimi: very thinly sliced raw fish artistically presented upon a plate for
consumption

; sushi: raw or specially prepared fish served on cold "formed" short grain rice. Often
confused with sashimi.
wasabi
very hot green colored horseradish mustard.
From Native American languages
bayou
a swampy, slow-moving stream or outlet
; chinook : a strong wind blowing down off the mountains
hickory (pawcohiccora)
a North American deciduous tree of the genus Carya
; high muckamuck (or mucky-muck, sometimes spelt usually pronounced as simply
"muckity-muck") : an important person (often sarcastically)
mugwump
a political independent
; that neck of the woods (naiack) : an expression; from whence a person hails
powwow
dance,a gathering or meeting, esp. of Native Americans
; raccoon : Procyon lotor, a North American mammal
skunk
a small mammal (Mephitis mephitis) native to North America
; squash (askutasquash) : a vegetable, s

moccasin
a shoe made of leather
From Spanish

; arroyo : dry gulch or creek bed

barrio
neighborhood, especially an ethnic (esp. Hispanic) ghetto
; buckaroo : cowboy (vaquero, cowboy)
burrito
flour totilla folded around stuffing and heated.
; burro : donkey

; desperado : criminal (obsolete noun desperate, hopeless)

enchilada
corn tortillas rolled around a stuffing and baked w/ sauce (usually tomato based but
mole chocolate sauce is also used esp in Mexico).
; frijoles : beans
gringo
a disparaging term meaning white, especially English-speaking (New World Spanish,
foreigner griego, Greek)
; hacienda : the principal dwelling on a ranch
hombre
man
; jalopy : beat-up car (originally thought of as originating from Jalapa, Mexico)
jefe
boss esp politically and/or financially connected w/ the "powers that be"
; mesa : flat topped mountain (mesa, table)
no problemo
a pseudo-Spanish expansion of the phrase "no problem", often used in place of
"you're welcome" as a response to "thank you". A literal Spanish translation of "no
problem" would be no hay problema (i.e., "there is no problem"); the actual Spanish
response to gracias ("thank you") is de nada ("(it is) of nothing", i.e., "it was done
without expectation of gratitude").
;
From Yiddish
See main article: List of English words of Yiddish origin

English words that arose in the U.S.

A number of words that arose in the United States have become common, to varying
degrees, in English as it is spoken internationally. Although its origin is disputed, the
most famous word is probably OK, which is sometimes used in other languages as
well. Other American introductions include "belittle," "gerrymander" (from Elbridge
Gerry), "applesauce", "blizzard", "barbecue" (and other spelling permutations
thereof), "teenager", and many more.
English words obsolete outside the U.S.
A number of words that originated in the English of the British Isles are still in
everyday use in North America, but are no longer used in most varieties of British
English. The most conspicuous of these words are fall, the season; to quit, as in "to
cease an activity" (as opposed to "to leave a location" as still used in most other
Anglophone countries); and gotten as a past participle of get. Americans are likelier
than Britons to name a stream whose breadth or volume is judged insufficient for it
to be a river or a creek. The word diaper goes back at least to Shakespeare, and
usage was maintained in the U.S. and Canada, but was replaced in the British Isles
with nappy.
Some of these words are still used in various dialects of the British Isles, but not in
formal standard British English. Many of these older words have cognates in Scots.
The subjunctive mood is livelier in North American English than it is in British English;
it appears in some areas as a spoken usage, and is considered obligatory in more
formal contexts in American English. British English has a strong tendency to replace
subjunctives with auxiliary verb constructions.

 The American Language 4th Edition, Corrected and Enlarged, H. L. Mencken,

Random House, 1948, hardcover, ISBN 0394400755
 How We Talk: American Regional English Today, Allan Metcalf, Houghton
Mifflin Company, 2000, softcover, ISBN 0618043624
o 1st and 2nd supplements of above.
 Craig M. Carver. American Regional Dialects: A Word Geography. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, 1987. ISBN 0472100769