Editing American English (section)

==History==
The use of English in the United States is a result of [[British colonization of the Americas]]. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in [[North America]] during the early 17th century, followed by further migrations in the 18th and 19th centuries. During the 17th and 18th centuries, dialects from many different regions of [[England]] and the [[British Isles]] existed in every American colony, allowing a process of extensive [[Dialect levelling|dialect leveling]] and [[koineization|mixing]] in which English varieties across the [[Thirteen Colonies]] became more homogeneous compared with the varieties in the British Isles.{{sfn|Kretzchmar|2004|pp=258–9}}{{sfn|Longmore|2007|pp=517, 520}} English thus predominated in the colonies even by the end of the 17th century's first immigration of non-English speakers from [[Western Europe]] and [[Africa]]. 

Firsthand descriptions of a fairly uniform American English (particularly in contrast to the diverse regional dialects of British English) became common after the mid-18th century,{{sfn|Longmore|2007|p=537}} while at the same time speakers' identification with this new variety increased.<ref name = "Paulsen2022">{{Cite book
| vauthors=Paulsen I
| title = The emergence of American English as a discursive variety Tracing enregisterment processes in nineteenth-century U.S. newspapers
| place = Berlin
| publisher = Language Science Press
| date = 2022
| format = pdf
| url = http://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/341
| doi = 10.5281/zenodo.6207627
| doi-access = free
| isbn = 9783961103386
}}
</ref>
Since the 18th century, American English has developed into some new varieties, including regional dialects that retain minor influences from waves of immigrant speakers of diverse languages, primarily European languages.<ref name="Hickey">Hickey, R. (2014). ''Dictionary of varieties of English''. Wiley-Blackwell. p. 25.</ref><ref name=bbc/>

Some racial and regional variation in American English reflects these groups' geographic settlement, their [[de jure]] or [[de facto]] segregation, and patterns in their resettlement. This can be seen, for example, in the influence of 18th-century Protestant [[Ulster Scots people|Ulster Scots]] immigrants (known in the U.S. as the [[Scotch-Irish Americans|Scotch-Irish]]) in [[Appalachia]] developing [[Appalachian English]] and the 20th-century [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] bringing [[African-American Vernacular English]] to the [[Great Lakes region|Great Lakes]] urban centers.<ref name="Hickey"/><ref>Mufwene, Salikoko S. (1999). "North American Varieties of English as Byproducts of Population Contacts." ''The Workings of Language: From Prescriptions to Perspectives.'' Ed. Rebecca Wheeler Westport, CT: Praeger, 15–37.</ref>