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Webster as the creator of the American version of the English language

Noah Webster was born in Hartford, Connecticut on October 16, 1758. Noah was the fourth child in a family of five children. As a child the boy displayed exceptional talents. Noah spent his childhood on the small family farm. But unlike his brothers, he did not farm at all, but sat under a tree and read a book.
His father, Noah Webster, sacrificed much to give his son the best education possible. In 1774, his parents, having raised as much money as they could, sent fifteen-year-old Noah to Yale College. During the outbreak of the Revolution, Noah's studies were interrupted. He volunteered for military service under his father's command. After the war was over, Noah returned to college and graduated in 1778. He hoped to continue his education and study law, but since Noah's father could no longer help him, the young man took a job as a schoolteacher in Hartford and in Sharon, Connecticut. Nevertheless, Webster continued to read and study law extensively. Soon Noah was allowed to practice law in court and in 1781 received a Master of Arts degree.
Disappointed with English textbooks suitable for teaching children, Webster decided to create his own. He said: "I am too proud to be indebted to Britain for books for the education of children." While still a teacher, Noah resented the American elementary schools: one schoolroom crowded about seventy children of different ages, the teachers were unqualified, the desks were missing, and the textbooks were sent from England. Webster believed that Americans should be educated with American textbooks. So, he began writing a three-volume handbook, A Grammatical Institute of the English language. The publication consisted of spelling (published in 1783) spelling (published in 1784) and a textbook (published in 1785). The dictionary was a great success and has not lost its importance to this day. Noah's goal was to provide children with a uniquely American approach to learning.
Webster expressed dissatisfaction that the English language was being corrupted by the British aristocracy, which had established its own version of spelling and pronunciation. Noah rejected the view that the study of Greek and Latin should trump the study of English grammar. Since then, Webster's dream, task, and mission has been to create a large explanatory dictionary of the American language.
His first attempt was a school dictionary explaining and spelling the most common words of American English. It came in the cheapest edition, the paper disgusting and the back cover a board covered in blue cloth. The little book with its tiny typeface contained 37,000 vocabulary items, including thousands of words that were in American use but had not previously made it into any dictionary that existed. The success was unexpected and stunning. Parents, teachers, priests, printers, and foreigners snapped up the dictionary. All the notes and quotations in his dictionary were chosen exclusively from American writers, politicians, and speeches by Washington and Franklin. This dictionary has been refined ever since.
From his experience as a teacher, Webster understood that a dictionary should be simple and give the correct interpretation of words and their correct spelling and pronunciation. Webster noticed that students understand more easily if he breaks one problem down into its component parts. They parse one part first and then move on to the next part. Webster believed that children under the age of five should not be taught to read. He taught spelling by starting with learning the alphabet, moving systematically through vowel and consonant sounds, then learning syllables, then simple words, followed by compound words and sentences.
His first spelling dictionary was soon renamed "The first part of the Grammatical Institute of the English language. "For the next hundred years Webster's book taught children to read, write and pronounce words. It was the most popular American book of the time. By 1861 its circulation was about one
million copies a year. Slowly it changed the pronunciation of words, and they became Americanized.
In 1806 Webster published his first dictionary, "A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. "The following year, at the age of 43, Noah began writing a more extensive dictionary, "An American Dictionary of the English Language. "Writing the dictionary took Noah twenty-seven years. To supplement the dictionary with etymology of words, Webster learned twenty-six languages, including Anglo-Saxon, German, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, French, Arabic, Hebrew, and Sanskrit. Noah hoped to standardize American speech because people in different parts of the country pronounced and wrote words differently.
While Noah was working on his book, the family moved to Amherst, Massachusetts in 1812, where Webster later helped found a college. In 1822 the family returned to New Haven, where Webster was awarded an honorary degree. In 1825 he completed his dictionary while in France. The dictionary contained 70,000 words, 12,000 of which had not previously appeared in published books. Webster thought that the rules of English spelling were too complicated, so he introduced the American way of English spelling, changing "color" for "color," "center" for "center," etc. He also added American words such as "skunk" and "squash," which were not in any British dictionary. In 1828 he published this dictionary at the age of seventy.¹²
Although the dictionary now holds a place of honor in the history of American English, at that time it had a circulation of only two and a half thousand copies. In order to finish the second edition, Webster was forced to mortgage his house, and from then on his whole life was tied up in debt.
In 1840 a second edition in two volumes was published. But on May 28, 1843, having barely finished checking the appendix to the second edition,





