LANGUAGES

Lecture 5

©A.N.

Native languages in Britain

ENGLISH SCOTTISH GAELIC WELSH IRISH GAELIC

THE SPREAD OF ENGLISH English was exported to Britain's growing

number of colonies, which by the 19th century accounted for one quarter of the world's population.

In the 20th century, even though Britain's role as a world power has declined considerably, the hegemony of the USA has meant that the English language has almost achieved the status of a world language.

It is estimated that one in five people in the world speak English

How many people speak English worldwide?

English is an official language, or has a special status in over 75 of the world's territories.

Over 337 million people speak English as their first language

Some 600 million speak it as a second and/or foreign language

Around 1 million speak it as a foreign language

Varieties of English As English has spread, so has it changed, and

there are now several recognized varieties of English.

While the English spoken in Britain's former 'white' colonies - the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - is still very similar to British English, and differs from it only in matters of vocabulary and phraseology, the English spoken in the West Indies and in countries such as India where English is the second language can be very different in syntax and grammar

Varieties of English- American English

American English, for example, has been influenced by American Indian languages, by Spanish, and by the languages of all the ethnic groups that have emigrated to the US over the years. But it still understood without difficulty by speakers of British English.

Indeed, many 'Americanisms' - words or phrases which originated in America - have been assimilated back into British English;

words such as skunk (American Indian), canyon, banana, potato (Spanish) or expressions such as to take a back seat, to strike oil, to cave in.

Other words -automobile, cookie, crazy, highway, mail, movie, truck - still have an American flavour but are increasingly used by speakers of British English.

A few words -faucet (tap), candy (sweets), fall (autumn), gas (petrol) - remain decidedly American, as do some forms of spelling (color- colour, theater- theatre, tire, -tyre).

American English

AMERICAN ENGLISH

account bill/account

adhesive tape sticking plaster

aisle gangway

antenna aerial (radio/TV)

apartment/unit flat

apartment hotel service flats

apartment house block of flats

Varieties of English- Australian English

Australian English also has its own 'home-grown' words, some of which have made their way into international English (boomerang, budgerigar), though others (cobber = friend, sheila = girl, tucker = food, dinkum = good) remain distinctively Australian.

Why are many English words pronounced differently from the

way they are spelt?

Beware of heard, a dreadful word,That looks like beard and sounds like bird.

And dead: it's said like bed, not bead,For Goodness' sake, don't call it deed!

Watch out for meat and great and threat,They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.

(Anon)

Why are many English words pronounced differently from the

way they are spelt?

English spelling is unpredictable at the best of times, and occasionally totally chaotic.

However, studies of the language claim that there are only about 400 words in English whose spelling is wholly irregular. (Unfortunately many of them are among the most frequently used in the language).

Why are many English words pronounced differently from the way they are spelt?

The problems with the English spelling system came about as the language developed over a period of 1,000 years. Some complications arose early on, when the Romans tried to write down Old English using the 23 letter Latin alphabet. Old English contained nearly 40 vowels and consonants.

Why are many English words pronounced differently from the way they are spelt?

The influence of French after the Norman Conquest also made an impact on English spelling. French scribes introduced 'qu' where Old English had used 'cw' e.g. queen, and 'gh' instead ‘h' e.g. night, amongst other changes.

Why are many English words pronounced differently from the way they are spelt?

The introduction of the printing press in 1476 meant that a standard spelling system began to emerge.

The system reflected the speech of the London area.

The pronunciation of vowels underwent further changes during the 15th century, but because of the advent of the printing press, spelling never caught up.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH

When the Angles and Saxons invaded Britain in the 5th century A.D., they brought with them their language: 'Englisc' or, as we call it now, Old English. Examples of Old English words are: sheep, dog, work, field, earth, the, is, you.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH

Two hundred years later, when St. Augustine brought Christianity to Britain in the 7th century, hundreds of Latin and Greek words were adapted into Old English: words such as hymn, priest, school, cook.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH

In the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries, the Viking invaders added their own Norse words: get, wrong, leg, want, skin, same, low.

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISHWhen the Norman Duke William defeated the Anglo-Saxons in 1066, French became the language of the educated classes for the next two or three centuries. This meant that there was no conservative influence on the English language, which was spoken mainly by uneducated people, and so the Middle English period (1150-1500) was characterized by tremendous changes. Grammatically, most of the inflections or case endings of Old English disappeared, and word order therefore became of prime importance, as it is in modern English; at the same time, there was a massive transfer of French words into English (some estimates say over 10,000 words).

