American English

The term American English is not an accurate term, but it is not an oxymoron as some believe.

It is considered amongst scholars of linguistics not to be a language in itself, but rather a dialect of the original language spoken in Great Britain. In fact, American English consists of a number of dialects. Distinctive dialects of American English include those spoken in the South, New England, and New York City, to name only a few. Even these dialects can be broken down further into distinctive dialects, such as the English spoken in Brooklyn, or that spoken in Boston.

The use of English in the United States was inherited as a result of British colonization of the country which at the time was partly a British colony. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America in the 17th century. During that time, there were also speakers in North America of Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Finnish, as well as numerous Native American languages. To a certain extent, the American dialect spoken commonly throughout the USA comes from the intertwining of many of these languages and dialects.

In many ways, compared to British English, American English differs in its phonology. Because of this, American English is regarded as a distorted version of proper British English. In contrast, British English is regarded as proper English.