Honorable Members Of The Hanging Committe1
Honorable members of the hanging committee! Dear students and teachers!
We want to introduce to your attention our scientific work “The differences between American English and British English.” We know that the language of some English speakers differs from that of others, every language allows different kinds of variations: geographical or territorial, perhaps the most obvious, stylistic, the difference between the written and the spoken form of the standard national language and others. For historical and economic reasons the English language has spread over vast territories. It is natural, that, the English language is not used with uniformity in the British Isles and in the world. It is almost a century already that the nature of the two main variants of the English language, British and American has been discussed. Some American linguists, H.L. Mencken for one, speak of two separate languages with a steady flood of linguistic influence first (up to about 1914) from Britain to America, and since then from America to British Isles. Since BE and AE have essentially the same grammar system, phonetic system and vocabulary, they cannot be regarded as different languages. Mor can they be referred to local dialects; because they serve all spheres of verbal communication in society within their territorial area they have dialectal differences of their own; besides they differ far less than local dialects. Another consideration is that AE has its own literary norm. Thus we must speak of two variants of the English national language having different accepted literary standards, one spoken in the British Isles, another spoken in the USA. So, linguistic evidence drawn from the investigation of English gives every reason to say that in spite of all functional differences observed in spelling, pronunciation and uses of words, in word-making and grammar, British and American variants of the English language prove one and the same system and one and the same language
We want to introduce to your attention our scientific work “The differences between American English and British English.” We know that the language of some English speakers differs from that of others, every language allows different kinds of variations: geographical or territorial, perhaps the most obvious, stylistic, the difference between the written and the spoken form of the standard national language and others. For historical and economic reasons the English language has spread over vast territories. It is natural, that, the English language is not used with uniformity in the British Isles and in the world. It is almost a century already that the nature of the two main variants of the English language, British and American has been discussed. Some American linguists, H.L. Mencken for one, speak of two separate languages with a steady flood of linguistic influence first (up to about 1914) from Britain to America, and since then from America to British Isles. Since BE and AE have essentially the same grammar system, phonetic system and vocabulary, they cannot be regarded as different languages. Mor can they be referred to local dialects; because they serve all spheres of verbal communication in society within their territorial area they have dialectal differences of their own; besides they differ far less than local dialects. Another consideration is that AE has its own literary norm. Thus we must speak of two variants of the English national language having different accepted literary standards, one spoken in the British Isles, another spoken in the USA. So, linguistic evidence drawn from the investigation of English gives every reason to say that in spite of all functional differences observed in spelling, pronunciation and uses of words, in word-making and grammar, British and American variants of the English language prove one and the same system and one and the same language