English language is the mother tongue of Americans & British..but why the huge difference in pronounciation ?

Answer 1

Because of the more than 250 years of seperation from the Brits, plus the constant influx of immigrants adding their own particular flavor to the language creates different dialects and speech habits.

Answer 2

And spelling, after the native American's obvioulsy, you had the English, Dutch, Irish etc, so all contributed to how the language formed. English only won the battle to be the main language of America by a narrow margin, lucky really, because otherwise I think that the Global language - although now English, might well not have been. [I'm not including Chinese in the Global language bit!]

Answer 3

Hello,

American English or pronunciation was influenced by the United kingdom English. Uk is what people called the right or standard English and class American, Austrailian etc as dialects..but its the same Language but some words are said differently. Take portuguese spoken in Portugal,Brazil & Africa or Spanish spoken in Sain, South america, Mexico and Africa...

Answer 4

Probably all the other nationalities that make up the American population have influenced the pronounciation. I always think the general American accent has traces of Irish in it. Then there's the Italian influence on the New York accent etc...

Answer 5

Obviously language changes over time (as you will understand if you've studied Shakespeare). The first Britons to move to America spoke exactly the same way as Brits from their home towns who stayed in Britain. Because the two countries are so far away from each other, there was very little contact between them and so they evolved differently.

The same thing happened to Latin. It never died out; it just evolved and changed - but in different ways, and so over hundreds of years French, Spanish, Italian, Romanian etc. developed into separate languages.

Answer 6

Much of American English's differences from British English lie in the history of America itself. America was formed by European settlers who obviously took their own languages with them and modified English according to the mistakes they made. They also took phrases with them, some of which have stuck, for example, Kindergarten, kaputt, auto & zeitgeist are all German words commonly used in Amerian english. American English is essentially the result of a large number of Europeans speaking English together.

Answer 7

Sonia M.'s answer is right... it's got to do with language change. But you really should read Jean Aitchison's book 'Language Change - Progress or Decay' on it... it tells you all about change and then also read Charles Barber's 'The English Language - A Historical Introduction,' as that gives you historical context.

Answer 8

Many Americans are descendants of people from countries that don't speak English. When they learned English, they kept their accents and their children picked up on it, and so on. Most British are descendants of English speakers so they never had a non-english accent- just the British one.

Answer 9

Languages evolve. I'm sure British English is fairly different sounding than it was 200 years ago.

And how come the British forgot how to speak their mother Anglo-Frisian or whatever you will call it?

Answer 10

There is with Canadians and Americans... There is with British and Australians...

There is with English, Scots, Welsh and the rest...

Some parts of England don't speak English!! (Cornwall and parts of Wensleydale)