The English language belongs to the western sub branch of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Apart from English-lexified creole languages such as Tok Pisin and Bislama, the nearest living relative of English is Scots (Lallans), spoken mostly in Scotland and parts of Northern Ireland. Like English, Scots is a direct descendant of Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon.Scots, the next closest relative is Frisian-spoken in Germany and the Netherlands. Other less closely related living languages include German, Low German, Dutch, Scandinavian languages and Afrikaans. Many French words are also intelligible to an English speaker (pronunciations are not always identical, of course) because English absorbed a tremendous amount of vocabulary from French, via the Norman language after the Norman conquest and directly from French in further centuries; as a result, a substantial share of English vocabulary is quite close to the French, with some minor spelling differences (word endings, use of old French spellings etc.), as well as occasional differences in meaning.
Geographic distribution
<https://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/File:English_dialects1997.png>
Distribution of native English speakers by country (Crystal 1997)
English is the second or third most widely spoken language in the world today. A total of 600-700 million people use the various dialects of English regularly. About 377 million people use one of the versions of English as their mother tongue, and an equal number of people use them as their second or foreign language. English is used widely in either the public or private sphere in more than 100 countries all over the world. In addition, the language has occupied a primary place in international academic and business communities. The current status of the English language at the start of the new millennium compares with that of Latin in the past. English is also the most widely used language for young backpackers who travel across continents, regardless of whether it is their mother tongue or a secondary language.is the primary language in Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Australia (Australian English), the Bahamas, Barbados (Caribbean English), Bermuda, Belize, Canada (Canadian English), the Cayman Islands, Dominica, the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Grenada, Guernsey, Guyana, Ireland (Irish English), Isle of Man, Jamaica (Jamaican English), Jersey, Montserrat, New Zealand (New Zealand English), Saint Helena, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the United Kingdom (various forms of British English), the U.S. Virgin Islands and the United States.is also an important minority language of South Africa (South African English), and in several other former colonies and current dependent territories of the United Kingdom and the United States, for example Guam and Mauritius.Hong Kong, English is an official language and is widely used in business activities. It is taught from infant school, and is the medium of instruction for a few primary schools, many secondary schools and all universities. Substantial numbers of students acquire native-speaker level. It is so widely used that it is inadequate to say that it is merely a second or foreign language, though there are still many people in Hong Kong with poor or no command of English.majority of English native speakers (67 to 70 per cent) live in the United States. Although the U.S. federal government has no official languages, it has been given official status by 27 of the 50 state governments, most of which have declared English their sole official language. Hawaii, Louisiana, and New Mexico have also designated Hawaiian, French, and Spanish, respectively, as official languages in conjunction with English.many other countries, where English is not a major first language, it is an official language; these countries include Cameroon, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Ghana, Gambia, India, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malaysia, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.is the most widely learned and used foreign language in the world, and as such, some linguists believe that it is no longer the exclusive cultural emblem of 'native English speakers', but rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures world-wide as it grows in use. Others believe that there are limits to how far English can go in suiting everyone for communication purposes. Many people feel that the use of English through media such as the Internet and its constant, informal use by others has led to a diminution in the importance of using the language correctly, thus resulting in a 'dumbing down' of the English language. English is the language most often studied as a foreign language in Europe (32.6 per cent), followed by French, German, and Spanish. It is also the most studied in Japan, South Korea and in the Republic of China (Taiwan), where it is compulsory for most secondary school students. See English as an additional language.
English as a Global Language
English is so widely spoken, it has been referred to as a "global language". While English is not an official language in many countries, it is the language most often taught as a second language around the world. It is also, by international treaty, the official language for aircraft/airport communication. Its widespread acceptance as a first or second language is the main indication of its worldwide status.are numerous arguments for and against English as a global language. On one hand, having a global language aids in communication and in pooling information (for example, in the scientific community). On the other hand, it leaves out those who, for one reason or another, are not fluent in the global language. It can also marginalise populations whose first language is not the global language, and lead to a cultural hegemony of the populations speaking the global language as a first language. Most of these arguments hold for any candidate for a global language, though the last two counter-arguments do not hold for languages not belonging to any ethnic group (like Esperanto).secondary concern with respect to the spread of global languages (including major non-English languages such as Spanish) is the resulting disappearance of minority languages, often along with the cultures and religions that are primarily transmitted in those languages. English has been implicated in a number of historical and ongoing so-called 'language deaths' and 'linguicides' around the world, many of which have also led to the loss of cultural heritage. Language death caused by English has been particularly pronounced in areas such as Australia and North America where speakers of indigenous languages have been displaced or absorbed by speakers of English in the process of colonisation.and regional variantsof dialects of the English language
| English dialects |
British Isles:EnglishEnglishEnglishUlster EnglishEnglishEnglishEnglishEnglishStates:EnglishAmerican Vernacular EnglishEnglishEnglishEnglishAmericanCentral American EnglishEnglishAmerican EnglishEnglish:EnglishEnglishEnglish:EnglishZealand English:Kong EnglishEnglishEnglishEnglishEnglishLankan Englishcountries:EnglishEnglishEnglishEnglishEnglishAfrican English:EnglishEnglishEnglishEnglishEnglishEnglishEnglishexpansiveness of the British and the Americans has spread English throughout the globe. Because of its global spread, it has bred a variety of English dialects and English-based creoles and pidgins.major varieties of English in most cases contain several subvarieties, such as Cockney within British English, Newfoundland English within Canadian English, and African American Vernacular English ("Ebonics") within American English. English is considered a pluricentric language, with no variety being clearly considered the only standard.consider Scots as an English dialect. Pronunciation, grammar and lexis differ, sometimes substantially.of English's wide use as a second language, English speakers can have many different accents, which may identify the speaker's native dialect or language. For more distinctive characteristics of regional accents, see Regional accents of English speakers. For more distinctive characteristics of regional dialects, see List of dialects of the English language.as English itself has borrowed words from many different languages over its history, English loanwords now appear in a great many languages around the world, indicative of the technological and cultural influence wielded by English speakers. Several pidgins and creoles have formed on an English base - Tok Pisin was originally one such example. There are a number of words in English coined to describe forms of particular non-English languages that contain a very high proportion of English words - Franglais, for example, is used to describe French with a very high English content.phonology Description word/iː Close front unrounded vowel bead
ɪ Near-close near-front unrounded vowel bid
ɛ Open-mid front unrounded vowel bed
æ Near-open front unrounded vowel bad
ɒ Open back rounded vowel bod 1
ɔ Open-mid back rounded vowel pawed 2
ɑ/ɑː Open back unrounded vowel bra
ʊ Near-close near-back rounded vowel good/uː Close back rounded vowel booed
ʌ/ɐ Open-mid back unrounded vowel, Near-open central vowel bud
ɝ/ɜː Open-mid central unrounded vowel bird 3
ə Schwa Rosa's 4
ɨ Close central unrounded vowel roses 5ɪ Close-mid front unrounded vowelfront unrounded vowel bayedʊ/əʊ Close-mid back rounded vowelclose near-back rounded vowel bodeɪ Open front unrounded vowelclose near-front rounded vowel buyʊ Open front unrounded vowelclose near-back rounded vowel bough
ɔɪ Open-mid back rounded vowelfront unrounded vowel boysymbols appear in pairs, the first corresponds to the sounds used in North American English, the second corresponds to English spoken elsewhere.
