English language
American English (also known as United States English, or U.S. English) is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of native speakers of English live in the United States.
English is the most common language in the United States. Though the U.S. federal government has no official language, English is the only language used by the federal government and is considered the de facto language of the United States because of its widespread use. English has been given official status by 28 of the 50 state governments.
The use of English in the United States was inherited from British colonization. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America in the 17th century. During that time, there were also speakers, in North America, of numerous Native American languages, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Finnish, Russian (in Alaska), and numerous African languages (mostly from the western coast of Africa).
British English, or UK English is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere. The Oxford English Dictionary applies the term to English "as spoken or written in the British Isles; especially the forms of English usual in Great Britain...", reserving "Hiberno-English" for "The English language as spoken and written in Ireland".
There are slight regional variations in formal written English in the United Kingdom (for example, although the words wee and little are interchangeable in some contexts, one is more likely to see wee written by someone from northern Britain (and especially Scotland) or from Northern Ireland than by someone from Southern England or Wales). Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described as "British English". The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken, and a uniform concept of "British English" is therefore more difficult to apply to the spoken language.
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