On 19/09/05, Jack & Naree jack.macdaddy@gmail.com wrote:
American-dialect English (also known as American-English) is more related to English of the 17th-18th century than 'Commonwealth-English' is.
What you mean is, the American dialect appears to have retained more obvious features of C17th English, whilst also evolving new ones of its own.
Neither Commonwealth-English nor American-English are
'English-English' or proper English more than the other;
Whilst neither Commonwealth English nor American-English *are* 'English English'; but, Commonwealth English includes English English and the accents and less divergent dialects of Commonwealth countries, which are more or less the same as written English English.
What is this "English English" to which you refer then, if it is only "more or less the same" as actual existing varieties of English? Who speaks or spoke it? You? Your wife? William Shakespere?
So you're basically incorrect. Americans seem to want to believe that they speak English, and we speak British English in England (meaning Britain!). They are wrong. They speak a dialect of our language, called American-English, an offshoot from the main trunk if you will, which has evolved somewhat independently of English.
No. We all speak varieties of a language which has slowly evolved from the "Germanic" languages of invaders of the British Isles several centuries ago, diverging and converging according to political expedience, and being heavily influenced by the mostly unrelated language of a later wave of invaders from France. I suggest you read one of the many fascinating accounts of the history of the language - such as those by Robert McCrumb, David Crystal, or Bill Bryson.
English has evolved in various directions, over many centuries, and is the product of a diverging evolution dating back much further still. If you like, it is a dialect of German, which has evolved separately; ultimately, through its Indo-European roots, it is also a separately evolved branch of Spanish, and of various Indian languages. But you couldn't really call it an "offshoot" of those, since they have all developed entirely in parallel. The difference between a language and a dialect is subtle, and sometimes controversial, but whether the variety of English spoken in Sussex and the variety spoken in Manhattan are dialects or just very closely related languages, they are both recent [and eternally shifting] developments, and both equally legitimate branches of an extremely complex grouping generally known as "English".
In short, there is no "main trunk", never has been, and never will be.
American-English is an out and out dialect of English. How can English English be a dialect of English?
Because "English" is a term which refers to a language, in all its dialects and usages, and "English English" is a term you've just made up to refer to the variety of that language you happen to speak, and/or of which you happen to approve.
(NB, I'm basing my definition on the written word not the regional spoken dialects of England).
There is no reason for a dialect to be unwritten - commonly cited vocabulary differences include the word for a small bread roll ("bap", "barm cake", etc), and I'm sure users of those words would quite unconciously use them in writing if they weren't carefully conforming to a particular "standard". The BBC recently had a fascinating "Voices" season celebrating just how varied our language is.
if you want proper English, look to Shakespearean early Modern English.
Incorrect, if you want proper English, go to England; that is where the English language is spoken by the English people, of England.
"Proper English" is a meaningless term. The first systematic efforts to standardise English to any extent came with the invention of the printing press, when it became possible to distribute documents en masse all across the country (William Caxton wrote an oft-quoted "prologue" regarding the difficulties of making printed material understandable by all its readers). The concept of "English grammar" is largely a construct of scholars who wished English was more like Latin (to which it is largely unrelated) and attempted to force it into a similar formal structure. "Correct spelling" is a similarly artificial construct, mostly related to the mutual intelligibility problem.
Meanwhile, if you want to use "English" to mean "the language spoken in England" you will face two problems: 1) this is not how most users of English [or whatever replacement term you wish to use for the sum of all English dialects] understand the term; thus you defeat your own aim of using a "proper"/"standard" language, in favour of using an "idiolect" which requires you to constantly explain your reasoning 2) there is no one variety of English spoken in England; I think this point needs little elaboration
Like I say, read some books about the history of English - it's really quite fascinating, and should correct any misapprehensions you have of a "pure" English ever having existed, even if you still remain on the side of the "prescriptivists" who wish to create such a thing.