. North American English lacks this sound; words with this sound are pronounced with /ɑ/ or /ɔ/. According to The Canadian Oxford Dictionary (1998), this sound is present in Standard Canadian English.
. Many dialects of North American English do not have this vowel. See Cot-caught merger.
. The North American variation of this sound is a rhotic vowel.
. Many speakers of North American English do not distinguish between these two unstressed vowels. For them, roses and Rosa's are pronounced the same, and the symbol usually used is schwa /ə/.
. This sound is often transcribed with /i/ or with /ɪ/.
. The letter U can represent either /u/ or the iotated vowel /ju/.is the English Consonantal System using symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). labio- dental alveolar post- palatal velar glottal p b t d k g m n ŋ 1 ɾ 2 f v θ ð 3 s z ʃ ʒ 4 x 5 h tʃ dʒ 4 ɹ 4 j approximant l, ɫ
labial-velar ʍ w6
. The velar nasal [ŋ] is a non-phonemic allophone of /n/ in some northerly British accents, appearing only before /g/. In all other dialects it is a separate phoneme, although it only occurs in syllable codas.
. The alveolar flap [ɾ] is an allophone of /t/ and /d/ in unstressed syllables in North American English and increasingly in Australian English. This is the sound of "tt" or "dd" in the words latter and ladder, which are homophones in North American English. This is the same sound represented by single "r" in some varieties of Spanish.
. In some dialects, such as Cockney, the interdentals /θ/ and /ð/ are usually merged with /f/ and /v/, and in others, like African American Vernacular English, /ð/ is merged with /d/. In some Irish varieties, /θ/ and /ð/ become the corresponding dental plosives, which then contrast with the usual alveolar plosives.
. The sounds /ʃ/, /ʒ/, and /ɹ/ are labialised in some dialects. Labialisation is never contrastive in initial position and therefore is sometimes not transcribed.
. The voiceless velar fricative /x/ is used only by Scottish or Welsh speakers of English for Scots/Gaelic words such as loch /lɒx/ or by some speakers for loanwords from German and Hebrew like Bach /bax/ or Chanukah /xanuka/, or in some dialects such as Scouse (Liverpool) where the affricate [kx] is used instead of /k/ in words such as docker /dɒkxə/. Most native speakers have a great deal of trouble pronouncing it correctly when learning a foreign language. Most speakers use the sounds [k] and [h] instead.
. Voiceless w [ʍ] is found in Scottish, Irish, some upper-class British, some eastern United States, and New Zealand accents. In all other dialects it is merged with /w/.and Aspirationand aspiration of stop consonants in English depend on dialect and context, but a few general rules can be given:
• Voiceless plosives and affricates (/p/, /t/, /k/, and /tʃ/) are aspirated when they are word-initial or begin a stressed syllable and are not part of a consonant cluster-compare pin [pʰɪn] and spin [spɪn]. In some dialects, aspiration extends to unstressed syllables as well. In other dialects, such as Indian English, most or all voiceless stops may remain unaspirated.
• Word-initial voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects.
• Word-terminal voiceless plosives may be unreleased or accompanied by a glottal stop in some dialects (e.g. many varieties of American English)-examples: tap [tʰæp̚], sack [sæk̚].
• Word-terminal voiced plosives may be devoiced in some dialects (e.g. some varieties of American English)-examples: sad [sæd̥], bag [bæɡ̊]. In other dialects they are fully voiced in final position, but only partially voiced in initial position.groupsis an intonation language. This means that the pitch of the voice is used syntactically, for example, to convey surprise and irony, or to change a statement into a question.English, intonation patterns are on groups of words, which are called tone groups, tone units, intonation groups or sense groups. Tone groups are said on a single breath and, as a consequence, are of limited length, more often being on average five words long or lasting roughly two seconds. The structure of tone groups can have a crucial impact on the meaning of what is said. For example:
/duː juː niːd ˈɛnɪˌθɪŋ/ Do you need anything?
