North American English

North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures, plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar of American English and Canadian English, the two spoken varieties are often grouped together under a single category. Canadians are generally tolerant of both British and American spellings, with British spellings of certain words (e.g., ''colour'') being favored in more formal settings and in Canadian print media; for some other words the American spelling prevails over the British (e.g., ''tire'' rather than ''tyre'').

Dialects of American English spoken by United Empire Loyalists who fled the American Revolution (1775–1783) have had a large influence on Canadian English from its early roots. Some terms in North American English are used almost exclusively in Canada and the United States (for example, the terms ''diaper'' and ''gasoline'' are widely used instead of ''nappy'' and ''petrol''). Although many English speakers from outside North America regard those terms as distinct Americanisms, they are just as common in Canada, mainly due to the effects of heavy cross-border trade and cultural penetration by the American mass media. The list of divergent words becomes longer if considering regional Canadian dialects, especially as spoken in the Atlantic provinces and parts of Vancouver Island where significant pockets of British culture still remain.

There are a considerable number of different accents within the regions of both the United States and Canada. In North America, different English dialects of immigrants from England, Scotland, Ireland, and other regions of the British Isles mixed together in the 17th and 18th centuries. These were developed, built upon, and blended together as new waves of immigration, and migration across the North American continent, developed new dialects in new areas, and as these ways of speaking merged with and assimilated to the greater American dialect mixture that solidified by the mid-18th century.Longmore, Paul K. (2007). "'Good English without Idiom or Tone': The Colonial Origins of American Speech". The Journal of Interdisciplinary History. MIT. 37 (4): 513–542.

Dialects

American English

*General American

Ethnic American English

*African-American English
**African-American Vernacular English
* American Indian English
* Cajun English
* Chicano English
* Miami Latino English
* New York Latino English
* Pennsylvania Dutch English
* Yeshiva English

Regional American English

*Midland American English
* New York City English
* Northern American English
** Inland Northern American ("Great Lakes") English
**New England English
***Eastern New England English
**** Boston English
**** Maine English
***Western New England English
** North-Central American ("Upper Midwest") English
*Philadelphia English
** Baltimore English
*Southern American English
**Appalachian English
** High Tider English
**New Orleans English
**Older Southern American English
**Texan English
* Western American English
**California English
**Pacific Northwest English
* Western Pennsylvania ("Pittsburgh") English

Canadian English

* Aboriginal Canadian English
* Atlantic Canadian English
** Lunenburg English
**Newfoundland English
* Ottawa Valley English
* Quebec English
* Standard Canadian English

Table of accents

Below, thirteen major North American English accents are defined by particular characteristics:

Phonology

A majority of North American English (for example, in contrast to British English) includes phonological features that concern consonants, such as rhoticity (full pronunciation of all sounds), conditioned T-glottalization (with ''satin'' pronounced , not ), T- and D-flapping (with ''metal'' and ''medal'' pronounced the same, as ), L-velarization (with ''filling'' pronounced , not ), as well as features that concern vowel sounds, such as various vowel mergers before (so that, ''Mary'', ''marry'', and ''merry'' are all commonly pronounced the same), raising of pre-voiceless (with ''price'' and ''bright'' using a higher vowel sound than ''prize'' and ''bride''), the weak vowel merger (with ''affected'' and ''effected'' often pronounced the same), at least one of the vowel mergers (the – merger is completed among virtually all Americans and the – merger among nearly half, while both are completed among virtually all Canadians), and yod-dropping (with ''tuesday'' pronounced , not ). The last item is more advanced in American English than Canadian English.

See also

* Belizean English
* Caribbean English
* Commonwealth English
* Comparison of American and British English
* List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom
* List of words having different meanings in British and American English
* North American French
* North American Spanish
* Regional accents of English

References

Bibliography

* Chambers, J.K. (1998). "Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making," in ''The Canadian Oxford Dictionary'', 2nd ed., p. xi.
* Clark, Joe (2008).
Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours: How to Feel Good About Canadian English
' (e-book). .
*

{{English dialects by continent

18th-century establishments in North America
Languages attested from the 18th century
Dialects of English