The German Language

[Rhondazvous]

Then again, as a writer, I like using archaic English words such as “fortnight.”

Interesting you call "fortnight" archaic, that word is still commonly used in The UK

You can see the beginnings of language shift have happened in the differences between British and American English. A few centuries of relative separation has already made some differences in the words we use. It just hasn't happened at the same speed that Medieval English and German emerged, because we haven't been as isolated from eachother.

It'll probably stop happening altogether in the modern world, because we have international media and constant contact between different nationalities now. British and American English have been getting more similar in the last few decades, not less. The same can probably be said for Iberian Spanish and forms of Latin American Spanish.

What part of the UK are you in? Your name seems to have a french spelling, but I suspect you are not in France.

Growing up in Washington D. C., I didn’t realize that the vowels we used were actually British. My mother’s sister is my aunt, not my ant.

There were regional differences in the states as well. As close by as Philadelphia there was a marked difference in pronouncing the first syllable of words like daughter (door {without the final r}, dah) and water (war, wah).

I think the differences between British and American English was/is also political. After the American Revolution Americans may have felt a need to distance themselves, just as a child feels a need to distance himself from his parents by doing things differently. Then when the child becomes an adult, he can face the parent as an equal so there’s no more need to rebel.