American English, sometimes calledUnited States English orU.S. English,[b] is the set ofvarieties of theEnglish language native to the United States.[4] English is themost widely spoken language in the United States. It is an official language in 32 of the 50U.S. states and thede facto common language used in government, education, and commerce in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and in all territories exceptPuerto Rico.[5] Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.[6][7][8][9][10][11]
Varieties of American English include many patterns of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar, and particularly spelling that are unified nationwide but distinct from other forms of English around the world.[12] AnyAmerican or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or culturalmarkers is known inlinguistics asGeneral American;[6] it covers a fairly uniformaccent continuum native to certain regions of the U.S. but especially associated with broadcast mass media and highly educated speech. However, historical and present linguistic evidence does not support the notion of there being one single mainstream Americanaccent.[13][14] The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in the 20th century.[15]
The use of English in the United States is a result ofBritish colonization of the Americas. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived inNorth America during the early 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, dialects from many different regions ofEngland and theBritish Isles existed in every American colony, allowing a process of extensivedialect leveling andmixing in which English varieties across theThirteen Colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in the British Isles.[16][17] English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers fromWestern Europe andAfrica.
Firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English (particularly in contrast to the diverse regional dialects of British English) became common after the mid-18th century,[18] while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased.[19]Since the 18th century, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant speakers of diverse languages, primarily European languages.[20][8]
Any phonologicallyunmarked American English accent falls under an umbrella known asGeneral American. Typical phonological (accent) features of American dialects—in contrast to, for example, British dialects—include features that concern consonants, such asrhoticity (full pronunciation of all historical/r/ sounds),T-glottalization in certain environments (withsatin pronounced[ˈsæʔn̩], not[ˈsætn̩]),T- and D-flapping (withmetal andmedal pronounced the same, as[ˈmɛɾɫ̩]),velarization of L in all contexts (withfilling pronounced[ˈfɪɫɪŋ], not[ˈfɪlɪŋ]), andyod-dropping afteralveolar consonants (withnew pronounced/nu/, not/nju/). American features that concern vowel sounds include various vowel mergers before/r/ (so thatMary,marry, andmerry are all commonlypronounced the same), raising and lengthening of pre-voiceless/aɪ/ (withprice andbright using a higher and shorter vowel sound thanprize andbride), raising and gliding of pre-nasal/æ/ (withman having a higher and tenser vowel sound thanmap), theweak vowel merger (withaffecting andeffecting often pronounced the same), and at least one of theLOT vowel mergers (theLOT–PALM merger is complete among most Americans and theLOT–THOUGHT merger among roughly half). All of these phenomena are explained in further detail under General American.
Studies on historical usage of English in both the United States and the United Kingdom suggest that, while spoken American English deviated away fromperiod British English in many ways, it isconservative in a few other ways, preserving certain features 21st-centuryBritish English has since lost: namely, rhoticity. Unlike American accents, the traditional standard accent of (southern) England,Received Pronunciation (RP), has evolved atrap–bath split. Moreover, American accents preserve/h/ at the start of syllables, while perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England participate in/h/ dropping, particularly in informal contexts.
The process of coining new lexical items started as soon as English-speaking British-American colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from theNative American languages.[22] Examples of such names areopossum,raccoon,squash,moose (fromAlgonquian),[22]wigwam, andmoccasin. American English speakers have integrated traditionally non-English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon; for instance,en masse, fromFrench;cookie, fromDutch;kindergarten fromGerman,[23] androdeo fromSpanish.[24][25][26][27] Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish, and the wordcorn, used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote themaize plant, themost important crop in the U.S.
