The english language in north america

Of all the people in the world who speak English as their mother tongue, more than 200 million people live in North America. The majority of the population of North American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries spoke English.

Canadian English as a variety stands between British and American English. The features of American English dominate. American English reflects numerous non-English cultures which colonists met in their conquest of the continent. The American variety of English has borrowed many words from the vocabulary of the French, Dutch, Spanish and German-speaking settlers.

The French borrowings tend generally to fall into two groups. First, there are a number of words pertaining to exploration and travel, or descriptive features of the landscape. The most produc­tive one of the latter is "prairie", which can be found in more than eighty combinations in Webster.

The Spanish colonial occupation of North American territory is reflected in American Spanish through the words "ranch", "rodeo", "cafeteria", "lasso". Among the widely used words of Dutch origin are "Yankee", "boss", "cookie", "Santa Claus". The words of German origin or showing some aspects of German in­fluence also found their way into the American form of the lan­guage: "frankfurter", "semester", "seminar" among them.

Another source of new words has been the Indian languages and the language of Negro slaves brought to America from Af­rica. Recent research shows that "jazz", "hippie" are probably African in origin. The names of many native animals and plants are of Indian origin. As newcomers, the Europeans were at a loss to explain the new plant and animal life of the New World, or to give names to their new tools, so they used Indian words "raccoon", "opossum", "skunk", "moose", "caribou", etc. The words "moccasins", "wigwam", "toboggan", "tomahawk" also came from Indian languages.

Both British English and American English have a common origin in the English language of Shakespeare's time, i. e. the early 17th century. As the time went on the meanings of some words changed, some words became out-dated in Britain, while they were still used in American English. One of the best exam­ples is "fall" — autumn. The word was used by Shakespeare, but since his time practically all speakers of British English have used the word "autumn".

Thus, besides the borrowings from different languages and new meanings of words which appeared due to the development of American ways of life, American English contains archaic fea­tures of the language which have disappeared in England itself. But frequently, the archaic survivals in America may be still found in the English local or regional dialects. [12, 208]

IV. Post-reading tasks

1. Say whether each of the following sentences is true or false. Correct the false sentences to make them true.

1. The colonists who settled in America spo­ke the languages of their native countries up to the 19th century.

2. Some of the French borrowings proved to be very productive in American English.

3. The Indians' contribution to American English is traced only to numerous place-names.

4. British and American English developed from different sources, which explain their differences.

5. American English contains some archaic features of the 17th-century English.