What is the origin of the phrase "two nations divided by a common language"?
I have seen it attributed to Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and even Winston Churchill.
The most likely looking source I found said:
‘Was it Wilde or Shaw?’ The answer appears to be: both. In The Canterville Ghost (1887), Wilde wrote: ‘We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language’. However, the 1951 Treasury of Humorous Quotations (Esar & Bentley) quotes Shaw as saying: ‘England and America are two countries separated by the same language’, but without giving a source. The quote had earlier been attributed to Shaw in Reader’s Digest (November 1942).
So, I wonder if the phrase which has come into common usage is just a commonly used paraphrase, or whether it has a specific source of its own.
Also, although I have only heard it used in the context of Britain and America, I wonder if that's its only usage.