MostMexican Spanish contributions came after theWar of 1812, with the opening of the West, likeranch (now a commonhouse style). Due to Mexican culinary influence, many Spanish words are incorporated in general use when talking about certain popular dishes: cilantro (instead of coriander), queso, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, fajitas, burritos, and guacamole. These words usually lack an English equivalent and are found in popular restaurants. New forms of dwelling created new terms(lot, waterfront) and types of homes likelog cabin,adobe in the 18th century;apartment,shanty in the 19th century;project,condominium,townhouse,mobile home in the 20th century; and parts thereof(driveway, breezeway,backyard).[citation needed] Industry and material innovations from the 19th century onwards provide distinctive new words, phrases, and idioms throughrailroading (see further atrail terminology) andtransportation terminology, ranging from types of roads (dirt roads,freeways) to infrastructure(parking lot,overpass,rest area), to automotive terminology often now standard in English internationally.[28] Already existing English words—such asstore,shop,lumber—underwent shifts in meaning; others remained in the U.S. while changing in Britain. Science, urbanization, and democracy have been important factors in bringing about changes in the written and spoken language of the United States.[29] From the world of business and finance came new terms (merger,downsize,bottom line), from sports and gambling terminology came, specific jargon aside, common everyday American idioms, includingmany idioms related to baseball. The names of some American inventions remained largely confined to North America (elevator [exceptin the aeronautical sense],gasoline) as did certain automotive terms (truck,trunk).[citation needed]
New foreign loanwords came with 19th and early 20th century European immigration to the U.S.; notably, fromYiddish(chutzpah, schmooze, bupkis,glitch) andGerman (hamburger,wiener).[30][31] A large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (fromOK andcool tonerd and24/7), while others have not(have a nice day, for sure);[32][33] many are now distinctly old-fashioned(swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such ashijacking,disc jockey, boost, bulldoze andjazz, originated as American slang.
American English has always shown a marked tendency touse words in different parts of speech and nouns areoften used as verbs.[34] Examples of nouns that are now also verbs areinterview, advocate, vacuum, lobby, pressure, rear-end, transition, feature, profile, hashtag, head, divorce, loan, estimate, X-ray, spearhead, skyrocket, showcase, bad-mouth,vacation, major, and many others.Compounds coined in the U.S. are for instancefoothill,landslide (in all senses),backdrop,teenager,brainstorm,bandwagon,hitchhike, smalltime, and a huge number of others. Other compound words have been founded based on industrialization and the wave of the automobile: five-passenger car, four-door sedan, two-door sedan, and station-wagon (called an estate car in British English).[35] Some are euphemistic(human resources,affirmative action,correctional facility). Many compound nouns have the verb-and-preposition combination:stopover, lineup, tryout, spin-off,shootout, holdup, hideout, comeback,makeover, and many more. Some prepositional andphrasal verbs are in fact of American origin (win out, hold up, back up/off/down/out, face up to and many others).[36]
Noun endings such as-ee (retiree), -ery (bakery), -ster (gangster) and-cian (beautician) are also particularly productive in the U.S.[34] Several verbs ending in-ize are of U.S. origin; for example,fetishize, prioritize, burglarize, accessorize,weatherize, etc.; and so are someback-formations(locate, fine-tune, curate, donate, emote, upholster andenthuse). Among syntactic constructions that arose areoutside of, headed for, meet up with, back of, etc. Americanisms formed by alteration of some existing words include notablypesky, phony, rambunctious, buddy,sundae, skeeter, sashay andkitty-corner. Adjectives that arose in the U.S. are, for example,lengthy, bossy,cute andcutesy, punk (in all senses),sticky (of the weather),through (as in "finished"), and many colloquial forms such aspeppy orwacky.
