United States (Linguistic) Independence

The United States’ independence from Britain marked not only a departure from British control, but also from British English. Today there is a great amount of divergence in spelling, pronunciation, and vocabulary between the two – intriguing professional linguists and everyday speakers alike. So how did this spoken independence begin?

We’re familiar with translation services that translate English into other languages, but have you ever thought about the need to translate English into…English?  Independence Day in the United States celebrates the political separation from Great Britain on July 4, 1776. This period marked not only departure from British control, but also from British English. Today there is a great amount of divergence in spelling, pronunciation, and vocabulary between the two – intriguing professional linguists and everyday speakers alike. So how did this spoken independence begin?

Independence | The Great Vowel Shift

When English speakers were settling in the New World they were geographically isolated from people in England. Without daily contact, speech in the U.S. colonies began drifting from British English. A remarkable linguistic change, dubbed the Great Vowel Shift, was also taking place between 1350 and 1600 in England. Vowels from Late Middle English were beginning to change sounds during this period. This shift did not happen all at once, so words with vowels that sounded that same around 1470, when the printing press was popularized in England, were written with the Middle English spelling. In some cases the pronunciation would continue to change, but the spelling was already established so it was left unchanged. This explains some of the peculiarities of English spelling. For example, ‘knead,’ ‘bread,’ ‘wear,’ and ‘great’ all have a different vowel sound, but the same ‘ea’ in the middle. Many English words used today are borrowed from other languages. As such, differences in modern spelling between British and U.S. English arise from England’s tendency to preserve the spelling from the borrowed language.  In the United States, it is more common to adapt the spelling to resemble the pronunciation.

Independence | Mind your P’s and Q’s (and R’s)

Between the Great Vowel Shift and the separation by the Atlantic Ocean, it should come as no surprise that some discrepancies formed between the English spoken in the colonies and the English spoken back on the mainland. Surprisingly; however, many of the differences we now observe took place after the Revolution. In England non-rhotic speech, or speech in which the /r/ sound is often eliminated, was popularized and spread around the country. This is why words like ‘hard’ sound more like ‘”hahd” when spoken by a person with a British accent. Different regions of England varied accents for centuries, but non-rhoticity did not really grip England until the 1700s. This is one of the most defining differences between modern U.S. and British English. There are some accents in the states that are non-rhotic, such as those of Boston and Charleston. These arose because of continued close ties with England for trading purposes; however, there are still numerous differences in the accents of a London native and a Boston-born speaker.

Independence | Are you bringing a bumbag to your neighbor’s garden this bank holiday?

Although modern communication reduces the effects of geographic isolation on the two variations of English as well as a need for any professional translation or localization services, there are still disparities between the vocabulary used in England versus that in the United States. Here is a list of words you may be using this holiday weekend that have British counterparts!

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