/aɪ dəʊnt | nəʊ/ ''I don't, no''
/aɪ dəʊnt nəʊ/ I don't knowof intonationtone group can be subdivided into syllables, which can either be stressed (strong) or unstressed (weak). There is always a strong syllable, which is stressed more than the others. This is called the nuclear syllable. For example:| was | the | best | thing | you | could | have | done!, all syllables are unstressed, except the syllables/words "best" and "done", which are stressed. "Best" is stressed harder and, therefore, is the nuclear syllable.nuclear syllable carries the main point the speaker wishes to make. For example:had stolen that money. (... not I)had stolen that money. (... you said he hadn't)had stolen that money. (... he wasn't given it)had stolen that money. (... not this money)had stolen that money. (... not something else)nuclear syllable is spoken louder than all the others and has a characteristic change of pitch. The changes of pitch most commonly encountered in English are the rising pitch and the falling pitch, although the fall-rising pitch and/or the rise-falling pitch are sometimes used. For example:do you want to be paid?ów? (rising pitch. In this case, it denotes a question: can I be paid now?)òw (falling pitch. In this case, it denotes a statement: I choose to be paid now)grammargrammar displays minimal inflection compared with some other Indo-European languages. For example, Modern English, unlike Modern German or Dutch and the Romance languages, lacks grammatical gender and adjectival agreement. Case marking has almost disappeared from the language and mainly survives in pronouns. The patterning of strong (eg. speak/spoke/spoken) versus weak verbs inherited from Germanic has declined in importance and the remnants of inflection (such as plural marking) have become more regular.the same time as inflection has declined in importance in English, the language has developed a greater reliance on features such as modal verbs and word order to convey grammatical information. Auxiliary verbs are used to mark constructions such as questions, negatives, the passive voice and progressive tenses.without exception, Germanic words (which include all the basics such as pronouns and conjunctions) are shorter and more informal. Latinate words are regarded as more elegant or educated. However, the excessive use of Latinate words is often mistaken for either pretentiousness (as in the stereotypical policeman's talk of "apprehending the suspect") or obfuscation (as in a military document which says "neutralise" when it means "kill"). George Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language" gives a thorough treatment of this feature of English.English speaker is often able to choose between Germanic and Latinate synonyms: "come" or "arrive"; "sight" or "vision"; "freedom" or "liberty"-and sometimes also between a word inherited through French and a borrowing direct from Latin of the same root word: "oversee", "survey" or "supervise". The richness of the language is that such synonyms have slightly different meanings, enabling the language to be used in a very flexible way to express fine variations or shades of thought. See: List of Germanic and Latinate equivalents.exception to this and a peculiararity arguably unique of English is that the nouns for meats are commonly different from and unrelated to those for the animals from which they are produced, the animal commonly having a Germanic name and the meat having a French derived noun. Examples include deer and venison, ox or cow and beef, or swine and pork. This is assumed to be a result of the aftermath of the Norman invasion where a French speaking elite were the consumers of the meat, produced by English speaking lower classes.everyday speech, the majority of words will normally be Germanic. If a speaker wishes to make a forceful point in an argument in a very blunt way, Germanic words will usually be chosen. A majority of Latinate words (or at least a majority of content words) will normally be used in more formal speech and writing, such as a courtroom or an encyclopedia article.is noted for the vast size of its active vocabulary and its fluidity. English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and imports new words which often come into common usage. In addition, slang provides new meanings for old words. In fact this fluidity is so pronounced that a distinction often needs to be made between formal forms of English and contemporary usage. See also sociolinguistics.of words in Englishthe General Explanations at the beginning of the Oxford English Dictionary state:Vocabulary of a widely diffused and highly cultivated living language is not a fixed quantity circumscribed by definite limits.... there is absolutely no defining line in any direction: the circle of the English language has a well-defined centre but no discernible circumference.vocabulary of English is undoubtedly vast, but assigning a specific number to its size is more a matter of definition than of calculation. Unlike other languages, there is no Academy to define officially accepted words. Neologisms are coined regularly in medicine, science and technology-some enter wide usage; others remain restricted to small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make their way into wider English usage. Archaic, dialectal, and regional words might be considered as "English" or not.Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition) includes over 500,000 headwords, following a rather inclusive policy:embraces not only the standard language of literature and conversation, whether current at the moment, or obsolete, or archaic, but also the main technical vocabulary, and a large measure of dialectal usage and slang (Supplement to the OED, 1933).difficulty of defining the number of words is compounded by the emergence of new versions of English, such as Asian English. Word originsin Englishof English words of international originof the consequences of the French influence is that the vocabulary of English is, to a certain extent, divided between those words which are Germanic (mostly Old English) and those which are "Latinate" (Latin-derived, either directly or from Norman French or other Romance languages).computerised survey of about 80,000 words in the old Shorter Oxford Dictionary (3rd ed.) was published in Ordered Profusion by Thomas Finkenstaedt and Dieter Wolff (1973) which estimated the origin of English words as follows:
• French, including Old French and early Anglo-French: 28.3%
• Latin, including modern scientific and technical Latin: 28.24%
• Old and Middle English, Old Norse, and Dutch: 25%
• Greek: 5.32%
• No etymology given: 4.03%
• Derived from proper names: 3.28%
• All other languages contributed less than 1%D. Nicoll made the oft-quoted observation: "The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and riffle their pockets for new vocabulary."
Writing System
alphabetis written using the Latin alphabet. The spelling system or orthography of English is historical, not phonological. The spelling of words often diverges considerably from how they are spoken, and English spelling is often considered to be one of the most difficult to learn of any language that uses an alphabet. See English orthography.sound-letter correspondences Alphabetic representation Dialect-specific p b t, th (rarely) thyme, Thames th thing (African-American, New York) d th that (African-American, New York) c (+ a, o, u, consonants), k, ck, ch, qu (rarely) conquer, kh (in foreign words) g, gh, gu (+ a, e, i), gue (final position) m n
ŋ n (before g or k), ng f, ph, gh (final, infrequent) laugh, rough th thing (many forms of English used in England) v th with (Cockney, Estuary English)
θ th: there is no obvious way to identify which is which from the spelling.
ð s, c (+ e, i, y), sc (+ e, i, y) z, s (finally or occasionally medially), ss (rarely) possess, dessert, word-initial x xylophone
ʃ sh, sch, ti portion, ci suspicion; si/ssi tension, mission; ch (esp. in words of French origin); rarely s sugar
ʒ si division, zh (in foreign words), z azure, su pleasure, g (in words of French origin)(+e, i, y) genre kh, ch, h (in foreign words) occasionally ch loch (Scottish English, Welsh English) h (initially, otherwise silent) ʃ ch, tch occasionally tu future, culture; t (+ u, ue, eu) tune, Tuesday, Teutonic (Australian English)ʒ j, g (+ e, i, y), dg (+ e, i, consonant) badge, judg(e)ment d (+ u, ue, ew) dune, due, dew (Australian English)
ɹ r, wr (initial) wrangle y (initially or surrounded by vowels) l w, wh
ʍ - wh (Scottish English)and British English spelling differencesthe early 18th century, English spelling was not standardized. Different standards became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionaries. Current BrE spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755). Many of the now characteristic AmE spellings were introduced, although often not created, by Noah Webster in his An American Dictionary of the English Language of 1828.was a strong proponent of spelling reform for reasons both philological and nationalistic. Many other spelling changes proposed in the US by Webster himself, and, in the early 20th century, by the Simplified Spelling Board never caught on. Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of those who preferred the Norman (or Anglo-French) spellings of certain words proved decisive. Subsequent spelling adjustments in the UK had little effect on present-day US spelling, and vice versa. While, in many cases, AmE deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling; on the other hand, it has also often retained older forms.
