The Americans are identical to the British in all respects except, of course, language."
- Oscar Wilde
In 1978, during a debate in the House of Lords, one of the members said:"If there is a more hideous language on the face of the earth than the American form of English , I should like to know what it is." Samuel Johnson in 1796 had observed that 'Americans are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging'. Thomas Jefferson returned the shot by coining the word 'Anglophobia'.
The two differ in grammar and punctuation but I am sure you wouldn't like me to bore you with that stuff. Where the two are most markedly different is in pronunciation. However, let me just step aside and jot down a disclaimer. Both have a huge variety of local accents, surprisingly much more in the smaller and more compact England than in the vast, multicultural America- and both have significant variations across age groups or classes within the same geographical area.
What we are comparing here is the Received Pronunciation ( spoken around Midlands ) or RP of British and the General American or GA in America. There is always a chance of an illustration offered as typically RP being in use in some part of America and vice versa - so the Smart Alecs here, please don't raise your hands !
What we are comparing here is the Received Pronunciation ( spoken around Midlands ) or RP of British and the General American or GA in America. There is always a chance of an illustration offered as typically RP being in use in some part of America and vice versa - so the Smart Alecs here, please don't raise your hands !
One way to showcase the dissimilarity is to point out the distinction in accents arising out of phonological changes - the stress on some vowels or consonants. The first and foremost is that GA is rhotic unlike RP- Rhotic speakers pronounce the "R" sound in such words as "hard" and "winter," while non-rhotic speakers do not - most modern Brits would tell you it's been a "hahd wintuh.
The Americans, in a streak of remarkable simplicity, stress on the vowel alike in father, bother, cot and caught- pronouncing them as faather, baather, caat and caat respectively. Scooting on in different paths, while the British would make a distinction in the /a/ stress in trap and bath, the first /a/ as in cat and second as in far, the Americans would say trap-bath as well such words as plant, pass, laugh with similar stress on /a/ as in cat.
And even though I will not explain what is yod dropping, let m tell you this is the reason why the British pronounce new, immediate and allude as neeu, immi-djiet and a-lewd while the Americans would utter them as noo, imme-di-et and allood . Finally, if you are surprised that the American air hostess doesn't offer you a glass of water when you ask for , it could be because your pronunciation has not undergone the phonological process of 'flapping' and you had not asked for 'wadder' instead - I think a similar process would account for Malayalis go 'gogonut' on coconut!
And even though I will not explain what is yod dropping, let m tell you this is the reason why the British pronounce new, immediate and allude as neeu, immi-djiet and a-lewd while the Americans would utter them as noo, imme-di-et and allood . Finally, if you are surprised that the American air hostess doesn't offer you a glass of water when you ask for , it could be because your pronunciation has not undergone the phonological process of 'flapping' and you had not asked for 'wadder' instead - I think a similar process would account for Malayalis go 'gogonut' on coconut!
The Americans are not done as yet. In addition to differing over accents of identical vowel, they wantonly hopscotch on longer words to lay stress on vowels on longer multi-syllabic differently from their transatlantic cousins. In a few French loanwords, the British stress on the first and the Americans on the last so that garage sounds like garridge in RP and garraage in GA Reversing roles, the British stress on the last syllable to pronounce magazine as magazeen while the Americans stress on the first to utter magzin.
The most famous illustration is with the word "military" which we heard President Bush ( he of the shaak and aa fame who left the world incredibly more secure than what it was when he assumed charge) use so often . So unlike the British who reduce the second to last syllable of military ( the /a/ after /t/) by almost omitting it and pronouncing as miltri, the Americans full throat it and call aloud milly- tarry.
I think no less disparate than pronunciation is the difference in spellings between the two. The difference started in 18th/ 19th century following the publication of A Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson and American Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster .
These have largely taken (with a large number of exceptions, though) the re-forming/ dropping or substituting some vowels/consonants: words ending with -yse in British become -yze in American ( analyse-analyse); -logue ending words are abridged to -log in American ( catalogue -catalog); ae and oe words are written with single e in American ( anaesthesia - anesthesia and foetal- fetal).
