Eli5 – Why is American and British English different?
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tl;dr Time and distance
They were the same when the American colonies were established in the 17th Century. Since the revolution, the geographic separation allowed English to diverge in different ways by way of sound changes and changes in which accent is “prestige.”
e.g. English R’s were always pronounced when they appeared in words by the time of the Revolution. Over time, the prestige accent in England (and by extension much of the Commonwealth) began dropping R’s if they appeared at the end of a syllable, and thus became “non-rhotic.” Across the Atlantic, Americans generally retained R pronunciations except in the Deep South (along with many African-Americans) and in localized areas like Boston and New York but the rhotic accent wasn’t considered “prestige” until America became a superpower in the 20th Century.
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