| North American English | |
| Region: | Northern America (United States, Canada) |
| Dialects: | American English, Canadian English and their subdivisions |
| Familycolor: | Indo-European |
| Fam2: | Germanic |
| Fam3: | West Germanic |
| Fam4: | North Sea Germanic |
| Fam5: | Anglo-Frisian |
| Fam6: | Anglic |
| Fam7: | English |
| Ancestor: | Proto-Indo-European |
| Ancestor2: | Proto-Germanic |
| Ancestor3: | Old English |
| Ancestor4: | Middle English |
| Ancestor5: | Early Modern English |
| Script: | Latin (English alphabet) Unified English Braille[1] |
| Isoexception: | dialect |
| Glotto: | nort3314 |
| Glottorefname: | North American English |
| Ietf: | en-021 |
North American English is the most generalized variety of the English language as spoken in the United States and Canada. Because of their related histories and cultures,[2] plus the similarities between the pronunciations (accents), vocabulary, and grammar of American English and Canadian English, the two spoken varieties are often grouped together under a single category.[3] Canadians are generally tolerant of both British and American spellings, with British spellings of certain words (e.g., colour) preferred in more formal settings and in Canadian print media; for some other words the American spelling prevails over the British (e.g., tire rather than tyre).[4]
Dialects of American English spoken by United Empire Loyalists who fled the American Revolution (1775–1783) have had a large influence on Canadian English from its early roots.[5] Some terms in North American English are used almost exclusively in Canada and the United States (for example, the terms diaper and gasoline are widely used instead of nappy and petrol). Although many English speakers from outside North America regard those terms as distinct Americanisms, they are just as common in Canada, mainly due to the effects of heavy cross-border trade and cultural penetration by the American mass media.[6] The list of divergent words becomes longer if considering regional Canadian dialects, especially as spoken in the Atlantic provinces and parts of Vancouver Island where significant pockets of British culture still remain.
There are a considerable number of different accents within the regions of both the United States and Canada. In North America, different English dialects of immigrants from England, Scotland, Ireland, and other regions of the British Isles mixed together in the 17th and 18th centuries. These were developed, built upon, and blended together as new waves of immigration, and migration across the North American continent, developed new dialects in new areas, and as these ways of speaking merged with and assimilated to the greater American dialect mixture that solidified by the mid-18th century.[7]
See main article: American English.
See main article: Canadian English.
Below, several major North American English accents are defined by particular characteristics:
| Accent name | Most populous city ! | Strong pronounced as //aʊ// fronting | Strong pronounced as //oʊ// fronting | Strong pronounced as //u// fronting | Strong pronounced as //ɑr// fronting | Other defining criteria | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| African-American | pre-nasal | ||||||||||
| Atlantic Canadian | Halifax | various | |||||||||
| General American | pre-nasal | ||||||||||
| Inland Northern U.S. | Chicago | general | |||||||||
| Midland U.S. | Indianapolis | pre-nasal | |||||||||
| New Orleans | New Orleans | split | |||||||||
| New York City | New York City | split | |||||||||
| North-Central (Upper Midwestern) U.S. | Minneapolis | pre-nasal & pre-velar | |||||||||
| Boston | pre-nasal | ||||||||||
| Philadelphia | Philadelphia | split | |||||||||
| Providence | pre-nasal | ||||||||||
| Southern U.S. | San Antonio | pre-nasal | |||||||||
| Standard Canadian | Toronto | pre-nasal & pre-velar | |||||||||
| Western U.S. | Los Angeles | pre-nasal | |||||||||
| Western Pennsylvania | Pittsburgh | pre-nasal | |||||||||
| Accent name | Most populous city ! | Strong pronounced as //aʊ// fronting | Strong pronounced as //oʊ// fronting | Strong pronounced as //u// fronting | Strong pronounced as //ɑr// fronting | Cot–caught merger | Pin–pen merger | /æ/ raising system | Other defining criteria |
A majority of North American English (for example, in contrast to British English) includes phonological features that concern consonants, such as rhoticity (full pronunciation of all pronounced as //r// sounds), conditioned T-glottalization (with satin pronounced pronounced as /[ˈsæʔn̩]/, not pronounced as /[ˈsætn̩]/), T- and D-flapping (with metal and medal pronounced the same, as pronounced as /[ˈmɛɾɫ̩]/), L-velarization (with filling pronounced pronounced as /[ˈfɪɫɪŋ]/, not pronounced as /[ˈfɪlɪŋ]/), as well as features that concern vowel sounds, such as various vowel mergers before pronounced as //r// (so that, Mary, marry, and merry are all commonly pronounced the same), raising of pre-voiceless pronounced as //aɪ// (with price and bright using a higher vowel sound than prize and bride), the weak vowel merger (with affected and effected often pronounced the same), at least one of the vowel mergers (the – merger is completed among virtually all Americans and the – merger among nearly half, while both are completed among virtually all Canadians), and yod-dropping (with tuesday pronounced pronounced as //ˈtuzdeɪ//, not pronounced as //ˈtjuzdeɪ//). The last item is more advanced in American English than Canadian English.