A number of words and meanings that originated inMiddle English orEarly Modern English and that have been in everyday use in the United States have since disappeared in most varieties of British English; some of these have cognates inLowland Scots. Terms such asfall ("autumn"),faucet ("tap"),diaper ("nappy"; itself unused in the U.S.),candy ("sweets"),skillet,eyeglasses, andobligate are often regarded as Americanisms.Fall for example came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year".[37][better source needed]Gotten (past participle ofget) is often considered to be largely an Americanism.[8][38] Other words and meanings were brought back to Britain from the U.S., especially in the second half of the 20th century; these includehire ("to employ"),I guess (famously criticized byH. W. Fowler),baggage,hit (a place), and the adverbsoverly andpresently ("currently"). Some of these, for example,monkey wrench andwastebasket, originated in 19th century Britain. The adjectivesmad meaning "angry",smart meaning "intelligent", andsick meaning "ill" are also more frequent in American (and Irish) English than British English.[39][40][41]
LinguistBert Vaux created a survey, completed in 2003, polling English speakers across the United States about their specific everyday word choices, hoping to identify regionalisms.[42] The study found that most Americans prefer the termsub for a long sandwich,soda (butpop in the Great Lakes region and genericcoke in the South) for a sweet and bubblysoft drink,[43]you oryou guys for the plural ofyou (buty'all in the South),sneakers for athletic shoes (but oftentennis shoes outside the Northeast), andshopping cart for a cart used for carrying supermarket goods.
American English andBritish English (BrE) often differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a much lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary,An American Dictionary of the English Language, known asWebster's Dictionary, was written byNoah Webster in 1828, codifying several of these spellings.
Differences in grammar are relatively minor, and do not normally affect mutual intelligibility; these include: typically a lack of differentiation between adjectives and adverbs, employing the equivalent adjectives as adverbshe ran quick/he ran quickly; different use of someauxiliary verbs; formal (rather than notional) agreement withcollective nouns; different preferences for the past forms of a few verbs (for example, AmE/BrE:learned/learnt,burned/burnt,snuck/sneaked,dove/dived) although the purportedly "British" forms can occasionally be seen in American English writing as well; different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (for example, AmEin school, BrEat school); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (AmEto the hospital, BrEto hospital; contrast, however, AmEactress Elizabeth Taylor, BrEthe actress Elizabeth Taylor). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other,[44] and American English is not a standardized set of dialects.
Differences inorthography are also minor. The main differences are that American English usually uses spellings such asflavor for Britishflavour,fiber forfibre,defense fordefence,analyze foranalyse,license forlicence,catalog forcatalogue andtraveling fortravelling. Noah Webster popularized such spellings in America, but he did not invent most of them. Rather, "he chose already existing options on such grounds as simplicity, analogy or etymology."[45] Other differences are due to thefrancophile tastes of the 19th centuryVictorian era Britain (for example they preferredprogramme forprogram,manoeuvre formaneuver,cheque forcheck, etc.).[46] AmE almost always uses-ize in words likerealize. BrE prefers-ise, but also uses-ize on occasion (see:Oxford spelling).
There are a few differences in punctuation rules. British English is more tolerant ofrun-on sentences, called "comma splices" in American English, and American English prefers that periods and commas be placed inside closing quotation marks even in cases in which British rules would place them outside. American English also favors the double quotation mark ("like this") over the single ('as here').[47]
Vocabulary differences vary by region. For example,autumn is used more commonly in the United Kingdom, whereasfall is more common in American English. Some other differences include: aerial (United Kingdom) vs. antenna, biscuit (United Kingdom) vs. cookie/cracker, car park (United Kingdom) vs. parking lot, caravan (United Kingdom) vs. trailer, city centre (United Kingdom) vs. downtown, flat (United Kingdom) vs. apartment, fringe (United Kingdom) vs. bangs, and holiday (United Kingdom) vs. vacation.[48]
AmE sometimes favors words that aremorphologically more complex, whereas BrE uses clipped forms, such as AmEtransportation and BrEtransport or where the British form is aback-formation, such as AmEburglarize and BrEburgle (fromburglar). However, while individuals usually use one or the other, both forms will be widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems.
The map above shows the major regional dialects of American English (inall caps) plus smaller and more local dialects, as demarcated primarily by Labov et al.'sThe Atlas of North American English,[49] as well as the related Telsur Project'sregional maps. Any region may also contain speakers of a "General American" accent that resists the marked features of their region. Furthermore, this map does not account for speakers of ethnic or cultural varieties (such asAfrican-American English,Chicano English,Cajun English, etc.).
While written American English is largely standardized across the country and spoken American English dialects are highly mutually intelligible, there are still several recognizable regional and ethnic accents and lexical distinctions.
