the spelling differences between american and british english
Post on 31-Dec-2015
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History of English Language
Professor Michael Cheng
Presenter
Helen Cheng
English spelling was standardized after the publishing of influential dictionaries
British-Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
American- Noah Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)
A Dictionary of the English Language
aks. Johnson's Dictionary (1755) The pre-eminent English dictionary before
the OED “one of the greatest single achievements
of scholarship” Deduce to the origin Illustrate with literary quotations Provide Multiple definitions With illustrations
A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806) Introducing American spelling and words
American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)Expanding to 70,000 entries
Spelling reform
based on the Webster’s combined vision of logic and aesthetics
principle of uniformity: words that were alike, nouns and their derivatives, should be spelled alike. (e.g. musick=>music (musical))
respell anomalous British spellings (e.g. gaol/jail)
Greek Spelling: -our/-or; -se/-ce; -re/-er Latin-derived Spelling: -ise/-ize; -yse/-
yze; -ogue/-og Doubled Consonants: -ll Dropped “e”
British usage: both –ise(more frequent) and –ize (Oxford spelling)
e.g. organise, realise, and recognise American usage: –izee.g. organize, realize, and recognize Originated from Greek -ιζειν, Latin -
izāre; with the pronunciation /z/ -ise was influenced by the special
French spelling in -iser
Nowadays=> -our for British English and -or for American English
e.g. colour/color, labour/labor, and flavour/flavor Derived from Latin non-agent nouns having
nominative –or Borrowed into English from early Old French
ending -or or -ur After the Norman Conquest =>-our in Anglo-
French in an attempt to represent the Old French pronunciation
After the Renaissance, some such borrowings from Latin =>original -or
In16th and early 17th century some British scholars =>
-or for words from Latin and -our for French loans
General rule: when adding a suffix beginning with a vowel to words with final stressed syllable and ending with a single vowel followed by a single consonant
The British English “l” doubling is required for all inflections (-ed, -ing, -er, -est) and noun suffixes -er and –or
e.g. counsellor, cruellest, modelling, quarrelled, signalling, traveller, and travelling
In American usage, the spelling of words is unchanged when they form the main part (root) of other words
e.g. wil(l)ful, skil(l)ful, thral(l)dom, fulfil(l), fulfil(l)ment, enrol(l)ment
British English: usually keep silent e when adding suffixes except it is unnecessary to indicate pronunciation (e.g. believable,bluish)
American English: usually eliminate silent e except for some ambiguous cases (e.g. die=>dying vs. dye=>dyeing)
e.g. likeable/likable, ageing/aging, arguement/ argument
Language serves as an indicator of cultural and social differences
Language is changing with time and space
The variants of a single language makes it diverse
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