The Intertwining Fate of American Immigrants and English Immigrants to America shaped modern American English, while English impacted immigrants’ life and education. By John Ma 3/12/2017 Have some English words made you ponder on how they were invented? Have you ever wondered why American accent differs from British accent? Understand the history of American immigrants, then you might find the answers to these questions. The earliest British immigrants came to America and founded the first colony in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607. Colonists then started to create names to describe unfamiliar plants, animals, topography, by absorbing existing words from Native Indian languages (“American English”). A case in point is “raccoon”, a word borrowed from Algonquian. However, waves of immigration continued in the 19th century. With the Louisiana …show more content…
Industrialization and urbanization resulted in mass immigration from Eastern Europe to America, and “Gold Rush” attracted tremendous Asian immigrants. Words such as “bluff” from Dutch and “pretzel” from German were added into the English vocabulary. One important accomplishment of American immigrants is that they preserved the traditional British accent. It seems unconvincing due to the huge difference in British and American accents now. Actually, Americans in the British colony back then had the same accent as the British across the Atlantic. After Independence, the way British spoke English changed dramatically, while Americans largely maintained the traditional rhotic accent (Soniak). The dominance of English in American mainstream society also shapes the immigrants’ way of life. More Hispanics learn English in order to gain an advantage in their career and assimilate into American society (Thompson). Percentage of young Hispanic who speak English proficiently has soared since 2000