. Phonetic peculiarities of the American and British variants of English. Comparative analysis.

For almost two millennia, French was the language spoken by English aristocrats, but English was only used by ordinary people. This led to the fact that a lot of French expressions appeared in the vocabulary of the English language.Three centuries ago, there was only one version of the English language. It was spoken by the inhabitants of Britain. In the 17th-19th centuries, English travelers discovered many new lands, which were later settled by the British or became colonies of Great Britain. These are islands of New Zealand, India, countries of Asia and Africa, Australia and America. British English began to spread throughout the world. And in each region the language evolved and developed, its vocabulary, phonetics and spelling were enriched.The emigrants returned to their homeland, bringing along a new language, altered in one way or another, with new technologies and goods.Summing up and trying to figure out what is currently British English, you need to note a few points.The first thing to dwell on is the fact that today British English is devoid of homogeneity, and the second one that it is completely different from the English language that existed three centuries ago.Considering modem English, it is possible to distinguish three types in it:1.Received pronunciation or BBC English - the language of the media, the standard adopted in the UK;2.Conservative - a conservative type of language spoken in parliament and spoken by members of the royal family;3.The language which young people speak is called advanced English, which is actively changing. Words from other languages and cultural elements of other countries are constantly being entered into it. Advanced English has a tendency to simplify to a greater extent than other types of the language.The History of American English.An American can be distinguished an Englishman from not only by a flawless suit, an imperturb-able look and a fresh Times number, but an American from an Englishman can be distinguished by a lasso behind a belt and high cowboy boots. The modem inhabitants of these countries, above all, are easily distinguished by the language they speak.English in the North American continent appeared along with the first settlers. The land was oc-cupied by tribes who spoke in a strange language, wore strange clothes and cooked strange food. Even the landscape was very different from the English countryside.American English is greatly simplified. As with the rest of the world, this process was necessitated. Ordinary, simple people who left all the past behind, went to America in the hope of finding happiness. And they needed a simple and affordable way to communicate, which would unite all nationalities.Unlike the British version, American English is more flexible, open to change and easy to read.In particular, that is why it became more common in the world. It is the language of a new gener-ation without a certain nationality and place of residence, brought up in popular culture.In the American English, there are three main dialects that people use to communicate:1.North America (northern dialect);2.South America (southern dialect);3.Central America (central dialect).Having decided once to learn English, a person is horrified by the variety of English tenses. The Russian people, using only threetenses in their language, think that variety of English tenses are terrible dream. From this point of view, American English is more attractive. The tenses of the Perfect group are almost completely superseded by the Simple tenses group. Many verbs have moved from "irregular" to "correct", verbal nouns are often used. Well, it’s impossible to imagine modem American English without gonna (short of going to) which almost completely replaces the verb will.Today, the English language spoken by Americans is not as diverse as during the formation of the United States of America. American English is clearly regulated and is the main language of commu-nication and has the status of the state language.Phonetic differences"We have one language with the British; we only use it in different ways."Differences in pronunciationIt is in the stress that the greatest differences between British and American English are manifested. Reading a text, it is not always possible to determine who wrote it but speech immediately gives out the nationality of a person.In addition to accent differences, there are differences in the pronunciation of certain words.The word “schedule” in the British version begins with the sound “sh”, and in the American - at the beginning of the word “sk”.In the words “either” and “neither”, the first two letters can mean a long sound “I”, or a diphthong “ai”. It is believed that the first option is more American, the second - more British. However, both of them may speak differently in different situations.Differences in word formationThe suffix "-ward (s)" in the British dialect is usually used in the form "-wards", and in the US as "-ward". We are talking about words “forwards”, “towards”, “rightwards”, etc. However, the word “forward” is actively used in Britain, and the words “afterwards”, “towards”, “forwards” are not unu-sual for the American dialect.For American English, word formation through composition is more characteristic. Today, most often in the western hemisphere, stable phrases are transformed into new words. In the formation of phrases consisting of a noun object and a verb, speaking of its purpose, in the British version the gerund (sailing boat) is more often used, and the Americans will prefer to simply glue the verb with the noun (sailboat).Spelling differences•The words ending in British in “-our” are a bit abbreviated by Americans, and they end in “- or”: “labor”, “color”, “favor” instead of “labour”, “colour”,” favour”.