How American English found its own voice without losing its roots

When the United States declared independence 250 years ago, its leaders were not only determined to build a new political system but also to shape a distinct national identity. That ambition eventually extended to language.

The founding of the United States helped reshape the English language, introducing new words and phrases that reflected the country's evolving identity.

In an August 1813 letter to his friend John Waldo, US President Thomas Jefferson argued that the young nation needed new vocabulary to describe its expanding population, diverse climate, industries and experiences, according to a BBC report.

The feature explores how American English evolved from a colonial offshoot of British English into a global linguistic force, arguing that the language's development reflects centuries of political change, cultural exchange and social evolution rather than a deliberate break from its British origins.

Jefferson wrote that America's "new circumstances" required "new words, new phrases" and even new meanings for existing words.

While British English could remain "stationary", he believed American English would develop its own identity, separate "in name as well as in power" from the mother tongue.

British critics had long opposed this linguistic shift. Even before US independence, writer Samuel Johnson dismissed the "American dialect" in 1756 as a form of linguistic "corruption".

More than 250 years after American independence, the two countries continue to be divided by their shared language.

Differences such as "soccer" instead of "football", "fall" instead of "autumn", and the use of words like "cooties" reflect centuries of cultural and social change that have both separated and connected British and American English.

The rise of American English

Colonisation quickly set American English on a different path from British English.

As settlers from across the British Isles and Europe mixed, many regional accents and vocabulary differences were gradually levelled out, says Canadian linguist Jack Grieve of the University of Birmingham.

As settlers spread across the continent, distinct regional accents emerged. At the same time, there was a deliberate effort to create a national language separate from the King's English, led by lexicographer Noah Webster.

In 1789, Webster argued that an independent nation needed "a system of our own, in language as well as government", describing a national language as essential for unity and "political harmony".

To achieve this, Webster produced influential grammar books, spelling guides and dictionaries. He standardised many spellings now associated with American English, including dropping the "u" in honour and favour, using a single "l" in words such as traveled, changing draught to draft, and replacing centre with center.

American-British linguist Lynne Murphy of the University of Sussex says the spelling reforms took time to gain acceptance but eventually became firmly established.

Words from a New World

Not all of Noah Webster's spelling reforms survived. He proposed spellings such as tung for tongue and lether for leather, but these were quickly abandoned.

Even so, his American Spelling Book became one of the most influential books in US history, selling an estimated 100 million copies over the following century.

Webster's dictionaries also introduced many words unfamiliar to British readers. Some were borrowed from indigenous languages to describe North America's wildlife, including skunk, raccoon, chipmunk, moose, opossum and caribou, all derived from Algonquian languages.

American English also adopted words from other European settlers, such as the French prairie and the Dutch-derived cookie.

Over time, American coinages crossed the Atlantic. One example is deadline, which emerged during the US Civil War and originally referred to a line prisoners could not cross without risking being shot.

Surprising Britishisms

Many features of American English are actually older British usages that later fell out of favour in the UK. For example, fall was widely used to mean autumn in Britain from the 16th century, appearing even in the poetry of John Dryden.

Linguist Lynne Murphy suggests the word endured in the US because of New England's striking autumn foliage.

Other terms that developed a distinctly American identity include bills for banknotes, soccer for football, mad for angry, cooties for germs or lice, smart for clever, pet as a verb meaning to stroke, and sick to describe general illness.

Americans also retained older grammatical forms such as gotten, while British English settled on got.

Murphy notes that some words have also acquired different social connotations. In the US, using British terms such as jug instead of pitcher may sound old-fashioned or rural.

Despite these differences, American and British English never fully drifted apart.

Early colonists often sent their children to England for education, while trade, books and other cultural ties kept the two countries connected.

According to Murphy, this close relationship, reinforced by the printing press, helped prevent the two varieties from becoming entirely separate languages.

Language and national identity

The push to create a distinct American identity was also reflected in public debate and satire.

Research by Ingrid Paulsen of the University of Kiel, based on 78 million 19th-century newspaper articles, examined how linguistic shifts, such as trousers becoming pants and luggage becoming baggage, came to symbolise American identity, a process known as "enregisterment".

Paulsen found that newspaper cartoons often mocked the "dude", an American man who imitated British fashion and speech instead of embracing his own national identity.

His preference for words such as trousers over pants became a frequent target of ridicule, helping pants emerge as the more distinctly American term.

The linguistic divide also became a source of humour in Britain. In 1887, Oscar Wilde famously remarked, "We really have everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language."

Language keeps evolving

Language continues to evolve, and digital platforms have made it easier to track new words in real time.

Using geocoded Twitter data from 2013–14, linguist Jack Grieve identified the US regions driving the most linguistic innovation.

The West Coast coined terms such as amirite and cosplay; the Deep South introduced boolin and baeless; the Northeast coined lituation; the Mid-Atlantic popularised shordy; and the Gulf Coast gave rise to lordt.

Grieve found that the most linguistically innovative regions also have large African American populations.

He suggests these communities may be especially creative in language as a way of expressing social identity.

His research also highlights the spread of the "double modal" expressions such as might can and shouldn't oughta, which appear to have gained prominence in African American communities in the Deep South, challenging earlier theories that linked the form to Scottish and Irish settlers.

While it remains uncertain how widely these innovations will spread, technology has accelerated the exchange of new words and expressions.

Jefferson's prediction that American English would eventually separate from British English has not come true. Instead, the two varieties have continued to influence each other, enriching the language they share while developing distinctive features of their own.