• Full stops/Periods in abbreviations: Americans tend to write Mr., Mrs., St., Dr., while British will most often write Mr, Mrs, St, Dr, following the rule that a full stop is used only when the last letter of the abbreviation is not the last letter of the complete word. This kind of abbreviation is known as a contraction in the UK. Still, many British writers would also tend to write other abbreviations without a full stop, such as Prof, etc, eg, and so forth (as recommended by OED). The use of periods after most abbreviations can also be found in the UK, although publications generally tend to eschew the use of American punctuation. Unit symbols such as kg and Hz are never punctuated.
• Both styles hyphenate multiple-word adjectives (e.g. "a first-class ticket"), but some British writers omit the hyphen when no ambiguity would arise.
• Quoting: Americans begin their quotations with double quotation marks (") and use single quotation marks (') for quotations within quotations. BrE usage varies, with some authoritative sources such as The Economist and The Times recommending the same usage as in the U.S., whereas other authoritative sources, such as The King's English, recommend single quotation marks. In journals and newspapers, quotation mark double/single use depends on the individual publication's house style
• Quotation marks with periods and commas: Americans always place commas and periods inside quotation marks. Exceptions are made only for parenthetical citation and cases in which the addition of a period or comma could create confusion, such as the quotation of web addresses or certain types of data strings. In both styles, question marks and exclamation points are placed inside the quotation marks if they belong to the quotation and outside otherwise. With narration of direct speech, both styles retain punctuation inside the quotation marks, with a full stop changing into a comma if followed by explanatory text, also known as a dialogue tag. Carefree means "free from care or anxiety." (American style) Carefree means "free from care or anxiety". (British style) "Hello, John," I said. (Both styles) Did you say, "I'm shot"? No, I said, "Why not?" (Both styles) To insert a long dash, type "—". (Both styles)American style was established for typographical reasons, a historical legacy from the use of the handset printing press. It is used by most American newspapers, publishing houses, and style guides in the United States and Canada (including the Modern Language Association's MLA Style Manual, the American Psychological Association's APA Publication Manual, the University of Chicago's Chicago Manual of Style, the American Institute of Physics's AIP Style Manual, the American Medical Association's AMA Manual of Style, the American Political Science Association's APSA Style Manual, the Associated Press' The AP Guide to Punctuation, and the Canadian Public Works' The Canadian Style). It also makes the process of copy editing easier, eliminating the need to decide whether a period or comma belongs to the quotation.'s Rules and the Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors call the British style "new" quoting. It is also similar to the use of quotation marks in many other languages (including Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan, Dutch, and German). A few U.S. professional societies whose professions frequently employ various non-word characters, such as chemistry and computer programming, use the British form in their style guides (see ACS Style Guide). According to the Jargon File, American hackers switched to what they later discovered to be the British quotation system because placing a period inside a quotation mark can change the meaning of data strings that are meant to be typed character-for-character. (It may be noted that the current American system places periods and commas outside the quotes in these cases anyway.)
• Parentheses/brackets:in American English, brackets in British English.both countries, standard usage is to place punctuation inside or outside parentheses/brackets according to the stop:
• "I am going to the store. (I hope it is still open.)"
• "I am going to the shop (if it is still open)."accentsincludes some words which can be written with accent marks. These words have mostly been imported from other languages, usually French. But it is increasingly rare for writers of English to actually use the accent marks for common words, even in very formal writing. The strongest tendency to retain the accent is in words that are atypical of English morphology and therefore still perceived as slightly foreign. For example, café has a pronounced final e, which would be silent by the normal English pronunciation rules.examples: ångström, appliqué, attaché, blasé, bric-à-brac, café, cliché, crème, crêpe, façade, fiancé(e), flambé, naïve, né(e), papier-mâché, passé, piñata, protégé, raison d'être, résumé, risqué, über-, vis-à-vis, voilà. For a more complete list, see List of English words with diacritics.words such as rôle and hôtel were first seen with accents when they were borrowed into English, but now the accent is almost never used. The words were considered very French borrowings when first used in English, even accused by some of being foreign phrases used where English alternatives would suffice, but today their French origin is largely forgotten. The accent on "élite" has disappeared from most publications today, but Time magazine still uses it. For some words such as "soupçon" however, the only spelling found in English dictionaries (the OED and others) uses the diacritic., with appropriate accents, are generally applied to foreign terms that are uncommonly used in or have not been assimilated into English: for example, adiós, coup d'état, crème brûlée, pièce de résistance, raison d'être, über (übermensch), vis-à-vis.is also possible to use a diaeresis to indicate a syllable break, but again this is often left out or a hyphen used instead. Examples: coöperate (or co-operate), daïs, naïve, noël, reëlect (or re-elect). One publication that still uses a diaeresis to indicate a syllable break is the New Yorker magazine.accents are also used occasionally in poetry and scripts for dramatic performances to indicate that a certain normally unstressed syllable in a word should be stressed for dramatic effect, or to keep with the meter of the poetry. This use is frequently seen in archaic and pseudoarchaic writings with the "-ed" suffix, to indicate that the "e" should be fully pronounced, as with cursèd.certain older texts (typically in Commonwealth English), the use of ligatures is common in words such as archæology, œsophagus, and encyclopædia. Such words have Latin or Greek origin. Nowadays, the ligatures have been generally replaced in Commonwealth English by the separated letters "ae" and "oe" ("archaeology", "oesophagus") and in American English by "e" ("esophagus"). However, the spellings "oeconomy" and "oecology" are now generally replaced by "economy" and "ecology" in Commonwealth English, making these spellings the same as in American English.two major English language keyboard layouts, namely United States and United Kingdom, normally do not fully permit these accents to be typed into the computer. However, the United States-International and United Kingdom-International keyboard layouts permit such accents to be keyed in. See British and American keyboards, keyboard layouts
english british american grammatical
Chapter II. Peculiarities of British and American Variants in the English Language
Peculiarities of American and British English and their Differences
English (variously abbreviated AmE, AE, AmEng, USEng, en-US, also known as United States English, or U.S. English) is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two thirds of native speakers of English live in the United States. English is the most common language in the United States. Though the U.S. federal government has no official language, English is considered the de facto, "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law", language of the United States because of its widespread use. English has been given official status by 30 of the 50 state governments.use of English in the United States was inherited from British colonization. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America in the 17th century. During that time, there were also speakers in North America of Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots, Welsh, Irish, Scottish Gaelic, Finnish, Russian (Alaska) and numerous Native American languages.