¹² N. Webster., An American Dictionary of English Language, 1828
Webster died. People considered Noah Webster an American hero for what he did for the country in his day and they do not stop to do so now.
Noah Webster saw the need for better teaching and textbooks for teachers, as the small number of textbooks that were available for teaching were British originals. In 1783 Noah began publishing his grammar and spelling textbooks. Webster's textbooks increased Americans' sense of identity and thereby set their own standard of American English as their own, separating English from British English. Since then, the pronunciation, spelling, and grammar of English has become exclusively American in the country, and Webster's textbooks have been taught in schools for about a hundred years.
Webster's interests were not limited solely to the American style of using the English language. He argued very strongly for the national constitution and in 1784 began to publish his arguments and argument. In 1789 Noah practiced jurisdiction, but his chief interest remained writing. In New York City he created a newspaper called the Minerva. Webster published numerous pamphlets on a variety of topics. His writings covered a wide range of topics, from the history of infectious diseases to his thoughts on banks and insurance. Webster was indeed a very talented writer.
But Webster's greatest achievement, which made him so famous, is the American Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1828 with a circulation of two and a half thousand copies. It took Webster years to complete it. Noah sought out the original origins of words. He traveled throughout Europe, studying other languages to make sure the spelling, pronunciation, and usage were correct. The original work included 12,000 unique words and 40,000 definitions. The dictionary created a new standard and distinguished Webster as an outstanding American lexicographer. His dictionary has been revised, expanded, and updated many times. Therefore, the 1967 reissued version is a fine work that is still widely hailed by historians. Even after Webster's death, his dictionary continued to be published in various versions. In
1843, two Massachusetts printers, George and Charles Merriam, purchased the rights that allowed them to revise Webster's 1841 edition and were given the rights to create revised editions. Noah Webster died on May 28, 1843, but his legacy continues with the modern version of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.
Webster traveled the United States from Maine to Georgia, selling his textbooks and convincing everyone that America must be independent in literature as well as in politics and be as famous in art as in arms. To achieve this, America must copyright the works of American writers. During his travels Webster illegally sold his 1785 book Sketches of American Policy. The book described the interests and proposals of the Federalists, who later became very popular and believed in a strong state. In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Webster published a politically productive work, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (1787).
In New York City Webster created American Magazine (1787-1788), which he believed would become a national periodical. In this magazine he advocated American intellectual independence, education for women, and supported the ideas of the Federalists. Although this journal lasted only twelve months, it is remembered as a very vivid and determined publication. Webster continued as a political journalist and published such pamphlets as The Effects of Slavery on Morals and Industry (1793), The Revolution in France (1794), The Rights of Neutral Nations (1802).
But Webster's main interest remained the idea of changing and improving language. He described his ideas in his Dissertation on the English Language (1789). He replaced the following words: theatre by theater, machine by masheen, plough by plow. This variant of spelling and pronunciation of words he suggested to his readers.
After Webster married in 1789, he practiced law in Hartford for about four years. Afterward, Noah returned to New York City and became editor of the first weekly newspaper, the American Minerva (1793-1798). Later Noah
returned to New Haven, where he wrote A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases (1899). From that time Webster focused more on publishing school textbooks, including A Philosophical and Practical Grammar of the English Language (1807).
In 1806 Webster first introduced such terms as "Americanize," "census," "checkers," "electrician," "presidential" (referring to the president), "publicity," "slang," "whiskey" (liquor made from grain by distillation) and so on.
One of the most productive ways of enriching the vocabulary of the English language in America was conversion. The group of verbs formed in this period by conversion from nouns is quite numerous. For example, Webster's 1806 dictionary A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language notes the verb deed in the sense of transmit by act.
He introduced many colloquialisms into the dictionary, explaining that if all the people use the word, then it has a right to enter the language. Webster was criticized by many for vulgarizing the language.
A number of lexical features of American colloquial speech developed in the early 19th century. For example, in American speech various stable combinations with the adverb right (for example, right along - always, continuously, constantly, right up,right off, right away - immediately, right smart - a lot and others) became widespread.
The intensive growth of American industry, transportation, and agriculture all created the need for specialized terminology. New technical terms were developed by private companies. That is why, for example, a 19-th century railroad terminology differed so much from the English terminology (American railroad and English railway; American engineer and English engine-driver) It was Webster who included many technical terms in his dictionaries that had not been done before him.
Among the words and phrases that entered into use in the 19th century and are outside the literary language, a large part is the share of the so-called
"slang". Here belong, particularly, a number of expressively colored words and phrases reflecting many dark sides of "American way of life": slush money - money for bribing officials, floater - voter-"gastroller" voting for bribes, bum - vagabond, holdup - armed robbery, extortion, corner - ruin by stock-raising and others. From many of them a number of stable word combinations and new words were formed (e.g., holdup man - raider, bandit; go on the bum - to vagabond, bum factory - night shelter). A characteristic feature of this vocabulary is the expansion of meaning.
Webster was a linguistic democrat and populist. He changed the spelling of many words to simplify them, spelling them as one hears them. For example, in the word "music," the English spelled "ck," but Webster spelled only "s. In many words - "color", "honor", "favor" - he removed the combination of letters "ou" at the end of the word, replacing them with a simple "o", which is heard there: "color", "honor", "favor".
A few nouns that ended in -ce should be singled out in a special group. Webster later replaced -ce with a simple -s: defence - defense; offense - offense; licence - license; practice - practise; pretence - pretense.
English orthography is characterized by the doubling of the final -l before the word-formation and word-formation suffixes -ed, -ing, -er, -ery, -or, -ist, and others. Noah Webster left only one -l in these words: apparelled - appareled; councillor - councilor; levelled - leveled; woollen - woolen; travelling - traveling.
Where there was variation in the spelling of the verb suffix -ize (-ise), Noah Webster preferred -ize: apologize, capitalize, criticize, civilize, dramatize, naturalize, tantalize, visualize, and others.
There were also differences regarding the spelling of the prefixes em-, en- and im-, in-. The English preferred to spell with an e, while Webster preferred to spell with an i: empanel - impanel; encase - incase; encrust - incrust; enfold - infold.
Of note is the group of words in which Noah replaced the ending -re with
-er: center - center; fibre - fiber; luster - luster; metre - meter; sabre - saber. Also, in American English there are no -me and -ue endings: catalogue - catalog; cheque - check; gramme - gram; pragramme - program.
In several words borrowed from Greek and Latin, Webster used monograph -e- instead of digraphs -ae- and -oe-: anaemic - anemic; anaesthesia

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  anesthesia; foetus - fetus; aesthete - esthete.
  

Noah Webster Americanized the spelling of many words and generally contributed to the situation characterized by the now winged expression “Americans and Englishmen are one people separated by a common language”.