American English
American English is a dialect of the original language spoken in England which is used in the United States. American English itself consists of a number of different 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.
History
The use of English in Colonial America was inherited as a result of British settlement of the Thirteen Colonies. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in Virginia and New England in the 17th century. During that time, there were also a few 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 very small extent, he 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 grammar, phonology and vocabulary. Many of these differences were amplified by separate attempts in both Britain and the United States to standardize English usage. For example, Webster's dictionary was influential in firmly establishing many of the American spellings now in use today. President Teddy Roosevelt endorsed an effort to remove spellings that many Americans perceived to be cumbersome and illogical from the English language as used in America. The Chicago Tribune also embarked on its own effort to simplify spelling and make it more phonetic.
Today American English is simpler and more phonetic than British English. Sometimes as an expression of anti-American sentiment, however, non-Americans will insist that use of British English is exclusively proper English, the implication being that American English is somehow "non-standard", which is obviously untrue as British English itself is not a unified standard either.
