Britain is a world powet and settled in the Americas (among other regions)
Americans gained independence from the British, and cut academic ties
Years go on and American culture evolves separately from the UK
America becomes dominant military and economic force and English becomes essential for international business
American English as codified gets distributed worldwide
The English used today is very similar grammatically to the language used 200 years ago, so despite the Wild West days of the US, I think education has done a pretty good job of keeping the language stable. We obviously get new phrases and idioms as culture evolves, but grammar has remained pretty consistent
Here are the historical major events
~1600 - British as a world power start to make English dominant
starting ~1400, the great vowel shift occurred - English spelling started to get standardized in this period
1066 - Norman conquest - lots of French loan words are introduced to old English
~800 - Viking invasions begin, bringing lots of Norwegian words and simplification of Old English grammar
~450 - Saxon invasion and Germanification of the older pre-English language
Then look at English from the 1700s to today, over ~300 years, we’ve had very few changes in grammar. I guess thee and thou finally fell out of favor, but there’s really not many changes, and that’s about as long as the period between any of those major events.
Here’s how I see it:
The English used today is very similar grammatically to the language used 200 years ago, so despite the Wild West days of the US, I think education has done a pretty good job of keeping the language stable. We obviously get new phrases and idioms as culture evolves, but grammar has remained pretty consistent
Here are the historical major events
Then look at English from the 1700s to today, over ~300 years, we’ve had very few changes in grammar. I guess thee and thou finally fell out of favor, but there’s really not many changes, and that’s about as long as the period between any of those major events.
“As codified” by who?
Grammar text books.
And who wrote those?
Professors.
And who/what gives them the authority to decide which is the “proper” dialect of a language?