I sometimes receive email asking me to point out that American English is not English. I reply that I have to politely disagree. There are differences - especially in pronunciation and some key vocabulary. However, I wouldn't call American English a different language from British English. My advice is to learn the basic differences between American and British English, and then focus on communicating in English.
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Comments
Those people who refute the existence of “American” English are snobs. They are usually British of course and their concept of the English language is purely imperialistic–in the worst sense of the word. They believe that English belongs to them and to them alone and as such it should be piously mummified and only spoken in the manner of a member of the (Here we go again!) “Royal” family. Don’t we all refer to “the Queen’s English”? Where does all this put the Scots or the Welsh or the Irish? Didn’t they contribute to the growth and richness of the English language?
I agree and I think that there are many english. Now the international language is the global english, spoken and understood by non natives. Even they contribute to the richness of english, this is the one generally understood, without regional accents
I agree. I strongly believe that no language belongs to no special group or nation. It belongs to every single individual who uses it to communicate.
English language today is world’s language no certain people can claim it.
The trouble is when you get a person who claims to teach English who puts up a quiz to enable people to check their English usage, then says that the correct British usage is wrong without eplaining that his usage is a colonial variation. That person is the one who writes this newsletter!!
If you’d like to point to a specific quiz with this mistake, I’d be happy to add some remarks in the description of the quiz that I’m testing US English. I certainly wouldn’t call that a “colonial variation” – I don’t think that qualification would help any learner.