The regional sounds of present-day American English are reportedly engaged in a complex phenomenon of "both convergence and divergence": some accents are homogenizing andleveling, while others are diversifying and deviating further away from one another.[50]
Having been settled longer than the American West Coast, the East Coast has had more time to develop unique accents, and it currently comprises three or four linguistically significant regions, each of which possesses English varieties both different from each other as well as quite internally diverse:New England, theMid-Atlantic states (including aNew York accent as well as a uniquePhiladelphia–Baltimore accent), and theSouth. As of the 20th century, the middle and easternGreat Lakes area, Chicago being the largest city with these speakers, also ushered in certain unique features, including thefronting of theLOT/ɑ/ vowel in the mouth toward[a] andtensing of theTRAP/æ/ vowel wholesale to[eə]. These sound changes have triggered a series of othervowel shifts in the same region, known by linguists as the "Inland North".[51] The Inland North shares with theEastern New England dialect (includingBoston accents) abacker tongue positioning of theGOOSE/u/ vowel (to[u]) and theMOUTH/aʊ/ vowel (to[ɑʊ~äʊ]) in comparison to the rest of the country.[52] Ranging from northern New England across the Great Lakes to Minnesota, another Northern regional marker is the variable fronting of/ɑ/ before/r/,[53] for example, appearing four times in the stereotypical BostonshibbolethPark the car in Harvard Yard.[54]
The red dots show every U.S. metropolitan area where over 50% non-rhotic speech was documented among some of that area's white speakers in the 1990s. Non-rhoticity may be heard amongblack speakers throughout the whole country.[55]
Several other phenomena serve to distinguish regional U.S. accents.Boston,Pittsburgh,Upper Midwestern, andWestern U.S. accents have fully completed a merger of theLOT vowel with theTHOUGHT vowel (/ɑ/ and/ɔ/, respectively):[56] acot–caught merger, which is rapidly spreading throughout the whole country. However, the South, Inland North, and a Northeastern coastal corridor passing through Rhode Island, New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore typically preserve an oldercot–caught distinction.[51] For that Northeastern corridor, the realization of theTHOUGHT vowel is particularlymarked, as depicted in humorous spellings, like intawk andcawfee (talk andcoffee), which intend to represent it beingtense anddiphthongal:[oə].[57] Asplit ofTRAP into two separatephonemes, using differenta pronunciations for example ingap[æ] versusgas[eə], further defines New York City as well as Philadelphia–Baltimore accents.[58]
Most Americans preserve all historical/r/ sounds, using what is known as arhotic accent. The only traditionalr-dropping (or non-rhoticity) in regional U.S. accents variably appears today ineastern New England,New York City, and some of theformer plantation South primarily among older speakers (and, relatedly, someAfrican-American Vernacular English across the country), though the vowel-consonant cluster found in "bird", "work", "hurt", "learn", etc. usually retains itsr pronunciation, even in these non-rhotic American accents. Non-rhoticity among such speakers is presumed to have arisen from their upper classes' close historical contact with England, imitating London'sr-dropping, a feature that has continued to gain prestige throughout England from the late 18th century onwards,[59] but which has conversely lost prestige in the U.S. since at least the early 20th century.[60] Non-rhoticity makes a word likecar sound likecah orsource likesauce.[61]
New York City andSouthern accents are the most widely recognized regional accents in the country, as well as the most stigmatized and socially disfavored.[62] Southern speech, strongest in southern Appalachia and certain areas of Texas, is often identified by Americans as a "country" accent,[63] and is defined by the/aɪ/ vowel losing itsgliding quality:[aː], the initiation event for a complicated Southern vowel shift, including a "Southern drawl" that makes shortfront vowels into distinct-soundinggliding vowels.[64] The fronting of the vowels ofGOOSE,GOAT,MOUTH, andSTRUT tends to also define Southern accents as well as the accents spoken in the "Midland": a vast band of the country that constitutes an intermediate dialect region between the traditional North and South. Western U.S. accents mostly fall under the General American spectrum.