• American English (AmE) is the form of English used in the United States. It includes all English dialects used within the United States of America.
• British English (BrE) is the form of English used in the United Kingdom. It includes all English dialects used within the United Kingdom.English and British English (BrE) differ at the levels of phonology, phonetics, vocabulary, and, to a lesser extent, grammar and orthography. The first large American dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language, was written by Noah Webster in 1828; Webster intended to show that the United States, which was a relatively new country at the time, spoke a different dialect from that of Britain.in grammar are relatively minor, and normally do not affect mutual intelligibility; these include: different use of some verbal auxiliaries; formal (rather than notional) agreement with collective nouns; different preferences for the past forms of a few verbs (e.g. AmE/BrE: learned/learnt, burned/burnt, and in sneak, dive, get); different prepositions and adverbs in certain contexts (e.g. AmE in school, BrE at school); and whether or not a definite article is used, in very few cases (AmE to the hospital, BrE to hospital). Often, these differences are a matter of relative preferences rather than absolute rules; and most are not stable, since the two varieties are constantly influencing each other. Differences in orthography are also trivial. Some of the forms that now serve to distinguish American from British spelling (color for colour, center for centre, traveler for traveller, etc.) were introduced by Noah Webster himself; others are due to spelling tendencies in Britain from the 17th century until the present day (e.g. -ise for -ize, although the Oxford English Dictionary still prefers the -ize ending) and cases favored by the francophile tastes of 19th century Victorian England, which had little effect on AmE (e.g. programme for program, manoeuvre for maneuver, skilful for skillful, cheque for check, etc.). AmE sometimes favors words that are morphologically more complex, whereas BrE uses clipped forms, such as AmE transportation and BrE transport or where the British form is a back-formation, such as AmE burglarize and BrE burgle (from burglar). It should however be noted that these words are not mutually exclusive, being widely understood and mostly used alongside each other within the two systems.most noticeable differences between AmE and BrE are at the levels of pronunciation and vocabulary.forms of American and British English as found in newspapers and textbooks vary little in their essential features, with only occasional noticeable differences in comparable media (comparing American newspapers to British newspapers, for example). This kind of formal English, particularly written English, is often called 'standard English'. An unofficial standard for spoken American English has also developed, as a result of mass media and geographic and social mobility. It is typically referred to as 'standard spoken American English' (SSAE) or 'General American English' (GenAm or GAE) and broadly describes the English typically heard from network newscasters, commonly referred to as non-regional diction, although local newscasters tend toward more parochial forms of speech. Despite this unofficial standard, regional variations of American English have not only persisted but have actually intensified, according to linguist William Labov.dialects in the United States typically reflect the elements of the language of the main immigrant groups in any particular region of the country, especially in terms of pronunciation and vernacular vocabulary. Scholars have mapped at least four major regional variations of spoken American English: Northern, Southern, Midland, and Western (Labov, Ash, & Boberg, 2006). After the American Civil War, the settlement of the western territories by migrants from the east led to dialect mixing and levelling, so that regional dialects are most strongly differentiated in the eastern parts of the country that were settled earlier. Localized dialects also exist with quite distinct variations, such as in Southern Appalachia and New York.spoken forms of British English vary considerably, reflecting a long history of dialect development amid isolated populations. Dialects and accents vary not only between the countries in the United Kingdom, England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, but also within these individual countries.are also differences in the English spoken by different groups of people in any particular region. Received Pronunciation (RP), which is "the educated spoken English of south-east England", has traditionally been regarded as proper English; this is also referred to as BBC English or the Queen's English. The BBC and other broadcasters now intentionally use a mix of presenters with a variety of British accents and dialects, and the concept of "proper English" is now far less prevalent.and American English are the reference norms for English as spoken, written, and taught in the rest of the world. For instance, the English-speaking members of the Commonwealth often closely follow British English forms while many new American English forms quickly become familiar outside of the United States. Although the dialects of English used in the former British Empire are often, to various extents, based on British English, most of the countries concerned have developed their own unique dialects, particularly with respect to pronunciation, idioms, and vocabulary; chief among them are Canadian English and Australian English, which rank third and fourth in number of native speakers if Indian English and the English of other countries of Asia and Africa are disregarded.vocabularies of American English and North American English regional phonologymany ways, compared to English English, North American English is conservative in its phonology. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast (for example, in Eastern New England and New York City), partly because these areas were in contact with England, and imitated prestigious varieties of British English at a time when those varieties were undergoing changes. In addition, many speech communities on the East Coast have existed in their present locations longer than others. The interior of the United States, however, was settled by people from all regions of the existing United States and, therefore, developed a far more generic linguistic pattern.red areas are those where non-rhotic pronunciations are found among some white people in the United States. AAVE-influenced non-rhotic pronunciations may be found among black people throughout the country.North American speech is rhotic, as English was in most places in the 17th century. Rhoticity was further supported by Hiberno-English, West Country English and Scottish English as well as the fact most regions of England at this time also had rhotic accents. In most varieties of North American English, the sound corresponding to the letter r is a retroflex [ɻ] or alveolar approximant [ɹ] rather than a trill or a tap. The loss of syllable-final r in North America is confined mostly to the accents of eastern New England, New York City and surrounding areas and the coastal portions of the South, and African American Vernacular English. In rural tidewater Virginia and eastern New England, 'r' is non-rhotic in accented (such as "bird", "work", "first", "birthday") as well as unaccented syllables, although this is declining among the younger generation of speakers. Dropping of syllable-final r sometimes happens in natively rhotic dialects if r is located in unaccented syllables or words and the next syllable or word begins in a consonant. In England, the lost r was often changed into [ə] (schwa), giving rise to a new class of falling diphthongs. Furthermore, the er sound of fur or butter, is realized in AmE as a monophthongal r-colored vowel (stressed [ɝ] or unstressed [ɚ] as represented in the IPA). This does not happen in the non-rhotic varieties of North American speech.other English English changes in which most North American dialects do not participate:
• The shift of /æ/ to /ɑ/ (the so-called "broad A") before /f/, /s/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /v/ alone or preceded by a homorganic nasal. This is the difference between the British Received Pronunciation and American pronunciation of bath and dance. In the United States, only eastern New England speakers took up this modification, although even there it is becoming increasingly rare.
