English Language: American or British?(1)

A quarrel about how great would the differences between the two kinds of English be in the future caused vehement argument and the following is my point of view

Being the paternal language of the other native Englishes (Canadian English, Australian English, New Zealand English and South African English), British English and American English today are the two main English languages of the English-speaking world. Although too many has already been said over how the scope, the types, and the possible effects of the inconsistency between the two kinds will be in the future, the quarrel on the issue has not come to an end at all.

The cover of the journal Forum XXVII, No 3, July 1989, recalling the topic and provides a research of evidence of the difference between the two kinds of English over the centuries. Noah Webster (in Dissertations on the English Language) claimed that a further incompatibility of the American language from the English necessary and inevitable. He also predicted that “North American English would eventually be as different from British as Dutch, Danish and Swedish are from German or from one another”. Mark Twain (in The Stolen White Elephant) thought American and British English to be different languages and declared that the former, spoken “in its utmost purity”, cannot be understood by an English people at all. This attitude was previously expressed by Captain Thomas Hamilton (in Men and Manners in America). He said that “in another century, the dialect of the Americans will become utterly unintelligible to an Englishman.”

Authors of the twentieth century hold entirely different attitude toward those of the previous centuries, they tend to have a much more distinctive feeling of sameness between American and British English. Thus, Mitford M. Mathews (from Beginnings of American English) sees the two kinds to be “so overwhelmingly alike.” For Stephen Leacock (from How to Write), “There is not the faintest chance of there ever being an American language as apart from English.” Randolph Quirk (in The New York Times Magazine), believes that, ”even in matters of pronunciation, it is difficult to find many absolute British and American distinctions”; Quirk claimed that even Noah Webster, after fruitless years in trying to create a “linguistic gulf”, “came to realize that in all essentials Britains and Americans spoke the same language”. Albert H. Marckwardt and Randolph Quirk lately expressed their conclusion that they consider British English and American as the same in their book A Common Language: British and American English. It’s Introduction which is an excerpt from the book reads that “The two varieties of English have never been so different as people have imagined, and the dominant tendency, for several decades now, has been that of convergence and even greater similarities.”

The present books argues that this growing view of sameness between American and British English give out the riskof neglecting the existence of some significant differences whose impact in certain domains of life should not be overlooked. But before looking into the problems which arise from the differences between the two Englishes, I will give a background showing the development process of the status of American English in the world, its influence and expansion and analyze it’s causes of growing.

1. The development and popularity of American English

Long after its introduction into the New World, American English was still considered non-standard English. Mr. Kahane pointed out that according to some people of the 1780s American English was the “underdog” or a peasant’s language that a “gentleman” will not speak. Considered in a bilingual point of view, British English was the dominant language linked to prestige and (linguistic) purism. The belief in the authority or say in the superior of British English, has maintained to the twentieth century, especially in the former British Empire or in the fields of British influence. Thus, it is reported that in China, teachers and school textbooks refer to and recommend Received Pronunciation as the model, as well as standard British syntax, spelling and lexis. British English is also encouraged and accepted as the criteria of some major official examinations, for example, College English Test and Test for English Majors which are conducted by government. Similar situations could be found in other countries, for example, in Africa, the West African Examination Council and Joint Admission and Matriculation Board accept the British English as the standard English. Report can also be found that in Cairo, as recently as 1984, some university students received lower grades if they used American spellings instead of British. Modiano wrote that in Europe, “we find teachers, British people as well as natives of the country in which they work, who follow the British English standard, and scorn the American English”.

However the above attitudes are nothing but the last influence of a long-gone period of British supremacy. According to Campbell and others, the beginning of a distinct lead of American English can be traced to the decades after World War II. This coincides with the simultaneous rise of the US as a military and technological power and the decline of the British Empire, which drove many to American English. And from then on, American English has continuously sent its influence to every corner of the planet.

