has America bastardized the English language?

Answer 1

It depends on your point of view. I took a course in English language once and learned that a "living" language changes. Words that we all use and are familiar to speakers and writers today, might have been considered "unacceptable" in common usage decades ago. Words that were used in Jolly Olde England in Shakespeare's time, are not used in common language today.

All of this does not mean everyone should start using dirty words or "bad language" when we speak or when we write. For example, if you want to get a job in management at a company, and you want an interview, you should be sure your correspondence--e-mail or otherwise--is written in using standard business English rules. And spelling and good grammar still counts big time! Certain words and phrases just should not ever be used in a business setting--unless you don't care that you may be fired...

Rules of language use change if you are hanging out with buddies at the sports bar or you are rapping with your best friend. The fact is, if the English language is going to keep living, you can bet that it is going to change! In most cases, it takes a while for new words or "slang" expressions to become generally accepted in common use. I just heard today that the dictionary writers will include "google" in the next edition. This is just one small example of change happening in our language.

Answer 2

English is the bastard child of a few different languages with a bit of this or that thrown in here and there. Language itself is fluid. Language is different region to region, generation to generation, etc. In some places language differs between villages. Americans haven't done anymore to the English language than anyone else that speaks English.

Answer 3

English is a language rich with contributions from many other languages, cultures and peoples outside of the country of England.

In Spain and France there are institutions which try to maintain the "purity" of Spanish and French. These institutions try to develop new words in Spanish and French to use instead of foreign words introduced in other languages.

English has no such institution. It freely accepts words from others and willingly uses them to enrich itself further. American English probably does this more than any of its "sisters" (British, Asian Indian, Canadian, Australian, etc).

Rather than "bastardizing" English I would say that America (i.e. the United States... "America" is a land mass consisting of two continents, North and South America) has developed the language further making it even more adaptable to changes in an ever-changing world.

Bill

Answer 4

All languages change over time and place, so it is no more a bastard than any other language we have in the world today.
It's just the way language works.

Answer 5

Nonsense. American contributions to the language have energized and enriched it. Because America is so multicultural, it has absorbed a gazillion interesting new and valuable words, like tattoo, ranch, tote, tsunami, typhoon, hip and hep, cool, '"okay," and interface. Check out the 1986 PBS documentary series, The Story of English.

Answer 6

Interesting question. First I have to agree with Klay Doe. English is a bastardized language.

Standard American English is more closely related to Standard British English than any non-standard English spoken in England. In addition, the variation of one form of spoken English in a small town in the south of Great Britain and that spoken in a some areas of London, for example, is far greater than any variation of English spoken in America. That has to do with the long history of England, and the relatively short one of America, much of which came after the language was standardized. (See Elizabethan English which was being spoken/written about the time the colonies first started being established in the New World.)

Standard American English has preserved many of the old grammatical structures. I'll never forget a group of English teachers from England telling me that no one uses "whom" any more and that to do so makes a person sound stilted and unnatural, even in writing. That was later confirmed by about a dozen other English teachers from GB that I spoke to in different countries around the world. Another example is our use of "gotten" as the past participle of "to get." The British don't use this form any more. They still use "forgotten", but they have done away with "gotten." It is considered incorrect, not even another option. The correct construction in British English is "I have got one sister." Many ESL books published in England teach this as the second or third sentence structure. In Standard American English, we would use the more standard, more traditional, "I have one sister." "I have gotten one sister," would imply that we went out and aquired one, usually by purchasing her, but possibly through theft or some other means.

Another interesting construction that is given as an example in many British-published ESL books is the causative structure using have. Example: "I've had my house painted." This structure is acceptable in both Standard American English and Standard British English. In both it means, "My house has recently been painted. I did not paint it myself. I arranged for someone to do it for me." However, the British will also say, "I've had my car stolen." This is a grammatically correct structure in SAE, but it means, "My car was recently stolen. I did not steal it myself. I arranged for someone to do it for me." In SBE, it means, "My car has recently been stolen. I had no knowledge of the act beforehand. I am shocked and disappointed." I don't know why the same structure can mean different things in SBE, but it can according the the ESL books I have used.

We Americans, on the other hand, have definitely changed the spellings of many words in English. I don't know why we decided not to preserve the spellings but to preserve the grammar.

Answer 7

The Anglo and Saxons, and perhaps Normans would look at present day British english language as 'bastardized", don't you think, its only common sense.

Answer 8

English is a living language. so over time it will change.

Answer 9

NO. Language is always changing. If you read old English you wouldn't have a clue what was being said.

Answer 10

No actually, we speak the orignal English langue, England's the one that changed the way they speak. Ironically if Shaksphere were to come back to life he'd only be able to understand Americans since that's the langue he spoke when he was alive. England was jealous of the countires that surrounded it, since their accents and langue was "musical" so they decided to change the way they speak to match their neighbors, when they tried to get American's to change they got angry and revolded againest England [It was one of the minor causes of the War].