Editing Languages of the United States (section)

===English (245.69 million  speakers)===
[[File:English USC2000 PHS.svg|thumb|Distribution of English-speaking households in the United States in 2000.]]
{{Main|American English|List of dialects of English#United States}}

[[English language|English]] was inherited from [[British colonization of the Americas|British colonization]], and it is spoken by the majority of the population. English has become increasingly common; when the United States was founded, just 40% of Americans spoke English.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Shell |first=Marc |date=2001 |title=Language Wars |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/50577/pdf |journal=CR: The New Centennial Review |volume=1 |issue=2 |pages=6 |doi=10.1353/ncr.2003.0059 |s2cid=201784628 |issn=1539-6630}}</ref>{{Better source needed|reason=The current source is insufficiently reliable ([[WP:NOTRS]]).|date=October 2022}}. In 2002, 87% of Americans spoke English as their first language.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lake |first=Nell |date=2002-03-01 |title=Language Wars |url=https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2002/03/language-wars.html |access-date=2022-10-02 |website=Harvard Magazine |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Tamir|first=Yael (Yuli)|date=2019-05-11|title=Not So Civic: Is There a Difference Between Ethnic and Civic Nationalism?|journal=Annual Review of Political Science|language=en|volume=22|issue=1|pages=419–434|doi=10.1146/annurev-polisci-022018-024059|issn=1094-2939|doi-access=free}}</ref> It serves as the [[de facto]] national language, the language in which government business is carried out. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 80% spoke only English at home and all but approximately 13,600,000 U.S. residents age 5 and over speak English "well" or "very well".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-22.pdf|title=Detailed Languages Spoken at Home by English-Speaking Ability for the Population 5 Years and Over: 2011|publisher=Census.gov|access-date=October 20, 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151109200819/http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-22.pdf|archive-date=November 9, 2015}}</ref>

[[American English]] is different from [[British English]] in terms of spelling (one example being the dropped "u" in words such as color/colour), grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and slang usage. The differences are not usually a barrier to effective communication between an [[American English]] and a British English speaker.

Some states, like [[California]], have amended their constitutions to make English the only official language, but in practice, this only means that official government documents must ''at least'' be in English, and ''does not'' mean that they should be exclusively available only in English. For example, the standard California Class C [[driver's license]] examination is available in 32 different languages.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.dmv.ca.gov/dl/dl_info.htm|title=Driver License and Identification Card Information|publisher=Dmv.ca.gov|access-date=January 18, 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140930113026/http://dmv.ca.gov/dl/dl_info.htm|archive-date=September 30, 2014}}</ref>