• The realization of intervocalic /t/ as a glottal stop [ʔ] (as in [bɒʔəl] for bottle). This change is not universal for British English and is not considered a feature of Received Pronunciation. This is not a property of most North American dialects. Newfoundland English is a notable exception.the other hand, North American English has undergone some sound changes not found in the standard varieties of English speech:
• The merger of /ɑ/ and /ɒ/, making father and bother rhyme. This change is nearly universal in North American English, occurring almost everywhere except for parts of eastern New England, hence the Boston accent.
• The merger of /ɒ/ and /ɔ/. This is the so-called cot-caught merger, where cot and caught are homophones. This change has occurred in eastern New England, in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas, and from the Great Plains westward.
• For speakers who do not merge caught and cot: The replacement of the cot vowel with the caught vowel before voiceless fricatives (as in cloth, off [which is found in some old-fashioned varieties of RP]), as well as before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long), usually in gone, often in on, and irregularly before /ɡ/ (log, hog, dog, fog [which is not found in British English at all]).
• The replacement of the lot vowel with the strut vowel in most utterances of the words was, of, from, what and in many utterances of the words everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody; the word because has either /ʌ/ or /ɔ/; want has normally /ɔ/ or /ɑ/, sometimes /ʌ/.Vowel merger before intervocalic /ɹ/. Which vowels are affected varies between dialects, but the Mary-marry-merry, nearer-mirror, and hurry-furry mergers are all widespread. Another such change is the laxing of /e/, /i/ and /u/ to /ɛ/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ before /ɹ/, causing pronunciations like [pɛɹ], [pɪɹ] and [pjʊɹ] for pair, peer and pure. The resulting sound [ʊɹ] is often further reduced to [ɝ], especially after palatals, so that cure, pure, mature and sure rhyme with fir.
• Dropping of /j/ is more extensive than in RP. In most North American accents, /j/ is dropped after all alveolar and interdental consonant, so that new, duke, Tuesday,resume are pronounced /nu/, /duk/, /tuzdeɪ/, /ɹɪzum/.
• æ-tensing in environments that vary widely from accent to accent; for example, for many speakers, /æ/ is approximately realized as [eə] before nasal consonants. In some accents, particularly those from Philadelphia to New York City, [æ] and [eə] can even contrast sometimes, as in Yes, I can [kæn] vs. tin can [keən].
• The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] before unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/ (bottle), as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else, whatever). Thus, for most speakers, pairs such as ladder/latter, metal/medal, and coating/coding are pronounced the same. For many speakers, this merger is incomplete and does not occur after /aɪ/; these speakers tend to pronounce writer with [əɪ] and rider with [aɪ]. This is a form of Canadian raising but, unlike more extreme forms of that process, does not affect /aʊ/. In some areas and idiolects, a phonemic distinction between what elsewhere become homophones through this process is maintained by vowel lengthening in the vowel preceding the formerly voiced consonant, e.g., [læ:•ɾɹ̩] for "ladder" as opposed to [læ•ɾɹ̩] for "latter".
• Both intervocalic /nt/ and /n/ may be realized as [n] or [ɾ̃], rarely making winter and winner homophones. Most areas in which /nt/ is reduced to /n/, it is accompanied further by nasalization of simple post-vocalic /n/, so that V/nt/ and V/n/ remain phonemically distinct. In such cases, the preceding vowel becomes nasalized, and is followed in cases where the former /nt/ was present, by a distinct /n/. This stop-absorption by the preceding nasal /n/ does not occur when the second syllable is stressed, as in entail.
• The pin-pen merger, by which [ɛ] is raised to [ɪ] before nasal consonants, making pairs like pen/pin homophonous. This merger originated in Southern American English but is now also sometimes found in parts of the Midwest and West as well, especially in people with roots in the mountainous areas of the Southeastern United States.mergers found in most varieties of both American and British English include:
• The merger of the vowels /ɔ/ and /o/ before 'r', making pairs like horse/hoarse, corps/core, for/four, morning/mourning, etc. homophones.