Unlike the American, British English doubles the consonant in all inflections ( -ed,-ing,-est) and for noun suffixes-er and -or ( cancelled-canceled, modelling-modeling, cruellest-cruelest, traveller-traveler , counsellor-counselor). The Rhotic Americans like to linger and drool on the letter /r/, hence, a large number of words from French, Latin or Greek stock ending with -tre and -bre end with -er : calibre- caliber, centre- center, goitre- goiter.
Unlike the American, British English doubles the consonant in all inflections ( -ed,-ing,-est) and for noun suffixes-er and -or ( cancelled-canceled, modelling-modeling, cruellest-cruelest, traveller-traveler , counsellor-counselor). The Rhotic Americans like to linger and drool on the letter /r/, hence, a large number of words from French, Latin or Greek stock ending with -tre and -bre end with -er : calibre- caliber, centre- center, goitre- goiter.
What can be befuddling to both are the wholly different words which are given to mean the same - fall and autumn; cabana and beach hut;overpass and underpass - and over 3000 such words.But more than differences in pronunciation, spellings and choice of words of common usage, what can really cause embarrassment or grief is the huge amount of differences that exist in the meanings between identical words and phrases in these two streams of the language.
Bill Bryson points out, that "in Britain the Royal Mail delivers the post, not mail, while in America the Postal Service delivers the mail, not the post". A well meaning "I"ll knock you up in the morning "statement by a British could offend an American lady as a desire to make her pregnant; a Don't-worry, be happy' encouragement in the form of a "keep your pecker up" utterance could be mistaken for a penile exhortation; while a friendly " can I bum a fag?" could make an American wonder about your sexual preference and not your need for tobacco!
And when it comes to 'fanny', the 'transatlantic divide' is complete- with the British and Americans looking to cover up different sides!
Lots of great pieces have come from you this year, and wonderfully concluding the year with Transatlantic 'rivalry'. Heard Americans say "When would the Brits learn to speak English?"
ReplyDeleteSo much of the pronunciations one learns in a British English school (including our species), need to be forgotten across the Atlantic - To pronounce 'Leftenant' or 'Liyutenant' that is the question. To pronounce 'humble' as-is or 'umble'? American teachers deduct points if a student writes 'learnt' and not 'learned'. The British arts teacher cuts marks if student draws the wrong 'color'. An interesting story I had heard from a colleague - an American and a British are sitting in a car both looking out at a classy BMW convertible. The American says 'I really like this car', referring to the parked beauty. The Brit corrects him saying "This is 'this' car, and that is 'that' car".
And finally the question - which is more respectable - the Oxford or the Websters? We would love to see Mark Twain in London and Shakespeare cruising the Mississippi.
What a fascinating wish, indeed, Indranil!
ReplyDeleteMore and more as I read on this subject, I feel the British made things more complicated. The reference to 'color' is a case in point. The fascination of the British with their Norman or Anglo- French has been clearly responsible for the use of -our for words which originally ended with -or or -ur when borrowed from Latin . It was this charm of the French -our that led the British to spell these words as ambassadour, emperour, governour, inferiour, errour even as late as in 1755! They gave it up later on more due to American influence but remained inconsistent and confused throughout - colour and colouration but coloration, humour but humorist, labour but laborious!
Indranil, another example of the fancy for French by the British is the use of -ise instead of -ize despite advice to the contrary even by British dictionaries like the OED. Despite words like advertise, characterise and itemise being Greek or Latin in origin ( izare) and pronounced with a /z/ , the British, totally besotted with the French -iser, largely refrain from using -ize.
DeleteYou bring up an interesting point - the trans 'Channel' relationship. That always baffles me - theBrits don't like the French (and vice versa) but any fashionable or luxury item would still have the French touch. No doubt that paradox complicated the 'English' English further. Our Inglis-vinglis is more friendly.
DeleteBeing used to British English, the first time I became consciously aware of the differenec between the two was when I heard schedule being spoken as skedule ( infact, it has become quite fashionable amongst many in India) and multi as mul- tie. Please, some more on the Malyali 'flapping' as well. How did Gulf become gelf? And some on Bungali also- how did Vivek become Bibek?
ReplyDeleteAlthough the Jesuits in my school were from Maryland, USA there was never a move afoot to introduce American pronunciation in the schools- the fellows were true professionals and knew that students, studying for Senior Cambridge and later ICSE in a country ruled and taught English by the British, would be severely penalized . And even though the American Jesuits did not utter skedules, missils, mull - ties, I do remember Fr Hess, the Principal, always pronounce immediately and not immi-djietly!
