Introduction

The use of English as the de facto, though unofficial, language of the United States is a natural consequence of history. English, the language of the settlements from which the present nation grew, continued at first to be used just as it was in the motherland. But a gradual loss of contact between that motherland and the colonies and, more important, the natural growth of the language in the new land from the experiences of its speakers there produced many differences, which the Revolution and new nationhood were greatly to increase. So in four centuries a new growth has developed on the “family tree.” The aptness of the arboreal metaphor for the English language, with British English as the trunk from which American, Canadian, Australian, South African, and other branches have grown, has been questioned by John Algeo (“What Is a Briticism?” 1992b), who rightly points out that until the development of American English, there was no “British” English against which to compare it, there was simply English. That is, British English, as surely as American English, was born in 1776. Algeo goes on to say: