|
North American English (NAmE, NAE) is the broadest variety of the English language as spoken in North America, including all dialects of the United States and Canada. Because of their shared histories and cultures and the similarities between the pronunciation, vocabulary and accent of American English and Canadian English, the two spoken dialects are often grouped together under a single category.〔Trudgill, Peter & Jean Hannah. (2002). ''International English: A Guide to the Varieties of Standard English,'' 4th. London: Arnold. ISBN 0-340-80834-9 .〕 Due to historical and cultural factors, Canadian English and American English retain numerous distinctions from each other, with the differences being most noticeable in the two languages' written forms. Canadian spellings are primarily based on British usage as a result of Canada's longer-standing connections with the United Kingdom. Canadians are generally tolerant of both British and American spellings, with British spellings being favoured in more formal settings and in Canadian print media.〔Patti Tasko. (2004). ''The Canadian Press Stylebook: A Guide for Writers and Editors,'' 13th. Toronto: The Canadian Press. ISBN 0-920009-32-8, p. 308.〕 Spellings in American English have been highly influenced by lexicographers like Noah Webster, who sought to create a standardized form of English that was independent of British English.〔"Noah Webster's Spelling Reform," (2011) ''Merriam-Webster Online'', http://www.merriam-webster.com/info/spelling-reform.htm .〕 Despite these differences, English as it is spoken in both Canada and the United States is similar, with the United Empire Loyalists who fled the American Revolution having had a large influence on the early spoken form of Canadian English.〔M.H. Scargill. (1957). "Sources of Canadian English", ''The Journal of English and Germanic Philology,'' 56.4, pp. 610-614.〕 Some terms in North American English are used almost exclusively in Canada and the United States (for example, the terms ''diaper'' and ''gasoline'' are widely used instead of ''nappy'' and ''petrol''). Although many English speakers from outside North America regard such terms as distinct Americanisms, they are often just as ubiquitous in Canada, mainly due to the effects of heavy cross-border trade and cultural penetration by the American mass media. The list of divergent words becomes longer if considering regional Canadian dialects, especially as spoken in the Atlantic provinces and parts of Vancouver Island where significant pockets of British culture still remain. There are a considerable number of different accents within the regions of both the United States and Canada, originally deriving from the accents prevalent in different English, Scottish and Irish regions of the British Isles and corresponding to settlement patterns of these peoples in the colonies. These were developed and built upon as new waves of immigration, and migration across the North American continent, brought new accents and dialects to new areas, and as these ways of speaking merged and assimilated with the population. It is claimed that despite the centuries of linguistic changes there is still a resemblance between the English East Anglia accents which would have been used by early English settlers in New England (including the Pilgrims), and modern Northeastern United States accents.〔''Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America'', David Hackett Fischer, 1989.〕 Similarly, the accents of Newfoundland have some similarities to the accents of Scotland and Ireland. ==Major regional dialects== The following numerical list, corresponding to the map below, accounts only for major dialect areas of modern North America that can be identified by geographic location; therefore, it does not represent speakers of non-geographically based (ethnic, social, etc.) varieties, such as General American, African-American Vernacular English, Chicano English, etc. #Standard Canadian English #Western American English #North Central American ("Upper Midwest") English #Inland North American ("Great Lakes") English #Midland American English #Southern American English a. Texan English b. Inland ("Appalachian") Southern American English #Western Pennsylvania ("Pittsburgh") English #Mid-Atlantic American ("Baltimore" and "Philadelphia") English #New York City English #Southwestern New England English #Southeastern New England ("Rhode Island") English #Northwestern New England ("Vermont") English #Northeastern New England ("Boston") English #Canadian Maritime English # Newfoundland English 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「North American English」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|