Referring to the English language


I found myself thinking about how to refer to the English language in
Japanese.

I realise of course that English originated here in England, and then by
colonisation was brought into America, but would that distinction be made in
Japanese as in English?

Put simply, should I refer to イギリス語 or アメリカ語, even if the first is the name
for the English language?




I think these are the basic terms:

  * American English is [アメリカ英語](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AA%E3%82%AB%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E).

  * British English is [イギリス英語](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A4%E3%82%AE%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B9%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E).

They're both types of 英語, just like American English and British English are
both types of English.

* * *

That doesn't mean no one ever puts it differently. You might find 米語 and 英語
used as short forms to refer to American and British English, for example.
Here are some frequency results from [the Google Japanese Web N-gram
corpus](https://catalog.ldc.upenn.edu/LDC2009T08), showing how often people
use various terms:

[code]

    　英語　　　　　31945067
    　米語　　　　　46649
    　英国語　　　　814
    　米国語　　　　540
    　アメリカ英語　57446
    　イギリス英語　75223
    　アメリカ語　　3217
    　イギリス語　　2185
    
[/code]

Unless 英語 is being specifically contrasted with 米語 (to mean BrE and AmE), I
think it's usually taken to mean English in general, not just British English.
And talking about English in general is more common than singling out a
particular dialect group, so 英語 is by far the most common term.




I think these are the basic terms:

  * American English is [アメリカ英語](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A2%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AA%E3%82%AB%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E).

  * British English is [イギリス英語](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%A4%E3%82%AE%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B9%E8%8B%B1%E8%AA%9E).

They're both types of 英語, just like American English and British English are
both types of English.

* * *

That doesn't mean no one ever puts it differently. You might find 米語 and 英語
used as short forms to refer to American and British English, for example.
Here are some frequency results from [the Google Japanese Web N-gram
corpus](https://catalog.ldc.upenn.edu/LDC2009T08), showing how often people
use various terms:

[code]

    　英語　　　　　31945067
    　米語　　　　　46649
    　英国語　　　　814
    　米国語　　　　540
    　アメリカ英語　57446
    　イギリス英語　75223
    　アメリカ語　　3217
    　イギリス語　　2185
    
[/code]

Unless 英語 is being specifically contrasted with 米語 (to mean BrE and AmE), I
think it's usually taken to mean English in general, not just British English.
And talking about English in general is more common than singling out a
particular dialect group, so 英語 is by far the most common term.

