An overview of the main factors that shaped the diversity of American English.

1. An overview of the main factors that shaped the diversity of American English.

2. First English settlers colonised in North America in 1607. • Established in Virginia, named after Queen Elizabeth ‘the virgin queen’, first colonisers wanted to keep ties with Britain, and maintained this for generations. • Colonists in Massachusetts however were driven by the sense of ‘new destiny’ which evolved to the cultural surroundings of ‘New England way’.[Crystal 2005] Colonisation.

3. Noah Webster wanted a different model of English for America. • Since 1600’s a vast amount of new words had entered the American English, with different Pronunciations, spellings and usage. • In 1780 it was wanted that all colonies to adhere to the same fundamental language rules. The want for diversity. Thomas Jefferson stated that: ‘judicious neology can alone give strength and copiousness to language and enable it to be the vehicle of new idea’s.’ [Crystal 2005:421]

4. America and Britain had been diverging since the first settlers in Virginia. • The theory of colonial lag introduced the idea that ‘a colony is somehow inherently more conservative in its linguistic usage than its mother country’. [Crystal 2005] • Theory more apparent in Southern ‘Hillbilly’ territory. Colonial lag theory Examples of colonial lag: ‘I guess’ suppose ‘Gotten’ The use of a-preffix ‘a-running’ ‘Fall’ Autumn ‘Homely’ Plain-featured

5. Early accent origins. North colonists from East England (Norfolk, London) No ‘r’ after vowels: Haava’d’ German in Pennsylvania African American Creole within southern states. English by French in New Orleans Southern colonist mainly from west country England (Somerset, Gloustershire). Pronounced ‘r’ after words. Spanish in Florida Wolfram and Schilling [2003] Figure 1: Map of north america [5 Feb 2010]http://z.about.com/d/geography/1/0/A/H/usa2.jpg

6. Factors that shaped the diversity 1 Large popular mobility. Search for land went Westwards – community dispersed and combined in different areas. Political structure of America. Evolved loosely into decentralised federation, fostered notions of regional identity. Communication routes dispersed. Unlike England, the communications didn’t all gather in one city (London). There was no cultural, political or economical magnet.

7. Factors that shaped the diversity 2 Adaptation to different climates. English settlers were pressured to use existing language for where they live. E.g. desert, forests introduced words such as backwoodsman and toboggan. No inherited social structure. Colonies were established by immigrants, therefore their own devise of class criteria was created. (Rather than inherited privilege) Bilingual speakers. English was spoke by escalating amount of bilingual speakers, such as native Indians, giving distinctive characterisations of the language.

8. North America is 30x the size of the British Isles – instigating the greater levels of diversity. • Population was 91 million by the 1900’s. • This was 60million more than just 50 years previous. Figures signifying the diversity Map showing the different dialect regions in the current day in N. America Figure 2: Dialect map [5 Feb 2010]

9. Without the influx of immigrants in the 1600’s the diversity of American English would not be as vast as it is today. • Its enormous landscape also gave immediate linguistic consequences as people needed to have mobility and there was no central city. • Without the diversity, new words would not be introduced and ideas for a better future would not have been created. Thank you for listening. To conclude

10. Written sources. Chubarov, A. (2010) 1066 and all that [online] available from <http://www.1066andallthat.com/index.asp>[ 25 January 2010] Crystal, D (2005) The stories of English. London: Penguin books limited Wolfram, W. and Schill, N.(2003) American English [online] London: Blackwell publishing. Available from<http://books.google.com/books?id=q9s3pLO-y5gC&printsec=frontcover&dq=american+english&cd=3#v=onepage&q=&f=false>[25 January 2010] Visual sources. About.com (2010) Blank map [online] available from <http://z.about.com/d/geography/1/0/A/H/usa2.jpg> [5February 2010] Ajarn Brenda's English Learning Center (n.d. ) Dialect map [online] available from <http://morizaki.org/images/map3.gi > [5 February 2010] References.