24. American English. Linguistic status of American English.

Vocabulary of American English.

There exist lexical differences between the British and American vocabulary. There are whole groups of words which belong to American vocabulary exclusively and constitute its specific feature. These words are called Americanisms.

1) The first group of such words is historical Americanisms. The English language was brought to the American continent at the beginning of the 17^th century as a result of the expansion of British colonialism. Quite a number of words that were once in current usage in England have survived in America after becoming obsolete at home. Such are the words to loan ‘to lend’, fall as ‘autumn’, guess as ‘think’ or ‘suppose’, homely as ‘ugly, crude’, sick ‘ill, unwell’. These words are used by the Americans and the English in different meanings, but nevertheless they are found both in American and in British vocabulary.

2) The second group of Americanisms includes specifically American words, not found in British vocabulary, they are:

a) proper (early) Americanisms

The migrants were faced with a new world with different landscape, climate, trees, plants, birds and animals. Gradually they formed words to name all these new things. They are: backwoods ‘wooded, uninhabited districts’, cold snap ‘a sudden frost’, blue–grass, ‘grass peculiar to North America’, blue–jack, ‘a small American oak’, egg–plant, sweet potato, redbud ‘the state free of Oklahoma’, red cedar, cat–bird, cat–fish, bull-frog, sun–fish ‘a fish with a round flat golden body’.

These words cannot be found in British English vocabulary but the word-building pattern of composition and the constituents of these compounds are essentially English.

b) later proper Americanisms are represented by names of objects which are called differently in the USA and in England:

Some words though found both in English and American vocabulary have developed meanings characteristic of American usage. The noun date meaning ‘the time of some event’, ‘the day of the week or month’, ‘the year’ both in British and American English developed another meaning in American English only: ‘an appointment for a particular time’. The word corn originally meant ‘grain’ came to denote ‘maize’ in America.

3) American vocabulary is rich in borrowings. Alongside with the principal groups of borrowed words which are the same as in the English vocabulary, there are groups of specifically American borrowings. They were borrowed from the languages with which the American English came into contact, they are Spanish borrowings: canyon, ranch, mustang, sombrero, cinch, etc.; Negro borrowings: banjo, etc.; Indian borrowings: wigwam, squaw, canoe, moccasin, toboggan, caribou, tomahawk, hickory, moose, raccoon, etc. There are also some translation –loans of Indian origin: pale–face, war path, war paint, pipe of peace, fire–water, etc.

4) One more group of Americanisms is represented by American shortenings. This type of word–structure is especially characteristic for American word–building. The following shortenings were produced in America, but are used both in American English and British English: movies, auto, gym, b.f. (boyfriend), g.f. (girlfriend), OK (okay).

5) Less obvious, but no less important are the lexical differences of another kind, the so–called structural variants of the words, i.e. words differing in derivational affixes though identical in lexical meaning:

Acclimate- acclimatize; speciality- specialty

6) There are also some phonetic variants

As to word–formation in the two variants, the word–building means employed are the same and most of them are equally productive. There are some differences in spelling, e.g.: colour- colour; theatre- theater; defence- defense

Modern times are characterized by considerable levelling of the lexical distinctions between the two variants due to the growth of cultural and economic ties between the two nations and development of modern means of communication. A large number of Americanisms have gained currency in British English, some becoming so thoroughly naturalized that the dictionaries in England no longer mark them as aliens, e.g. reliable, lengthy, talented, belittle, etc. The influx of American films, comics and periodicals resulted in the infiltration of American slang, e.g. gimmick ‘deceptive or secret device’, to root ‘to support or encourage a contestant or team by applauding or cheering’.

So, Americanisms penetrate into British speech and vice versa. As a result, the differentiations seem to have a tendency of getting levelled rather than otherwise.

So, the American vocabulary is marked by certain peculiarities. Yet, in its essential features, it is the same vocabulary as that of British English. The basic vocabulary, whose role in communication is utmost importance, is the same in American and British English with very few exceptions.

Many Americanisms belong to colloquialisms and slang. That strata of the vocabulary is shifting, changeable, it does not represent its stable bulk both in British and American English.

Thus, Americanisms are not sufficiently numerous to claim that there exists an independent American language.