The main two that are compared are Standard American English and Standard British English. They both have a huge impact and influence on any other spoken English in the world. Differences between the two are very noticeable, with a difference in word usage, for example, pants in American SE over in Britain means trousers, and the word pants is known as underwear.
Grammar is also very different, one main example being the way the time is told. When the time is 6.45 in America they say its ‘Quarter of seven’ but in Britain they say its ‘Quarter to seven’.
Finally the other main difference is spelling of certain words. With words such as flavour (British SE) and flavor (American SE). But over time many words have been known to make their way over from America to Britain and used there with the American spelling and meanings. One main example of this is the word ‘Movie’ which in British SE is meant to be Film but with many films coming over from America its been generally accepted to use the word movie, sometimes using it not even knowing its American.
Regional variation is also very noticeable. Someone in the south of England will sound very different to someone from the north, but with word usage, spelling and grammar they will tend to be very similar due to the fact of being taught the same things in school. But accents will be very different, the pronunciations of some words will be very different and in some cases the meaning of words will be different but over time this is very likely to change due to various reasons including TV and social factors.
It has been said that the traditional accents that people are used to are dying out though. With increased mobility, it means people are no longer staying in just one place for a long time, instead travelling around many places hearing many different accents and picking them up. Also education is playing a bigger part on it, with Standard English being taught to all children, they are learning to speak one language.
The other reason is the Media. It is playing a huge part on how we speak, with a Standard English being spoken on TV to read out the news; people are being exposed to it. But with this said, there is also many programmes with a set accent, for example Eastenders which has a set dialect to it and it is far from SE.
The media can also be looked at as the main key factor that Britain is beginning to incorporate so many American words, with many programmes from America being imported over to British TV, the viewers again are being exposed to a different way of using language.
So as its seen, there are many different ways of speaking and using the same language and making it sound original to the individual. This is going to keep on changing and will over time change again and will not stop changing.