Britain made English an international language in the nineteenth century with its imperialism power, but Americans have been the driving force behind its globalization in the twentieth century. A great deal of examples of the influence of American English can be found in a large quantity of current books, magazines, movies. According to Foster, the popularity of Americanism among the young generation in Britain is “the hall-mark of the tough-guy and the he-man”. After reviewing the presence of American English features in the British variety of English itself, Awonusi gives a great deal of examples of Americanized English in phonology and lexis that he has identified co-exiting in his own Nigerian English. Modiano reports that, despite the influence of expert English teachers from Britain, Europeans “are subjected to a massive amount of American English”, which many students are much more interested in. Campbell’s examples of the influence of American English include the fact that young people in Europe, Asia and Russia use it in daily conversation, even when many of them have been taught British English. In Brazil, people demand for courses in American style rather than British. This is because American English is infiltrating the territories formerly known to be the territory of British English influence, for example, Nigeria, Egypt, Thailand, and more forcefully penetrating Latin America, Japan, and south Korea. Americanized words like guy, campus, movie which do not exist in British English, are now widely used. Today even the BBC, which has long used British English speaking announcers exclusively, now added American announcers in its broadcasts, especially in programs that go to countries like South Korea, where American English is favored.

According to Campbell’s estimate, 70% of the roughly 350 million native English speakers speak the American version of English. In fact, the populations of the two leading mother tongue English countries are even more suggestive: The United States has a population of about 260 million while there is only about 55 million in Britain. This seemingly gives the American English much more advantage. The causes of the unprecedented expansion of American English include, as stated above, the post-World War II military and technological advancement. They are for demographic, political reasons, or have to do with the computer and the internet, the mass media, trade, the Peace Corps, and immigration policies:

The last few decades have witnessed an ever-increasing political domination of America on the planet. This status was further reinforced in the late 1980s by the fall of communism, which resulted in the US penetrating and consolidating its position in formerly socialist territories.
The lead of the US in the computer and Internet industry has long been established. That Bill Gates and other computer geniuses are Americans, they create everything by Americanism. As a consequence of the US domination of computer industry, the favored language of this industry is American English, which force people who use American computer hardware and software to accept the American English, either consciously or unconsciously.
American radio and television networks are spread all over the world. Campbell reports that, as recently as 1993, the United States controlled 75% of the world’s television programming, “beaming ‘Sesame Street’ to Lagos, Nigeria, for example”. The Voice of America and CNN have no competitors all over the world over.

Trade with the US has steadily risen in volume over the past few years, even in territories formerly controlled by Britain and considered by many people to be count of bounds to America. For example, the US is one of Nigeria’s main partners in the crude oil business.
The Peace Corps, founded by President J.F. Kennedy in 1962, has been a major cause of emigration of Americans to various parts of the Third World. The Peace Corps volunteers have been working in the medical sector, in agriculture, and very significantly in English language teaching, leaving considerable influence of American English after their returning back.
The strict immigration laws of Britain, coupled with the alleged inhospitality of the British, have of late diverted to America students and people from various parts of the world seeking a substitute place — the United States. The chain reaction of this factor has resulted in much more migration to the US. For people hold the sense that they tend to find help from friends and relatives living in the States. The recent policy, enacted by the US, of the visa program to “recruit” 50,000 new immigrants to the States each year has added to the attempt to migrant to the US. The long-term reaction of the large migration to the States on the Americanization of English in native countries of the immigrants is obvious; the immigrants continue to communicate with their friends and relatives back in their homeland, and many eventually come back and settle.
Told above is the story of the baby version of a English language that has grown and is threatening to shake the domination of the mother language. This phenomenon could hardly been seen elsewhere. Neither the case with Canadian, Belgian or Swiss French in relation to the French of France, nor with Latin American Spanish or Portuguese in relation to the Spanish or Portuguese of Spain or Portugal, respectively. The speaker, and especially the learner, of English is now faced with the task of managing the co-existence of the two competing languages. They are, however, not problem-free.

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