American Language (2011)
“THE HALLMARKS OF AMERICAN The characters chiefly noted in American English by all who have discussed it are, first, its general uniformity throughout the country; second, its impatient disregard for grammatical, syntactical and phonological rule and precedent; and third, its large capacity (distinctly greater than that of the English of present-day England) for taking in new words and phrases from outside sources, and for manufacturing them of its own materials.
The first of these characters ha...s struck every observer, native and foreign. In place of the discordant local dialects of all the other major countries, including England, we have a general Volkssprache for the whole nation, and if it is conditioned at all it is only by minor differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, and by the linguistic struggles of various groups of newcomers. No other country can show such linguistic solidarity, nor any approach to it — not even Canada, for there a large minority of the population resists speaking English altogether.MoreLess
The first of these characters ha...s struck every observer, native and foreign. In place of the discordant local dialects of all the other major countries, including England, we have a general Volkssprache for the whole nation, and if it is conditioned at all it is only by minor differences in pronunciation and vocabulary, and by the linguistic struggles of various groups of newcomers. No other country can show such linguistic solidarity, nor any approach to it — not even Canada, for there a large minority of the population resists speaking English altogether.MoreLess
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