Challenge: American English as a separate language

[Otto Kretschmer]

What historical circumstances could lead to American English developing towards a separate language, at least as different from British English as Afrikaans from Dutch?

In our world the high literacy rate of the colonists (aided by the printing press) and constant contact with Britain meant that both languages remained mutually intelligible. But there are already dialects in England that differ from Standard English to such a degree that they can be considered to be separate languages. If the initial colonies had been established by a group of people speaking a rather divergent dialect (like Yorkshire, Cumbric or one of the southwestern dialects) and then left alone, perhaps we'd see more linguistic divergence?

[Travis B.]

What historical circumstances could lead to American English developing towards a separate language, at least as different from British English as Afrikaans from Dutch?

In our world the high literacy rate of the colonists (aided by the printing press) and constant contact with Britain meant that both languages remained mutually intelligible. But there are already dialects in England that differ from Standard English to such a degree that they can be considered to be separate languages. If the initial colonies had been established by a group of people speaking a rather divergent dialect (like Yorkshire, Cumbric or one of the southwestern dialects) and then left alone, perhaps we'd see more linguistic divergence?

To put it simply, I regularly watch British TV with my parents, and they often need subtitles while I don't (seriously -- I have expressed my disbelief at that they need subtitles to understand British TV), even though their speech is probably non-negligibly closer to that of the British people than my own speech is.

That said, one thing to consider is that SSBE and GA are much closer together than EngE (much the less ScotE) varieties or NAE varieties are to each other. This is why NAE and EngE won't separate into distinct languages -- their standard varieties are sufficiently close together that overall Americans will not have too much of a problem understanding SSBE, and Brits will not have too much of a problem understanding GA, my parents aside.

[Otto Kretschmer]

To illustrate my point, check out this for example
https://youtu.be/xhvkrIcUNy8?si=P2wSyct95TZqDJbT

For me it's already a separate language. I am not sure how far 17th or 18th century dialects were from Standard English but I imagine it was pretty far away.

Now all you need to do is to somehow
1. Make speakers of a divergent dialect colonize North America
2. Make their dialect survive and become the basis of a standard language.

[Ketsuban]

I am not sure how far 17th or 18th century dialects were from Standard English but I imagine it was pretty far away.

If A. Z. Foreman's reconstructions (an example) are any indication it is perhaps less different than you might think. Once you go pre-GVS (Old, Middle) is where you start really struggling.

[Travis B.]

To illustrate my point, check out this for example
https://youtu.be/xhvkrIcUNy8?si=P2wSyct95TZqDJbT

For me it's already a separate language. I am not sure how far 17th or 18th century dialects were from Standard English but I imagine it was pretty far away.

Now all you need to do is to somehow
1. Make speakers of a divergent dialect colonize North America
2. Make their dialect survive and become the basis of a standard language.

But that goes to show how English traditional dialects within, say, EngE differ(ed) much more from each other than English standard varieties ever have.

Even taking my own speech, which many here seem to view as being ridiculous, is really just a somewhat divergent morphophonology layered on top of pretty much Standard English (there are a few notably non-standard words, such as ja and bubbler, but that's about it).

[Otto Kretschmer]

I am not sure how far 17th or 18th century dialects were from Standard English but I imagine it was pretty far away.

If A. Z. Foreman's reconstructions (an example) are any indication it is perhaps less different than you might think. Once you go pre-GVS (Old, Middle) is where you start really struggling.

This is all "elite speech" so the same dialect, i.e. that of London. I assume that actual dialects spoken across the country were way more differdnt than they're today (since today regional dialects in the UK are pretty much dead, all that's left are regional accents)

[keenir]

What historical circumstances could lead to American English developing towards a separate language, at least as different from British English as Afrikaans from Dutch?

one of the strongest, most durable memories I have, is of my father telling me about the time that he (idiolect of lower Pennsylvania & St Louis) held a conversation with a British person (idiolectal origin unknown) for at least half an hour...and at the end of that time, they both realized that they had each been talking about a different thing than the other person had been.

so I think your premise has already come true.

[Travis B.]

I should note that I personally sometimes have trouble being understood by other English-speakers, but the big caveat is that they are typically not native English speakers. Native English speakers from elsewhere generally have a better time understanding my accent, even though there are exceptions (such as my example of a barista having the hardest time understanding my order for an Arnold Palmer).

[Glass Half Baked]

Plenty of divergent dialects made it to North America in large numbers. Where I grew up, the largest ethnic group was "Scotch Irish," meaning there would have been a time when everyone in the Appalachians sounded like this child.

[Otto Kretschmer]

Plenty of divergent dialects made it to North America in large numbers. Where I grew up, the largest ethnic group was "Scotch Irish," meaning there would have been a time when everyone in the Appalachians sounded like this child.

The issue is that those divergent dialects never made up the majority of AmE speakers and never made it to the status of an official language.

For American speakers you'd need those dialects to
1. Arrive into America in larger numbers so they make up the majority of spoken AmE
2. Spend some time in relative isolation (like Afrikaans)
3. Be granted official status

No. 1 is simple to achieve - simply ban settlement of religious minorities in North America and settle it with peasants from the Southwest or North.

How to achieve No. 2 and 3 - I don't know.

[Travis B.]

Plenty of divergent dialects made it to North America in large numbers. Where I grew up, the largest ethnic group was "Scotch Irish," meaning there would have been a time when everyone in the Appalachians sounded like this child.

The issue is that those divergent dialects never made up the majority of AmE speakers and never made it to the status of an official language.

For American speakers you'd need those dialects to
1. Arrive into America in larger numbers so they make up the majority of spoken AmE
2. Spend some time in relative isolation (like Afrikaans)
3. Be granted official status

No. 1 is simple to achieve - simply ban settlement of religious minorities in North America and settle it with peasants from the Southwest or North.

How to achieve No. 2 and 3 - I don't know.

The reason Afrikaans is a separate language from Dutch is almost certainly because it underwent partial creolization (compare the grammar of Afrikaans with that of Dutch to see what I mean).

[keenir]

Plenty of divergent dialects made it to North America in large numbers. Where I grew up, the largest ethnic group was "Scotch Irish," meaning there would have been a time when everyone in the Appalachians sounded like this child.

The issue is that those divergent dialects never made up the majority of AmE speakers and never made it to the status of an official language.

technically speaking, I'm not sure we have an Official Language...we have a majority language(s), and we just translate any documentation we need signed.

[Glass Half Baked]

Otto, you know there is no such thing as "official status" in the US, right?

As for the rest of it, I'm not sure who you think was coming across the Atlantic who didn't sound like a freak. I already mentioned Ulster Scots, who were an absolute majority of settler colonists in many areas. The pilgrims were from Yorkshire. The pilgrims! Talking like Sean Bean while they sail on "t'Mayflor." The problem wasn't that any interesting dialects were drowned out by immigrants speaking in Bertie Wooster's RP. The problem was simply leveling within the US, which took place quite without any help from the Brits.

[Travis B.]

The key thing is that GA is effectively a descendent of older versions of what became SSBE, but without the development of non-rhoticity or things such the trap-bath split, and with its own vowel mergers (such as the marry-merry-Mary merger). As a result, GA and SSBE are actually quite close together, moreso than many EngE and NAE varieties. As mentioned, significant dialect leveling has occurred in North America since European settlement of it; for instance, traditional Southern dialects have largely died out. Note that non-rhoticity was brought by later English immigrants to the US, but it was largely limited to the East Coast, with the interior being largely rhotic, and became largely marginalized after WW2.

[Torco]

I'm tempted to say the collapse of global telecommunications, or else a future where all of it occurrs by text, something like that.... then again, I wonder if the different big dialects of english (you know, brit, american, australian... not so much norfolk vs suffolk) have grown more or less interintelligible through time.

[Travis B.]

I'm tempted to say the collapse of global telecommunications, or else a future where all of it occurrs by text, something like that.... then again, I wonder if the different big dialects of english (you know, brit, american, australian... not so much norfolk vs suffolk) have grown more or less interintelligible through time.

One key thing is that global telecommunications has allowed speakers of the English standard varieties to be familiar with one another's speech, which over time likely would reduce the impact of the drifting apart of the English standard varieties more than it would actually put a damper on said drift. On that note, I feel like I just have to mock my parents' needing subtitles when watching TV in SSBE, General Australian, or what I suspect is whatever standard variety they have in NZ, which to me are very intelligible. This is despite the fact that their speech is almost certainly more standard than my own, and that I would have no expectation that a Brit would readily understand my own speech unless I was deliberately approximating GA. This leads to the conclusion that the standardness of one's own speech does not correlate to how well one understands other standard varieties of English.

[äreo]

I'm tempted to say the collapse of global telecommunications, or else a future where all of it occurrs by text, something like that.... then again, I wonder if the different big dialects of english (you know, brit, american, australian... not so much norfolk vs suffolk) have grown more or less interintelligible through time.

One key thing is that global telecommunications has allowed speakers of the English standard varieties to be familiar with one another's speech, which over time likely would reduce the impact of the drifting apart of the English standard varieties more than it would actually put a damper on said drift. On that note, I feel like I just have to mock my parents' needing subtitles when watching TV in SSBE, General Australian, or what I suspect is whatever standard variety they have in NZ, which to me are very intelligible. This is despite the fact that their speech is almost certainly more standard than my own, and that I would have no expectation that a Brit would readily understand my own speech unless I was deliberately approximating GA. This leads to the conclusion that the standardness of one's own speech does not correlate to how well one understands other standard varieties of English.

I think you're onto something here.