• The wine-whine merger making pairs like wine/whine, wet/whet, Wales/whales, wear/where, etc. homophones, in most cases eliminating /hw/, the voiceless labiovelar fricative. Many older varieties of southern and western AmE still keep these distinct, but the merger appears to be spreading.written AmE is standardized across the country, there are several recognizable variations in the spoken language, both in pronunciation and in vernacular vocabulary. General American is the name given to any American accent that is relatively free of noticeable regional influences.the Civil War, the settlement of the western territories by migrants from the Eastern U.S. led to dialect mixing and leveling, so that regional dialects are most strongly differentiated along the Eastern seaboard. The Connecticut River and Long Island Sound is usually regarded as the southern/western extent of New England speech, which has its roots in the speech of the Puritans from East Anglia who settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The Potomac River generally divides a group of Northern coastal dialects from the beginning of the Coastal Southern dialect area; in between these two rivers several local variations exist, chief among them the one that prevails in and around New York City and northern New Jersey, which developed on a Dutch substratum after the British conquered New Amsterdam. The main features of Coastal Southern speech can be traced to the speech of the English from the West Country who settled in Virginia after leaving England at the time of the English Civil War, and to the African influences from the African Americans who were enslaved in the South.no longer region-specific, African American Vernacular English, which remains prevalent among African Americans, has a close relationship to Southern varieties of AmE and has greatly influenced everyday speech of many Americans.distinctive speech pattern also appears near the border between Canada and the United States, centered on the Great Lakes region (but only on the American side). This is the Inland North Dialect-the "standard Midwestern" speech that was the basis for General American in the mid-20th Century (although it has been recently modified by the northern cities vowel shift). Those not from this area frequently confuse it with the North Midland dialect treated below, referring to both collectively as "Midwestern" in the mid-Atlantic region or "Northern" in the Southern US. The so-called '"Minnesotan" dialect is also prevalent in the cultural Upper Midwest, and is characterized by influences from the German and Scandinavian settlers of the region (yah for yes/ja in German, pronounced the same way).the interior, the situation is very different. West of the Appalachian Mountains begins the broad zone of what is generally called "Midland" speech. This is divided into two discrete subdivisions, the North Midland that begins north of the Ohio River valley area, and the South Midland speech; sometimes the former is designated simply "Midland" and the latter is reckoned as "Highland Southern." The North Midland speech continues to expand westward until it becomes the closely related Western dialect which contains Pacific Northwest English as well as the well-known California English, although in the immediate San Francisco area some older speakers do not possess the cot-caught merger and thus retain the distinction between words such as cot and caught which reflects a historical Mid-Atlantic heritage.South Midland or Highland Southern dialect follows the Ohio River in a generally southwesterly direction, moves across Arkansas and Oklahoma west of the Mississippi, and peters out in West Texas. It is a version of the Midland speech that has assimilated some coastal Southern forms (outsiders often mistakenly believe South Midland speech and coastal South speech to be the same).island state of Hawaii has a distinctive Hawaiian Pidgin., dialect development in the United States has been notably influenced by the distinctive speech of such important cultural centers as Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Charleston, New Orleans, New York City, and Detroit, which imposed their marks on the surrounding areas.
American and British English Lexical Differences
America has given the English lexicon many thousands of words, meanings, and phrases. Several thousand are now used in English as spoken internationally; others, however, died within a few years of their creation.of an American lexiconprocess of coining new lexical items started as soon as the colonists began borrowing names for unfamiliar flora, fauna, and topography from the Native American languages. Examples of such names are opossum, raccoon, squash and moose (from Algonquian). Other Native American loanwords, such as wigwam or moccasin, describe artificial objects in common use among Native Americans. The languages of the other colonizing nations also added to the American vocabulary; for instance, cookie, cruller, stoop, and pit (of a fruit) from Dutch; levee, portage ("carrying of boats or goods") and (probably) gopher from French; barbecue, stevedore, and rodeo from Spanish.the earliest and most notable regular "English" additions to the American vocabulary, dating from the early days of colonization through the early 19th century, are terms describing the features of the North American landscape; for instance, run, branch, fork, snag, bluff, gulch, neck (of the woods), barrens, bottomland, notch, knob, riffle, rapids, watergap, cutoff, trail, timberline and divide. Already existing words such as creek, slough, sleet and (in later use) watershed received new meanings that were unknown in England.noteworthy American toponyms are found among loanwords; for example, prairie, butte (French); bayou (Choctaw via Louisiana French); coulee (Canadian French, but used also in Louisiana with a different meaning); canyon, mesa, arroyo (Spanish); vlei, kill (Dutch, Hudson Valley).word corn, used in England to refer to wheat (or any cereal), came to denote the plant Zea mays, the most important crop in the U.S., originally named Indian corn by the earliest settlers; wheat, rye, barley, oats, etc. came to be collectively referred to as grain (or breadstuffs). Other notable farm related vocabulary additions were the new meanings assumed by barn (not only a building for hay and grain storage, but also for housing livestock) and team (not just the horses, but also the vehicle along with them), as well as, in various periods, the terms range, (corn) crib, truck, elevator, sharecropping and feedlot., later applied to a house style, derives from Mexican Spanish; most Spanish contributions came after the War of 1812, with the opening of the West. Among these are, other than toponyms, chaps (from chaparreras), plaza, lasso, bronco, buckaroo, rodeo; examples of "English" additions from the cowboy era are bad man, maverick, chuck ("food") and Boot Hill; from the California Gold Rush came such idioms as hit pay dirt or strike it rich. The word blizzard probably originated in the West. A couple of notable late 18th century additions are the verb belittle and the noun bid, both first used in writing by Thomas Jefferson.the new continent developed new forms of dwelling, and hence a large inventory of words designating real estate concepts (land office, lot, outlands, waterfront, the verbs locate and relocate, betterment, addition, subdivision), types of property (log cabin, adobe in the 18th century; frame house, apartment, tenement house, shack, shanty in the 19th century; project, condominium, townhouse, split-level, mobile home, multi-family in the 20th century), and parts thereof (driveway, breezeway, backyard, dooryard; clapboard, siding, trim, baseboard; stoop (from Dutch), family room, den; and, in recent years, HVAC, central air, walkout basement).since the American Revolution, a great number of terms connected with the U.S. political institutions have entered the language; examples are run, gubernatorial, primary election, carpetbagger (after the Civil War), repeater, lame duck and pork barrel. Some of these are internationally used (e.g. caucus, gerrymander, filibuster, exit poll).rise of