DeleteBut one Americanism I do remember was the " Awint" by the Bible History teacher and the Basketball coach, Fr. Peacock. Awint stood for "All right"- this tendency to chew vowels and consonants and convert to something else is called Slurvian and has been mastered by residents of Baltimore, Maryland. Incidentally, the last photo of the late reverend I saw was from the Chesapeake Bay at Baltimore.
How Vivek became Bibek in Bengali and Gulf gelf I will find out when I enroll for Yem Yay in English!
It was Noah Webster who changed shedule to skedule and leftenant to lootenant. But having said that, let it be known that pronunciations are in a constant flux- especially for a language like English which was initially forged with Germanic tongues and alloyed with Celtic, Latin, Nordic, French and Greek inputs. Pronunciation in Old English Age could be almost unrecognizable from that of early modern times- quite a few vowels and dipthongs were lost, nasalization sufficiently reduced, a large number of letters came to be silent ( the word knight is a good example- earlier kn and gh were pronounced and were not silent, similarly e was stressed in words ending with -ed like liked, th- became -s so hath became has). Infact within Great Britain itself there was a Great Vowel Shift from 15th to 17th century when tongue heights of long vowels underwent an increase - you may see this in my blog GHOTI. The GVS actually took place when England saw no substantial immigration unlike in the 4th to 11th century.
DeleteInfact, more than American pronunciation changing, I think it is what we called English Received Pronunciation or RP ( by a small but dominant around London socially exclusive group - you may see an expanded note on this in my reply to Lali Sengupta in the instant blog) which changed- the most noticeable being the departure from rhotic to non- rhotic pronunciation. Of course, this is a vast subject and quite a few things are not unambiguously explainable.
The loan words from Spanish like rodeo, bronco, mustang or stampede and cafeteria were not so much Spanish in origin as they were Indian or Mexican and it took some time or pronunciation in English to be stabilized- an example is rancher, originally from Spanish rancho but pronounced for a long time as ranker after the Mexican fashion.
A plausible reason why American pronunciation could have also started to veer away could be because of the infusion of so many new words ( as the Spanish ones above )which did not exist in extant English: the Dutch gave landscape, cookie and caboose, the Indians gave them such long tongue twisters with very atypical phonotactics which had to be hacked down like hooch from hoochinoo and hickory from raugrauoghcun. The need to devise pronunciation of a whole lot of new words could have affected how they pronounced the already existing words- this is just my guess.
What a brilliant piece this is, Vivek. Thoroughly entertaining. Working in an MNC, which actually means its an American one, it has been quite a job to unlearn a lot of the English we were taught in school. Somewhere in our cultural upbringing, we have also imbibed the sense that the British form is superior, and we, - at any rate, I - tend to mildly sneer at Americanisms. But the truth is the English language has been like a river, picking up things from around it as it flows through countries and there is now no black and white demarcation of English, no wrong or right English. Like river water, it is for us to bathe and swim in in our particular area, while the river flows on to the next place. Wonderful blog - I always find them erudite, and this was no exception.
ReplyDeleteIt is always so wonderful to engage with you Lali. What an appropriate simile of the language and a river in flow.
ReplyDeleteI also love Americanisms, no less because it deflects the ire of the British against Indian English- now that so many Indian writers have made pots of money! Yes, most of us do sneer at Americanisms but in the fairness of things, as Bill Bryson says, it is quite unfortunate. C'mon, if the Americans had not adopted English as their language, English could very well have had an influence as much ,or as little , as Portugese has today.
But why only at the Americanisms, the Indian English Pandava sneers at the Indian Ingreji Karnas-you know the poor guys who did not or could not or cannot learn English as well- because the English which was taught to us had origins in English snobbery of 17th/18th century.
I was reading somewhere that the American and British English were quite similar even when the two fought the War in 1780s- and the pronunciation was quite similarly Rhotic. But a large number of wannabes who made money in the 18th/19th Industrial Revolution aspired to 'move up' joined the landed elite , hired tutors and increasingly attended boarding schools such as Winchester, Eton, Harrow and Rugby and graduated from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Their speech patterns - based loosely on the local accent of the south-east Midlands (roughly London, Oxford and Cambridge) — soon came to be associated with ‘The Establishment’ and therefore gained a unique status, particularly within the middle classes in London. It was this language and the associated values of social exclusivism which were transmitted to India that has survived in varying degrees.