The case can definitely be made that global communication does do a bit to slow the otherwise natural drift, though, mainly from American English to other varieties--e.g. I notice more and more younger Englishmen in media engaging in very American-sounding yod-dropping (while I live in an area where a fair number of native American English speakers maintain yod in words like new and Tuesday). There's also certainly transfer of vocabulary, and that sometimes even goes in the other direction (non-American varieties of English influencing American English).

But more in favor of your point, there's also a difference between what we can or can't understand of other accents or dialects on the one hand and what we consciously perceive as being indicative of a foreign or nonstandard accent or dialect. Like in my part of the US, the pin-pen merger suffers no stigma, so even people with very GA-sounding speech overall will retain it. There are enough of these features that regional US accents will never fully level out, and likewise English varieties around the world will continue to drift apart, albeit perhaps much more gradually than they would without global media.

[sasasha]

...and that I would have no expectation that a Brit would readily understand my own speech unless I was deliberately approximating GA...

Curious... Any audio clips?

I will say that we are pretty used to most varieties of American speech over here. We have a lot of your TV.

On your general point, I remember a discussion with a Japanese friend of mine ‒ her husband is English and moved to Japan; the couple also met in and lived in the UK for a time. She said that she has no trouble being understood and accepted socially with her (excellent, though fairly heavily accented) English, whereas her husband, who she insisted spoke far better Japanese than she spoke English, struggled at least to be accepted socially as a Japanese speaker far more. Her theory was that English speakers are used to a wide variety of L2 speakers using it, whilst Japanese speakers are much less so.

[Travis B.]

...and that I would have no expectation that a Brit would readily understand my own speech unless I was deliberately approximating GA...

Curious... Any audio clips?

I have no audio clips of my natural, everyday speech that I can readily locate at the moment, and my problem with that is that when I feel I am being recorded or am talking over the phone or Microsoft Teams or Zoom I naturally approximate GA as well as I can.

For lack of audio clips...

[ˈkʰʊː.ae̯.ˈɛːv.n̩ː.ˌɑ̃ː.ʁ̃ˤɯːp̚ˈpʰɑː.mʁ̩ˤː]

[ˈtjɛːv.ˈɜ̃ːj.ˌae̯ˈdiː.əː.ˈwʌə̯m.ˈsʲpi.kɘ̃.ˌɪːʁˤ]

I will say that we are pretty used to most varieties of American speech over here. We have a lot of your TV.

One thing to remember is that at least here there is a differentiation between low-register and high-register forms here, as in most places. I am quite sure you would not have a problem with my high-register speech. Likewise, I bet your average American has a better time understanding, say, SSBE than, say, more lower-register Estuary.

On your general point, I remember a discussion with a Japanese friend of mine ‒ her husband is English and moved to Japan; the couple also met in and lived in the UK for a time. She said that she has no trouble being understood and accepted socially with her (excellent, though fairly heavily accented) English, whereas her husband, who she insisted spoke far better Japanese than she spoke English, struggled at least to be accepted socially as a Japanese speaker far more. Her theory was that English speakers are used to a wide variety of L2 speakers using it, whilst Japanese speakers are much less so.

I have heard similar things. English-speakers it seems really do tend to be used to hearing foreign-accented English, whereas, say, Japanese-speakers are far less used to hearing foreign-accented Japanese. (Of course I have heard stories where Japanese people simply refuse to believe that White people can speak Japanese even when such people actually speak fluent Japanese...)

[Travis B.]

I think you're onto something here.

The case can definitely be made that global communication does do a bit to slow the otherwise natural drift, though, mainly from American English to other varieties--e.g. I notice more and more younger Englishmen in media engaging in very American-sounding yod-dropping (while I live in an area where a fair number of native American English speakers maintain yod in words like new and Tuesday). There's also certainly transfer of vocabulary, and that sometimes even goes in the other direction (non-American varieties of English influencing American English).

The biggest sort of interdialectal influence through the media I have noticed is increased familiarity with other dialects' vocabulary; e.g. in my dad's generation it was common for the name Randall to be shortened to "Randy", but in my generation people know what "randy" means in EngE and have stopped doing that.

But more in favor of your point, there's also a difference between what we can or can't understand of other accents or dialects on the one hand and what we consciously perceive as being indicative of a foreign or nonstandard accent or dialect. Like in my part of the US, the pin-pen merger suffers no stigma, so even people with very GA-sounding speech overall will retain it. There are enough of these features that regional US accents will never fully level out, and likewise English varieties around the world will continue to drift apart, albeit perhaps much more gradually than they would without global media.

There are many English features that I myself perceive as foreign (i.e. non-Milwaukeean) yet which I have zero problem understanding myself. For instance, the pin-pen merger is markedly foreign to me -- it by itself indicates that one is not from the Upper Midwest -- yet it isn't something that would affect intelligibility for me at all. Similarly, there are many features of, say, SSBE such as yod-retention and a rounded LOT which immediately mark it as foreign to me, yet I personally have no problem understanding SSBE.