Why do americans think they speak English when they clearly don't?

English is an umbrella in a way. There's British English, American English, Australian English, etc. It's kind of like how there are many types of Spanish (Spanish Spanish, Chilean Spanish, Mexican Spanish, etc.) The main reason for language is for communication and understanding so if you can understand me when I say 'What's up dude?" and I can understand you when you say "How do you do?", or I know that a metre and meter are the same thing I guess we can all be happy.

Americans speak English - why? Because the language IS English.

Would Japanese spoken outside of Japan be called: Japanese as spoken by foreigners?

No. That's because it is essentially the same language although they are diverging very slowly.

What would YOU call it? Urdu? I speak English in America.

We speak English, just as obviously as you do. Just as obviously as they speak English in Australia and various other places in the world. You don't have exclusive rights to it. We have regional dialects, accents and some definite variations of vocabulary, but the English spoken here in the USA and the English spoken in England have not evolved away from each other to be called distinct and separate languages.

Lady Morgana

English teacher in California

The scholarly term would be American English. You find that term used for dictionaries etc.

Really, it's not a distinction worth making. I can understand you, and you can understand me, and we are conversing in English.

Certainly, our spelling may differ a bit, and we may each use a few odd turns of phrase, but we can understand each other just fine.

Thank You for leaving us your language before you went home. I rather enjoy using it. Better than French or Spanish in my opinion, and those would have been the only other likely contenders.