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DOI: 10.1177/0075424205279017 English-American Speech RelationshipsA Quantitative ApproachU.S. Congressional Budget Office This study applies quantitative techniques—measures of linguistic distance, cluster analysis, principal components analysis, and regression analysis—to data on English speech variants in England and America. The analysis yields measures of similarity among English and American speakers, distinguishes clusters of speakers with similar speech patterns, and isolates groups of variants that distinguish those groups of speakers. The results are consistent with a model of new-dialect formation in the American colonies, involving competition within and selection from a pool of variants introduced by speakers from different dialect regions. The patterns of similarity appear to be largely consistent with the historical evidence of migrations from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain to North America, lending support to the hypothesis of regional English origins for some important differences in American dialects, and suggesting mainly southeastern English influence on American speech, with somewhat greater southeastern influence on New England speech and southwestern influence in the American South.
Key Words: English dialect • American dialect • dialectometry • historical dialectology
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