QUOTE (vIeTpRidEs_wOrLdWiDe @ Dec 6 2004, 01:47 PM)
um thats still weird to me cuz the US size is larger than China and they only speak English , just different accent
Your statements makes it quite obvious that you are ignorant of at least two things:
First, U.S. being larger than China is highly debatable. Here are the detailed stats of both China and the U.S. from CIA's "World Fact Book".
China
total: 9,596,960 sq km
land: 9,326,410 sq km
water: 270,550 sq km
U.S.
total: 9,631,418 sq km
land: 9,161,923 sq km
water: 469,495 sq km
I assume you are fluent with basic math and if I assume correctly, you should be aware that 9,326,410 > 9,161,923. However, because U.S. has more coastal areas, it has more "water regions" and therefore when you add both together, U.S.
appears to be "bigger" than China, but then again, how many people do you know live on water?
Second, you are obviously quite ignorant when it comes to human development and basic sociology. But at least you know that there are different accents in American English so that should make my job a tad easier. The reason why China has various dialects while U.S. basically only has one is because of three main reasons: 1.) large, wide-spread land, 2.) language development through time, and 3.) methods of communication.
1.) Both China and U.S. have a large territory and we all know that when people are far apart, they start developing differently.
2.) As time go on, languages change, this is why it's difficult for us to read Shakespear's plays today when we're used to modern English as opposed to classical English. The Chinese language has been evolving and changing for over 4,000 - 5,000 years. American English only started to evolve and change about 200 years ago.
3.) One main reason why American English has so few variations is because of our modern inventions like TV, radio, and computer. Thousands, or even a couple of decades ago, such inventions didn't exist.
I assume you're intelligent enough to piece all of these facts together.