Thankfully, the language itself has outgrown the holds of the Public School wallahs and the Ingbonis and has merrily carried on, as you said, like a river , picking up things around .
Beautiful one you as usual rock.I prefer Americans though.
ReplyDeleteA trans Atlantic sojourn dipping, diving and soaring along the aerial,surface and under-sea cable pathways with drongo like agility. The fine nuances of the divide underscored so well.
ReplyDeleteThanks Anurag. Sometimes what is deemed to be a divide is actually nothing but a revival- take the case of such American words like fall for autumn, mad for angry, platter for a large dish, deck of cards ( the English call it a pack of cards), hog for pig and so many which were actually quite common in Elizabethan England and had died there soon after.The word 'gotten' is considered to be a typical Americanism by the British - so much so that the latter require the difference between got and gotten explained even though they have been using forgot and forgotten for centuries!
Deletehaha! Hilarious conclusion! Compels me to suggest a new title for the piece, please call it 'Finding Fanny".
ReplyDeleteThe subtle reference to asking for 'wadder' in an American Airliner was not lost on this unsuspecting reader..,reminded me of something I had read earlier..,now if only I could recall where...
Well, the Europeans got things so wrong at times. Sailing out for finding India, one of them stumbled upon the New Continent, wonder what they would have actually found when out Finding Fanny!!
DeleteAs regards the reference to 'wadder' , you may do well to go through some 2013 issues of Talespin in Jordan Times .
'merican english as spoken by father peacock wos real yankee-anyone got a recordin'?
ReplyDeleteI only wish both sides read this blog and then laugh at themselves. After all language is not an end in itself and only means to communicate. Britishers have made it an end in itself. But within UK also you have serious differences in pronunciation. We ndians are content with Hinglish. I am quite sure Britishers hate this. Won't be surprised for worst comments on Hinglish in British Parliament.
ReplyDeleteI think that will start only when Bollywood starts making popular films in English language!
DeleteHow I wish I had read this excellently researched piece before the Vibrant Global Summit had concluded. With delegates from both countries being travel(l)ers to the Summit, it would have given me an opportunity to analyz(s)e certain nuanced differences between the two.Truly, an outstanding effort. I insist that these random blogs be compiled into a compendium before they get lost. What a great blog to end the year 2014. I am sure 2015 has in store such equally brillaint posts from you.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the gentle nudge Hero-Prof. This one's so well written and edited! As youngsters, English was strictly BBC no matter how "hahd" it was to assimilate. Later, English learning became more of a glamour/fashion statement and during research it was inspired by the motto "the empire strikes back". So, fortunately I've never had a sense of possession -this side or that side- of the Atlantic. American or Merican as opposed to British is an agglomoration of dialects, with English as the major component and the American obstinacy to articulate/spell differently probably stems from a juvenile rebelious streak!! But one must not fail to admire the resourcefulness either, new flora/fauna,terrain, ways of life etc all inspired interesting coinage and despite completely effacing the Red Indians, the "convicts" and pilgrim brethren retained their pronunciation as far as practicable. Language study of this kind is extremely engaging if one is rarely to go like you! Thanks, on behalf of my undergrads!!
ReplyDelete"Juvenile rebellious streak" and "convicts" !! Have they been always unpopular or only after shaak and aa Anuradha? Whatever you may say, they have made language infinitely more interesting. Wish we could have discussed the Australian 'lingo' as well when what is pronounced as bison is not something which one hunts and eats but rather washes one's hands in ! The first Australianism which I caught was the way they uttered eight as aait.
ReplyDeleteWhen u r identical in all respects except of course I'm language, I am left wondering what respect are u identical in...as long as Indians have no claim on the language itself it saves us the dilemma of being on either of the divide... I am happy being me ....neither having to claim one-upmanship nor having to make a point but the blog as usual is a feather on your cap,..how do u manage to be on both the sides V the S?
ReplyDeleteBy covering them, Nidhi:)
ReplyDelete