American English

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| main = _VALUE_American English | other | #default = }}|preview=Page using Template:Use mdy dates with unknown parameter "_VALUE_"|ignoreblank=y| cs1-dates | date }}}} Template:Infobox language American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English,Template:Efn is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the most widely spoken language in the U.S. and is an official language in 32 of the 50 U.S. states. It is the de facto common language used in government, education, and commerce in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and in all territories except Puerto Rico. De jure, there is no official language in the U.S. at the federal level, as there is no federal law designating any language to be official. However, Executive Order 14224 of 2025 declared English to be the official language of the U.S., and English is recognized as such by federal agencies. Since the late 20th century, American English has become the most influential form of English worldwide.

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.Template:Sfn Any American or Canadian accent perceived as lacking noticeably local, ethnic, or cultural markers is known in linguistics as General American; it covers a fairly uniform accent 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 American accent.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The sound of American English continues to evolve, with some local accents disappearing, but several larger regional accents having emerged in the 20th century.

History

The use of English in the United States is a result of British colonization of the Americas. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North 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 of England and the British Isles existed in every American colony, allowing a process of extensive dialect leveling and mixing in which English varieties across the Thirteen Colonies became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in the British Isles.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers from Western Europe and Africa.

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,Template:Sfn while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased. 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.

Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups' patterns of geographic settlement, segregation, and resettlement. This can be seen, for example, in the influence of 18th-century Protestant Ulster Scots immigrants (known in the U.S. as the Scotch-Irish) in Appalachia developing Appalachian English and the 20th-century Great Migration bringing African-American Vernacular English to the Great Lakes urban centers.

Phonology

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General American

Most American English accents fall under an umbrella known as General American. Rather than one particular accent, General American is a spectrum of those American accents that Americans themselves do not associate with some particular region, ethnicity, or socioeconomic group. General American features are used most by Americans in formal contexts or who are highly educated. Regional accents whose native features are perceived as General American include the accents of the North Midland (parts of the Midwest), Western New England, and the West.

The General American sound system's scope of influence and degree of expansion has been debated by linguists since the term was first used roughly a century ago. Many late-20th and early-21st century studies are showing that it is gradually ousting the regional accents in urban areas of the South and the interior North, New York City, Philadelphia, and many other areas. It can generally be said that younger Americans are avoiding their traditional local features in favor of this more nationwide norm. Furthermore, even General American itself appears to be evolving, with linguists identifying new features in speakers born since the last quarter of the 20th century, like a merger of the low-back vowels and a potentially related vowel shift, that are spreading across the nation.

Phonological features

Phonological (accent) features that are typical of American dialects—in contrast to British dialects—include features that concern consonants, such as rhoticity (pronunciation of all historical Template:IPA sounds), T and D flapping (with metal and medal pronounced the same, as Template:IPA), velarization of L in all contexts (with filling pronounced Template:IPA, not Template:IPA), and yod-dropping after alveolar consonants (with new pronounced Template:IPA, not Template:IPA). Like many British accents, T glottalization is the norm in American accents, though only in particular environments (with satin pronounced Template:IPA, not Template:IPA).

American features that concern vowel sounds include various vowel mergers before Template:IPA (so that Mary, marry, and merry are all commonly pronounced the same), raising and gliding of pre-nasal Template:IPA (with man having a higher and tenser vowel sound than map), the weak vowel merger (with affecting and effecting often pronounced the same), and at least one of the Template:Sc2 vowel mergers. Specifically, the [[father–bother merger|Template:Sc2–Template:Sc2 merger]] is complete among most Americans and the [[cot-caught merger|Template:Sc2–Template:Sc2 merger]] among roughly half. A three-way Template:Sc2–Template:Sc2–Template:Sc2 merger is also very common. Most Americans pronounce the diphthong Template:IPA before a voiceless consonant different from that same vowel before a voiced consonant: thus, in price and bright versus in prize and bride. For many, outside the South, the first element of the diphthong is a higher and shorter vowel sound when in pre-voiceless position as opposed to pre-voiced position. 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 from period British English in many ways, it is conservative in a few other ways, preserving certain features 20th- and 21st-century British English has since lost: namely, rhoticity. Unlike American accents, the traditional standard accent of (southern) England has evolved a trap–bath split. Moreover, American accents preserve Template:IPA at the start of syllables, while perhaps a majority of the regional dialects of England participate in /h/ dropping, particularly in informal contexts.

Vocabulary

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The process of developing new lexical items began as soon as British English-speaking colonists in North America began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from the Native American languages. Examples of such names are opossum, raccoon, squash, moose (from Algonquian), wigwam, and moccasin. American English speakers have integrated traditionally non-English terms and expressions into the mainstream cultural lexicon; for instance, en masse, from French; cookie, from Dutch; kindergarten from German, and rodeo from Spanish. Landscape features are often loanwords from French or Spanish, and the word corn, used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the maize plant, the most important crop in the U.S.

Other common differences between UK and American English include: aerial (UK) vs. antenna, biscuit (UK) vs. cookie/cracker, car park (UK) vs. parking lot, caravan (UK) vs. trailer, city centre (UK) vs. downtown, flat (UK) vs. apartment, fringe (UK; for hair hanging over the forehead) vs. bangs, and holiday (UK) vs. vacation.

Most Mexican Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812, with the opening of the West, like ranch (now a common house style). Due to Mexican culinary influence, many Spanish words are incorporated in general us