Below, ten major American English accents are defined by their particular combinations of certain vowel sounds:
In 2010,William Labov noted that Great Lakes, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and West Coast accents have undergone "vigorous new sound changes" since the mid-nineteenth century onwards, so they "are now more different from each other than they were 50 or 100 years ago", while other accents, like of New York City and Boston, have remained stable in that same time-frame.[50] However, a General American sound system also has some debated degree of influence nationwide, for example, gradually beginning to oust the regional accent in urban areas of the South and at least some in the Inland North. Rather than one particular accent, General American is best defined as an umbrella covering an American accent that does not incorporate features associated with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. Typical General American features includerhoticity, thefather–bother merger,Mary–marry–merry merger,pre-nasal "shorta" tensing, and otherparticular vowel sounds.[c] General American features are embraced most by Americans who are highly educated or in the most formal contexts, and regional accents with the most General American native features include North Midland, Western New England, and Western accents.
Percentage of Americans aged 5+ speaking English at home in each Public Usage Microdata Area (PUMA) of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico according to the 2016–2021 five-year American Community SurveyMap of U.S. official language status by state.
English declared the official language
Multiple official languages, including English (Alaska, Hawaii, South Dakota), or languages with special status (New Mexico)
No official language specified.
In 2021, about 245 million Americans, aged 5 or above, spoke English at home: a majority of the United States total population of roughly 330 million people.[68]
Of the 50 states, 32 have adopted legislation granting official (or co-official) status to English within their jurisdictions, in some cases as part of what has been called theEnglish-only movement.[5][69] Typically only "English" is specified, not a particular variety like American English. (From 1923 to 1969, the state of Illinois recognized its official language as "American", meaning American English.)[70][71]
While English has always been the language used at the federal and state levels, no official language technically ever existed at the federal level before 2025,[72] when PresidentDonald Trump issued anexecutive order declaring English the official language of the United States.
Puerto Rico is the largest example of aUnited States territory in which another language – Spanish – is the common language at home, in public, and in government.
^American English is variously abbreviatedAmE,AE,AmEng,USEng, anden-US.[a]
^Dialects are considered "rhotic" if they pronounce ther sound in all historical environments, without ever "dropping" this sound. Thefather–bother merger is the pronunciation of the unrounded/ɒ/ vowel variant (as incot, lot, bother, etc.) the same as the/ɑ/ vowel (as inspa, haha, Ma), causing words likecon andKahn and likesob andSaab tosound identical, with the vowel usually realized in the back or middle of the mouth as[ɑ~ɑ̈]. Finally, most of the U.S. participates in a continuous nasal system of the "shorta" vowel (incat, trap, bath, etc.), causing/æ/ to be pronounced with the tongue raised and with a glide quality (typically sounding like[ɛə]) particularly when before anasal consonant; thus,mad is[mæd], butman is more like[mɛən].
^abHickey, R. (2014).Dictionary of varieties of English. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 25.
^Mufwene, Salikoko S. (1999). "North American Varieties of English as Byproducts of Population Contacts."The Workings of Language: From Prescriptions to Perspectives. Ed. Rebecca Wheeler Westport, CT: Praeger, 15–37.
^A few of these are now chiefly found, or have been more productive, outside the U.S.; for example,jump, "to drive past a traffic signal";block meaning "building", andcenter, "central point in a town" or "main area for a particular activity" (cf. Oxford English Dictionary).
^British authorGeorge Orwell (inEnglish People, 1947, cited in OED s.v.lose) criticized an alleged "American tendency" to "burden every verb with a preposition that adds nothing to its meaning (win out,lose out,face up to, etc.)".
^Labov, William; Ash, Sharon; Boberg, Charles (January 1, 2005)."New England"(PDF).The Atlas of North American English: Phonetics, Phonology and Sound Change.Archived(PDF) from the original on October 9, 2022.This phonemic and phonetic arrangement of the low back vowels makes Rhode Island more similar to New York City than to the rest of New England
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