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH

Latin, however, remained the language of the church and of education. This mixing of Latin, French and native English is the reason why there are so many synonyms even today in the English language:

ask (English), question (French) interrogate (Latin); time (English), age (French), epoch (Latin).

THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH

The introduction of the printing press in about 1476 gave rise to the need for a standard, uniform language that could be understood throughout the country. Modern English may be said to have begun in 1500.The most important influence on the language was William Shakespeare

Do Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own languages?

At the start of the 20th century half of the population of Wales were able to speak Welsh, a language belonging to the Celtic family. However, the numbers of Welsh-speaking people have steadily declined, and today only about a fifth of the population of Wales speak the language.

Both the government and voluntary groups have taken steps to revive the use of Welsh. Bilingual education in schools is encouraged, and there has been an extended use of Welsh for radio and television programmes.

Do Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own languages?

Gaelic, a language of Celtic origin, is still spoken by some 70,000 people in Scotland, with the greatest concentration of Gaelic speakers in the islands of the Hebrides. (The word 'whisky', the famous Scottish alcoholic drink, is derived from Gaelic uisce beatha or 'water of life'!)

People in the Lowlands of Scotland have for centuries spoken Scots, a dialect derived from the Northumbrian branch of Old English and a completely separate language from Gaelic. (This has its own recognised literary tradition as in the poetry of Robert Burns and has seen a revival in poetry in the 20th century).

Do Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own languages?

Gaelic is also the language of the Irish people.

It is still taught in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

In Northern Ireland at the time of the 1991 census there were 142,000 speakers of Irish Gaelic.

Why is English spoken with different accents?

Most British people can recognize where someone was brought up by their accent. Every region has its own way of pronouncing the words and sentences of English that identifies the speaker with that particular geographical area.

Differences arose from the time when English was spoken in a variety of different forms during the Middle Ages – Northern (developed from Northumbrian Old English), West and East Midlands (diverging from Mercian Old English), South Western (West Saxon) and South Eastern (Kentish).

Why is English spoken with different accents?

After 1500 the language of London gradually emerged as the most dominant form, and today the London or Southern accent is usually accepted as Standard English.

This is sometimes referred to as ‘BBC English’ (since at one time all announcers on BBC radio and TV were required to speak it - esp. in terms of pronunciation – RP – “received pronunciation”)

Why is English spoken with different accents?

Regional accents have persisted and diversified over the centuries.

Today the identification of an accent can place the speaker in a general area of Britain – such as West Country or South Wales, or be quite specific, referring to individual counties or cities; e.g. Liverpool (Liverpudlian accent), Manchester (Mancunian accent), New Castle (Jordies accent), Yorkshire or Glasgow accents.

What is a Cockney?

Traditionally, a true Cockney is anybody born within the sound of Bow bells (the bells of the church of St Mary-le-Bow in the East End of London). In fact, the term is commonly used to denote people who come from a wider area of the innermost eastern suburbs of London and also an adjoining area south of the Thames (East End).

What is cockney rhyming slang?

Like many other small communities, cockneys had a large number of words and phrases which had special meanings for them, but they took this to extremes by inventing a whole new dialect - 'rhyming slang' - which has been in use since the mid 19th century.

Rhyming slang uses a phrase that rhymes with a word, instead of the word itself - thus 'stairs' becomes 'apples and pairs', 'phone' becomes 'dog and bone' and 'word' becomes 'dicky bird'!

To add to the confusion for the uninitiated, the rhyming part of the word is often dropped: thus 'daisies' are 'boots' (from 'daisy roots').

cockney rhyming slang Some people complain that rhyming slang is

simply spoken to give the cockney an unfair advantage over strangers - the wily cockney spots an attentive or enquiring stranger and lapses into rhyming slang so that he or she can't be understood!

However, numerous colloquial expressions derive from rhyming-slang, and have even been heard in use in the House of Commons, such as 'let's get down to brass tacks' means 'lets talk facts'!

Key

Dog and Bone – Phone Butcher’s Hook – Look Toad – Road Mince Pies - Eyes

Artful Dodger – lodger,

Burton-on-Trent – rent,

Rub-a-Dub-Dub - pub

The main ethnic minority languages

Britain's Afro-Caribbean population speak a dialect of Standard English described as Creole, or Jamaican Creole (patois)

Britain's Asian population speaks a variety of languages, often using different languages for writing and speaking: Hindi, Urdu,Punjabi, Gujarati and Bengali

Two of the main Chinese dialects spoken by the Chinese in Britain are Cantonese, the language of urban Hong Kong and Guangdong province, and Mandarin, spoken by those from mainland China