capitalism, the development of industry and material innovations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries were the source of a massive stock of distinctive new words, phrases and idioms. Typical examples are the vocabulary of railroading (see further at rail terminology) and transportation terminology, ranging from names of roads (from dirt roads and back roads to freeways and parkways) to road infrastructure (parking lot, overpass, rest area), and from automotive terminology to public transit (e.g. in the sentence "riding the subway downtown"); such American introductions as commuter (from commutation ticket), concourse, to board (a vehicle), to park, double-park and parallel park (a car), double decker or the noun terminal have long been used in all dialects of English. Trades of various kinds have endowed (American) English with household words describing jobs and occupations (bartender, longshoreman, patrolman, hobo, bouncer, bellhop, roustabout, white collar, blue collar, employee, boss [from Dutch], intern, busboy, mortician, senior citizen), businesses and workplaces (department store, supermarket, thrift store, gift shop, drugstore, motel, main street, gas station, hardware store, savings and loan, hock [also from Dutch]), as well as general concepts and innovations (automated teller machine, smart card, cash register, dishwasher, reservation [as at hotels], pay envelope, movie, mileage, shortage, outage, blood bank).existing English words -such as store, shop, dry goods, haberdashery, lumber- underwent shifts in meaning; some -such as mason, student, clerk, the verbs can (as in "canned goods"), ship, fix, carry, enroll (as in school), run (as in "run a business"), release and haul- were given new significations, while others (such as tradesman) have retained meanings that disappeared in England. From the world of business and finance came breakeven, merger, delisting, downsize, disintermediation, bottom line; from sports terminology came, jargon aside, Monday-morning quarterback, cheap shot, game plan (football); in the ballpark, out of left field, off base, hit and run, and many other idioms from baseball; gamblers coined bluff, blue chip, ante, bottom dollar, raw deal, pass the buck, ace in the hole, freeze-out, showdown; miners coined bedrock, bonanza, peter out, pan out and the verb prospect from the noun; and railroadmen are to be credited with make the grade, sidetrack, head-on, and the verb railroad. A number of Americanisms describing material innovations remained largely confined to North America: elevator, ground, gasoline; many automotive terms fall in this category, although many do not (hatchback, SUV, station wagon, tailgate, motorhome, truck, pickup truck, to exhaust).addition to the above-mentioned loans from French, Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Dutch, and Native American languages, other accretions from foreign languages came with 19th and early 20th century immigration; notably, from Yiddish (chutzpah, schmooze, tush and such idioms as need something like a hole in the head) and German -hamburger and culinary terms like frankfurter/franks, liverwurst, sauerkraut, wiener, deli(catessen); scram, kindergarten, gesundheit; musical terminology (whole note, half note, etc.); and apparently cookbook, fresh ("impudent") and what gives? Such constructions as Are you coming with? and I like to dance (for "I like dancing") may also be the result of German or Yiddish influence. Finally, a large number of English colloquialisms from various periods are American in origin; some have lost their American flavor (from OK and cool to nerd and 24/7), while others have not (have a nice day, sure); many are now distinctly old-fashioned (swell, groovy). Some English words now in general use, such as hijacking, disc jockey, boost, bulldoze and jazz, originated as American slang. Among the many English idioms of U.S. origin are get the hang of, take for a ride, bark up the wrong tree, keep tabs, run scared, take a backseat, have an edge over, stake a claim, take a shine to, in on the ground floor, bite off more than one can chew, off/on the wagon, stay put, inside track, stiff upper lip, bad hair day, throw a monkey wrench, under the weather, jump bail, come clean, come again?, it ain't over till it's over, what goes around comes around, and will the real x please stand up?words that survived in the United Statesnumber of words and meanings that originated in Middle English or Early Modern English and that always have been in everyday use in the United States dropped out in most varieties of British English; some of these have cognates in Lowland Scots. Terms such as fall ("autumn"), pavement (to mean "road surface", where in Britain, as in Philadelphia, it is the equivalent of "sidewalk"), faucet, diaper, candy, skillet, eyeglasses, crib (for a baby), obligate, and raise a child are often regarded as Americanisms. Fall for example came to denote the season in 16th century England, a contraction of Middle English expressions like "fall of the leaf" and "fall of the year". During the 17th century, English immigration to the colonies in North America was at its peak, and the new settlers took their language with them, and while the term fall gradually became obsolete in Britain, it became the more common term in North America. Gotten (past participle of get) is often considered to be an Americanism, although there are some areas of Britain, such as Lancashire and North-eastern England, that still continue to use it and sometimes also use putten as the past participle for put (which is not done by most speakers of American English).words and meanings, to various extents, were brought back to Britain, especially in the second half of the 20th century; these include hire ("to employ"), quit ("to stop," which spawned quitter in the U.S.), I guess (famously criticized by H. W. Fowler), baggage, hit (a place), and the adverbs overly and presently ("currently"). Some of these, for example monkey wrench and wastebasket, originated in 19th-century Britain.mandative subjunctive (as in "the City Attorney suggested that the case not be closed") is livelier in AmE than it is in British English; it appears in some areas as a spoken usage, and is considered obligatory in contexts that are more formal. The adjectives mad meaning "angry", smart meaning "intelligent", and sick meaning "ill" are also more frequent in American than British English.of the differences in lexis or vocabulary between British and American English are in connection with concepts originating from the 19th century to the mid 20th century, when new words were coined independently. Almost the entire vocabularies of the car/automobile and railway/railroad industries (see Rail terminology) are different between the UK and US, for example. Other sources of difference are slang or vulgar terms, where frequent new coinage occurs, and idiomatic phrases, including phrasal verbs. The differences most likely to create confusion are those where the same word or phrase is used for two different concepts. Regional variations, even within the US or the UK, can create the same problems.is not a straightforward matter to classify differences of vocabulary. David Crystal identifies some of the problems of classification on the facing page to his list of American English/British English lexical variation, and states "this should be enough to suggest caution when working through an apparently simple list of equivalents".the influence of cross-culture media has done much to familiarize BrE and AmE speakers with each other's regional words and terms, many words are still recognized as part of a single form of English. Though the use of a British word would be acceptable in AmE (and vice versa), most listeners would recognize the word as coming from the other form of English, and treat it much the same as a word borrowed from any other language. For instance, an American using the word chap or mate to refer to a friend would be heard in much the same way as an American using the Spanish word amigo.and phrases which have their origins BrEspeakers of AmE are aware of some BrE terms, although they might not generally use them,