CM 5:

English in the Americas:Northern American

dialects

Pre-European Americas

The language of invasionEnglish spread in the world through invasion in America. They pushed the other peoples and languages away.

Carte

About 300 languages were spoken in Northern America when the first Europeans arrived.Now, there are 200 languages for 300,000 people, but there are threatened by both, English and Spanish.

Native American languages

European invasion

In 1584, a group of British explorers and settlers landed near Roanoke Island.The settlement failed:

- not self-sufficient- very bad relations with the native population

They were forced to send a ship back to Britain for provision. When this ship returned in 1590, there was no trace of settlers. They just found the word “CROATOAN” written on a bark, but the meaning of that is still a mystery today.

In 1607, a new settlement is established at Jamestown. And this is a success. The settlers came from the West Country (so have a rhotic accent).

“Tidewater accents”In few isolated islands along the coast of the US, conservative dialects of English still exist.These “tidewater accents” are probably the closest living accents today of Shakespearean English.However, changes occurred in 300 years and these languages are disappearing.Ex: Tangier Island

Second waves…In 1620, a group of religious zealots, the “Puritans”, arrived further north.

- a religious purified colony- came from north of London- spoke with a non-rhotic East Midlands accent

Later, they were added to by religion refugees from Scandinavia and Germany.

The CeltsIn the early 1700’s, a massive wave of immigration from Ireland and Scotland arrived to the Americas.In 1776, 15 % of the American (European) population was Irish or Scottish. Irish and Scots English are both rhotic.

Go West!Then, these settlements began expanding westwards.3 original colonisations with:- Northern accent- Mid-Western accent- Southern accent

Carte Major dialect regions in the USA

Dialects or sociolects?

The relationships between accent/dialect and the geography are unstable in the US.And within 3 dialects, there are small regional variations.When the population is not mobile, people adopted a strong regional accent. But in America, the mobility of the people and the mass media tend to blur dialect boundaries. Indeed, the American population has always been and still is highly mobile.

The language variants in the US (dialects) are not clearly related to geography.- African American English Vernacular (AAEV) is spoken throughout the US by the

African American people- “General American”: it’s a kind of normalized accent, which has no particular

geographical originThese things are more like sociolects because they are associated with a social group or function.

British vs. American English

There is a common belief that British English is more “pure”, more traditional and that American English is modern, full of new innovations (like Americanisms). Is it true or false? It is false.The most conservative forms of a language tend to be those that are separated from their origins. British English evolves at a faster rate than its colonial offshoots. We can see the same phenomena with France and Québec, and with Portugal and its colonies.

American English is closer to the way English sounded in 1500 than modern dialect in England. A significant feature of cultural attitudes towards dialects is that in America, unlike in Britain, there is very high stigma associated with regional accent.

General American

Characteristic

ConsonantsRhotic (r is retroflex [ɹ])“H” is pronounced.Voiceless stops are voiced between vowels.“…ing” [ǝn]No “j” sound before [u:][nt] [nn] (followed by unstressed syllable)

Vowel characteristicRP [a:] [æ][ɒ] [a(:)][əʊ] [oʊ]

Stress differencesThere are differences between stressed and unstressed syllables. Unstressed syllables are a lot smaller and not reduced as much as in RP.Some words have different stress patterns.

American spelling

American spelling was standardized in the early 19th century by Noah Webster. Today, the Webster Dictionary is still the standard reference for US English.

Differences- …ise / …izeIt is the result of the Webster choosing. He chose the last one “ize”. Normally, you could use both forms in the UK, but to demark them, they chose only the “ise” form is correct.- Past participles are different (spelling + pronunciation)

Word formationUS English tends to be more flexible.Ex: gas(oline)You can use existing roots combining them with suffixes.Ex: chocoholic

Regional dialects: Northern accents

Bostonian (New England)

As a result of their Puritan heritage, the New England region has (had) one of the few non-rhotic accents in the US.But the dominant rhotic pattern of General American is taking over. It is adopted by the younger today.

New YorkUntil WWII, New York English was non-rhotic. Today, rhoticity is standard but some non-rhotic elements remain (like Janice in “Friends”).There is a distinction between [ɒ] and [ɔ] / [ǝ].

Regional dialects: Southern accents

Southern US EnglishIt descended from the West Country accents of the Jamestown settlers. Southern US accents are distinctive, with slow articulation and long vowels (“southern drawl”).Ex: [a::] for [aɪ]

Unique grammatical features:- Plural 2nd person pronoun: “y’all”- Double modals: “he might could..”

Canadian English

HistoryThe USA declared its independence in 1776. British sympathisers fled north, towards Ontario, Canada. In 1497, a settlement is created in Canada but there is no change in the language.Québec is a French colony which was founded by Samuel de Champlain in 1608. French and English languages coexisted.

Uniformity mythThere is a misconception that Canadian English is uniform across the country: it is false.In fact, there is a lack of organised research to find the fineness of the distinctions. Nowadays, 3 different linguistic influences coexisted: French, English and Inouit.

Carte Canadian languages

Phonology and grammarCanadian distinctiveness is being absorbed into General American into the influence of the US media.Western Canadian English distinctiveness:- Rhotic dialect- Initial “h” is pronouced- [ɔ] pour un “o” before a “r”- [aɪ] and [aʊ] are pronounced differently

ex: knife [nʌɪf] knives [naɪvz]- [æ] / [ɛ] become [ɛ]

Oh! Canada, eh?“…,eh?” is a tag which has a bewildered arrow of uses.

Jamaican English

Different languages are spoken in the Caribbean Islands: Dutch, French, Spanish and English.

History

In the 1600’s, it was an English speaking colony.The original inhabitants were the South America Arawak Indians. But they were wiped out by the Spanish invaders.Then, Spain and Britain fought over Jamaica and the British won.They needed a lot of workers for sugar production, so in the 17 th century they used slave trade from West Africa. The slaves had no salary, no right and couldn’t leave.

The Atlantic Trade Triangle was the man economic motor for nearly 300 years.

Pidgins and Creoles

The Europeans had a problem: the African prisoners wanted to escape. So they tried to prevent slaves to communicate, in order they didn’t rebel or organised plans to escape. They chose slaves from different backgrounds (from different languages).But the slaves found a solution anyway. Since they heard English all day long, they invented pidgin, which was a simplified limited communication. Pidgin was not a first language.

Definition of pidgin:- auxiliary communication tools- 2 or more languages are in contact- one language is dominant

Over time, it became more complex. Then, it was a primary means of communication for the children of the slaves. They transformed their parents’ pidgin into a fully functional language, called “creole”.

In Jamaica, people speak native Creole (Jamaican Creole) and other local dialects of English (Jamaican English). Creole is a different language: it sounds English, but it is not.

Jamaican dialect continuum

It is a move between the both language, Jamaican Creole and Jamaican English (a kind of diglossia), because they have lots of similarities. It is hard to say which one they are speaking.

Jamaican English

Derivative of standard RP EnglishMostly non-rhotic[t] for [Ɵ] [d] for [ð][i] for [ɪ]/[i:] [u] for [ɜ:]/[ʌ]/[ɔ:][a] for [æ]/[ɒ]/[a:] [o] for [ɜ:]/[ʌ]/[ɔ:][e] for [ɛ] [eə] for [eɪ]

Stress timing / Syllable timing

Jamaican Creole

In the Caribbean, there is still a Creole alive.It is not bad English: it is a fully functional language system that sounds like English.Rastafarian movement reggae