The American Language

[Nick]

Personally, I am of the position that we all speak variants of the English language. Which of those variants should be considered the base tongue is a matter open to discussion. British English would seem to hold a claim as the ancestral home of our mother tongue. But if you base it on simple numbers of speakers, it would actually be the variant of English favored in India!

After the change from Old to Middle English, the region of England that has had the most sway linguistically has been (no suprise) London/Oxford/Cambridge. The linguistic forms of that area are what were adopted when the notion of a "Standard" developed.

[davedove]

Dialects are formed as groups of people speaking the same language are separated and local practices are reinforced among the different populations. If this goes on long enough, it eventually becomes a different language. In this way all the various languages of the Indo-European family evolved from a common root language.

American English and British English were indeed on their way to becoming separate languages, until the modern era. With mass communications and ease of travel, English is slowly becoming more standardized.