Territorial Differentiation of the English Word-Stock

In Modern linguistics the distinction is made between Standard English and territorial variants and local dialects of the English language.

Standard English may be defined as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood either within an English-speaking country or throughout the entire English-speaking world.

Variantsof English are regional varieties possessing a literary norm. There are distinguished variants existing on the territory of the United Kingdom (British English, Scottish English and Irish English), and variants existing outside the British Isles (American English, Australian English, Canadian English, New Zealand English, South African English and Indian English). Each of these developed a literature of its own, and is characterized by peculiarities in phonetics, spelling, grammar and vocabulary. British English is often referred to the written Standard English and pronunciation known as Received Pronunciation (RP).

Local dialects are varieties of English peculiar to some districts, used as means of oral communication in small localities; they possess no normalized literary form.

American English is the variety of the English language spoken in the USA. The first wave of English-speaking immigrants was settled in North America in the 17^th century. In this century, there were also speakers in North America of the Dutch, French, German, native American, Spanish, Swedish and Finnish languages. That’s why the vocabulary used by American speakers has distinctive features of its own. There are whole groups of words which belong to American vocabulary exclusively and constitute its specific features. These words are called Americanisms, e.g. sorority, dry goods.

The first group of such words may be described as historical Americanisms, e.g. fall ‘autumn’, to guess ‘to think’, sick ‘ill, unwell’. In American usage these words still retain their old meanings whereas in British English their meanings have changed or fell out of use.

The second group of Americanisms includes words which are not likely to be discovered in British vocabulary. These words may be called proper Americanisms. They were coined by the early Americans which had to find names for the new environment (flora and fauna) and new conditions of life, e.g. redbud ‘an American tree that has heart-shaped leaves and small budlike pink flowers, the state tree of Oklahoma’; bluegrass ‘any of several North American bluish-green grasses grown for forage’.

Another group of Americanisms consist of words which may be described as specifically American borrowings. These borrowings reflect the historical contacts of the Americans with other nations on the American continent, e.g. ranch, sombrero (Spanish borrowings), toboggan, caribou (Indian borrowing).

One more group of Americanisms is represented by American shortenings. These are shortenings which were produced on American soil, but may be used in other variants of English as well, e.g. dorm (dormitory), mo (moment), cert (certainty).

The American variant of the English language differs from British English in pronunciation, some minor features in grammar, spelling and punctuation standards and vocabulary.