Americanised English: Convenience or cultural erosion?

English is undoubtedly the dominant language of global communication, science, medicine, technology, diplomacy, and the Internet. But the English, written and spoken around the world today, is perhaps not quite the same English that developed in London, Oxford, or Cambridge. Increasingly, it is beginning to bear the imprint of American usage, as evidenced by the adoption of American spelling, phrasing, and even certain American cultural assumptions. In many Commonwealth countries with long traditions of British English, this creeping Americanisation raises an important question: Is this evolution enriching the language, or eroding its heritage?

- BY DR B. J. C. PERERA

This article examines the advantages and disadvantages of adopting Americanised English, particularly in countries where British English has been the foundation of education, law, and administration for generations. It is an investigative look at a Global Linguistic Tug-of-War. With very sincere apologies to the great British writer Charles Dickens of the mid-19th century, this could indeed be "A Tale of Two Englishes."

British and American English share the same roots but have diverged for historical reasons. Noah Webster's influential American dictionaries in the early 1800s deliberately simplified spelling, favouring color over colour, center over centre, and catalog instead of catalogue. He created a distinctly American identity through language. The result of this attempt was the emergence of two large, widely used variants of English:

• British English, the traditional form used in the UK, Commonwealth nations, international law, and many academic settings.

• American English, the simplified and increasingly dominant version shaped by US culture, media, and scientific output.

Today, the tremendous global dominance of American entertainment, technology companies, multinational corporations, and scientific publishing ensures that American English has an enormous reach. Sri Lanka, like India, Singapore, and many former British territories, finds itself caught between these two versions; not quite abandoning British English, yet increasingly exposed to American norms.

There are several powerful forces driving the spread of Americanised English across the world.