Historical Characteristics Of American English As A Variety Of English

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American English as a Variety of English For many years, English is a worldwide spoken language, which one can find on all continents, today. The tongue is used as a first language in well over 30 areas (Graddol 2000: 10) and there might be approximately 400 million speakers of the language at all (Crystal 2003: 62). Therefore, English is established as one of the global languages (Bauer 2007: 23). Considering that the peculiarities of English differ most intense, the usage of different language speakers reflects the numerous varieties of the English tongue. Varieties represent the different “characteristic of the English language as it is used in various countries around the world” in general (1). English itself fulfills the officialese in …show more content…

But there is no right form or universality of the English language. By reason of its historic cultural background and its dissemination, it arises as an individual language. In the following, this essay argues in how far American English represents a multilingual variety and takes a deeper look into the linguistic history of American English and its idiosyncrasies. At first, it is necessary to look roughly at the historical background of the modern American English language and furnish a brief recapitulation of the historical facts. The beginning of the American language started in 1492 with the discovery of the continent America by the Italian Christopher Columbus (Hickey 2015: 27). Originally, the continent was inhabited by Native Americans who spoke indigenous languages (Schneider 2008: 1). Nevertheless, the people and their native languages “were subdued and cruelly decimated by European” fellow countrymen (23). After the exploration with the aid of Columbus, the European settlers started to discover the East coast of America. States such as North Carolina, Virginia, New England and Massachusetts were colonized by mainly British compatriots. Other European countries settled

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