“What part of the States do you come from?”

“I’m not American. I’m Canadian.”

This is a mistake that Europeans often make. Many Americans, too, admit that it takes them a while to tell if it’s an American talking or a Canadian. This upsets some Canadians, because they want people to recognize them as Canadians. They want everyone to know that Canada is an independent nation with its own special character.

American English was probably brought to Canada by the Loyalists（忠于北方者）who fled there during the Revolutionary War（1776～1783）, for even as late as 1813. 80% of all British Canadians had come from the USA.

From the very first, Canada was a country with two languages, neither of which influenced the other very much, because the French and British spoke to each other so little. Canadian English has always remained very like American English, and the influence of the Indian and Inuit languages was no greater than the influence of French. But there are some important words that have found their way via（通过）Canadian dictionaries into British dictionaries.