•The British words “apologise”, “paralyse” in American are written as “apologize”, “paralyze”.•Some words of French origin ending in “-re”, in the American version, end in “-er”: “center”, “theater” instead of “centre”, “theatre”.•The word “gray” in the British writing looks like “grey”, and in the American -“gray”.Differences in word meaningsFor the same concepts Americans and Brits often use different words. For example, an American would not call“toilet”, but only “bathroom”, even if there is no close bath or shower. The point (the one that is put at the end of the sentence) in English will be “full spot”, and in American way - “period”.Differences in vocabulary and spellingFinding differences in the vocabulary of the American and British languages is quite easy: there are relatively few of them, so that native speakers can easily understand each other. Many differences are simply a matter of preference: Americans prefer to use the word “railroad” and “store”, while the British prefer synonyms “railway” and “shop”, but all four words are used in both England and America. Many of the words that once separated American English from British English -“American cocktail” (1806), “skyscraper” (1833), and “supermarket” (1920s) - are now heard all over the world, and the British are increasingly using “radio”, “run”, and “Santa Claus” instead of “wireless”, “ladder” and “Father Christmas”.Grammar DifferencesFeatures of the past tense of the verbWhen it comes to the past tense form of the verb, the British in writing can indicate this in two ways.•For example: learned - learnt, burned - burnt, dreamed - dreamt, etc. True, they do not say - smelt, leapt, but only smelled, leaped.While Americans tend to use the ending “-ed” almost always, with the exception of the verbs “dream (dreamt)” and “smell (smelt)”.In American English, Past Participle, that is, the past participle of the verb “get”, for example, can be expressed in two ways: got / gotten. While in British English it is acceptable to use the form “gotten”, but still it would be grammatically correct to use the form “got”.For example:•I’ve gotten a headache. - American English (talking about past events in general)•I’ve had a headache. - British EnglishHere, too, there is a small difference, about which we may never have thought.The British will say: My birthday is the 9th of September.Americans will say: My birthday is September 9th.That is, the Americans do not use the articles in this case, while the British use the formula article + of (article plus preposition).Using the word gotIn American (informal) English, this word is used to express:•Needs (Past Simple)•AccessoriesFor example:•I got to go. = I gotta go.•I got a new car.And in British English, the word got is also used to express necessity and belonging, only with a different grammatical time - Present Perfect.For example:•I’ve got to go.•I’ve got a new car.The formation of complex (compound) nouns in American and British EnglishIt's simple. In America, people use the following formula to form compound nouns: verb + noun.For example: jump rope, dive board.In the United Kingdom there is another formula: gerund (verb + ing) + noun. For example: skipping rope, diving board.So, in this article various aspects of the two variants of the English language were investigated. We found out that the grammar system of American and British English is the same, except for simplifying some grammatical structures and using grammatical tenses. As for differences in pronunciation, experts believe that it is unlikely that a non-native speaker of English will speak without an accent. Although English is one of the official languages of the United Nations, even this organization cannot give preference to one version of English, since representatives of countries from all over the world work in it, and everyone has their own approach to English.ConclusionIn conclusion, I want to say that The English, which appeared a lot of centuries ago, almost has not been preserved in its original form. It has changed both in Great Britain and in the United States of America.. Which version of the English people use depends largely on their occupation, their hobbies, and perhaps even age. The language will never stops changing and developing due to the development of the technologies and immigration of the population.The study of the British and US higher education terminological units with the cultural component of meaning contributes to a fuller understanding of the corresponding higher education systems. The observations made in the present paper may be useful to develop cross-cultural communication competence. Further research of the education terminological systems considering cultural specificity of local education systems is seen in defining specificity of the British and American education (school and higher education) terminology development in order to determine the reasons of the cultural component emergence in the meaning structure of terminological units.BibliographyMuller V.K. English-Russian and Russian-English dictionary. M .: Eksmo, 2008. 1198 p. Ozhegov S.I. Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language. M.: OOO «A TEMP», 2008. 944 p. Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2009. 1852 p. Soanes Catherine . Oxford Dictionary of Current English. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006. 1104 p. Collins Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language. Harper Collins Publishers, 2011. 1344 p. 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