ELS 201 Module 4

VARIOUS ENGLISH LANGUAGE DIALECTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

BRITISH ENGLISH
British English is the English language as spoken and written in the United Kingdom or, more
broadly, throughout the British Isles. Slight regional variations exist in formal, written English in
the United Kingdom.

English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to
Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the
northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was generally speaking Common
Brittonic—the insular variety of continental Celtic, which was influenced by the Roman
occupation. This group of languages (Welsh, Cornish, Cumbric) cohabited alongside English
into the modern period, but due to their remoteness from the Germanic languages, influence on
English was notably limited.

AMERICAN ENGLISH
American English sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of varieties
of the English language native to the United States and widely adopted in Canada. English is the
most widely spoken language in the United States and is the common language used by the
federal government, considered the de facto language of the country because of its widespread
use. English has been given official status by 32 of the 50 state governments. If it happens that
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AUSTRALIAN ENGLISH
Australian English is a major variety of the English language, used throughout Australia.
Although English has no official status in the constitution, Australian English is the country’s
national and de facto official language as it is the first language of the majority of the population.

Australian English began to diverge from British English after the founding of the Colony of
New South Wales in 1788 and was recognized as being different from British English by 1820. It
arose from the intermingling of early settlers from a great variety of mutually intelligible
dialectal regions of the British Isles and quickly developed into a distinct variety of English.
CANADIAN ENGLISH
Canadian English is the set of varieties of English native to Canada. According to the 2011
census, English was the first language of approximately 19 million Canadians (57% of the
population) the remainder of the population were native speakers of Canadian French (22%) or
other languages (allophones, 21%).

The term “Canadian English” is first attested in a speech by the Reverend A. Constable Geikie in
an address to the Canadian Institute in 1857. Canadian English is the product of five waves of
immigration and settlement over a period of more than two centuries. The first large wave of
permanent English-speaking settlement in Canada, and linguistically the most important, was the
influx of loyalists fleeing the American Revolution, chiefly from the Mid-Atlantic States – as
such, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia,
and West Virginia. Canadian English is believed by some scholars to have derived from northern
American English.

INDIAN ENGLISH
English public instruction began in India in the 1830s during the rule of the East India Company
(India was then, and is today, one of the most linguistically diverse regions of the world). In
1835, English replaced Persian as the official language of the Company. Lord Macaulay played a
major role in introducing English and western concepts to education in India. He supported the
replacement of Persian by English as the official language, the use of English as the medium of
instruction in all schools, and the training of English-speaking Indians as teachers.

The view of this language among many Indians has gone from associating it with colonialism to
associating it with economic progress, and English continues to be an official language of India,
albeit with an Indian twist, popularly known as Indian English.

PHILIPPINE ENGLISH
Philippine English is any variety of English (similar and related to American English) native to
the Philippines, including those used by the media and the vast majority of educated Filipinos.
English is taught in schools as one of the two official languages of the country, the other being
Filipino (Tagalog).

Philippine English has evolved tremendously from where it began decades ago. Some decades
before English was officially introduced, if not arguably forced, to the Philippines, the
archipelagic nation has been subject to Spanish rule and thus Spanish was the language of power
and influence. However, in 1898, when the Spanish gave the United States control of the nation,
the English language, although initially not favored, became widely used in a matter of years,
which was catalyzed by the coming of American teachers.

UGANDAN ENGLISH
Ugandan English, or Uglish (pronounced you-glish), is the dialect of English spoken in Uganda.
As with similar dialects spoken elsewhere, Ugandan English has developed a strong local flavor.
The speech patterns of Ugandan languages strongly influence spoken English. Uganda has a
large variety of indigenous languages, and someone familiar with Uganda can readily identify
the native language of a person speaking English. Ugandan speakers will alter foreign words to
make them sound more euphonic.

Standards of English
The term standard English (SE) is the one most commonly used to label the language ‘English’. It is the
variety of English used in public life in England and other English speaking countries, for example: in
education, law, medicine and government. Nowadays, it has no geographical boundary, and is used
across the whole of England and other English speaking countries. In England, it also has an accent
associated with it, known as Received Pronunciation: RP for short. Because of their origins and history,
SE and RP are closely associated with the language of the middle and upper classes in English society,
known variously as ‘the Queen’s English’ or ‘BBC English’. The concept of RP is a peculiarly English one,
having no equivalent in any other part of the English speaking world. For example, there is no US
equivalent of RP. Some linguists have argued that SE is best defined as the written form of English, on
the grounds that standard English is not a matter of pronunciation and is thus not tied to any particular
accent (See: Crystal 1995 and Trudgill 1999). Rather, it is a matter of grammar, vocabulary and
orthography, that is, spelling and print face, and not of pronunciation. Nevertheless, linguists such as
Stubbs (1986) argue that accent is involved in notions of standardness, since people have an idea of
what is and is not ‘standard’ in pronunciation. That is, the accent RP is widely regarded as the ‘standard’
accent of British English, just as ‘standard English’ is widely regarded as the standard written form of
English, as used in education and other public institutions such as the law and government. Indeed,
there is much disagreement amongst linguists as to whether or not SE can be classed as dialect at all.
Some, such as Trudgill and Chambers (1980) and Milroy (1987) argue that it is, pointing out that all
speakers speak at least one dialect, and that standard English is as much a dialect as any other form of
English. Consequently, some speakers may have no other variety than SE, whilst others may have either
a regional variety and/or SE. Other linguists disagree, on the grounds that standard English differs from
other dialects in a number of ways, especially in the fact that it has its own writing system. Because of
this, they argue that dialects and the study of dialect should concentrate upon speech. This position,
however, ignores the fact that many nonstandard English dialects in England such as that found in the
Black Country in the English West Midlands or Geordie in the North East of England have an established
tradition of writing. Also, if standard English is not a dialect, then it is difficult to see what else it could
be.

Haugen (1996:97-111) identifies the process of standardization as a

four-stage one:
Stage one: Selection – an existing dialect is chosen as the one to be standardized. In the case
of English, this was the Middle English dialect of the East Midlands.
Stage 2: Elaboration – the chosen dialect is expanded and elaborated so that it can fulfil the
variety of different functions it is intended to serve. That is, the dialect is added to by adding vocabulary
and/or elaborating grammatical structures. In the case of English, the East Midlands dialect was
elaborated by the importation of words from French and Latin and its grammatical structures elaborated
by the adoption of Latinate constructions.

Stage 3: Codification – the vocabulary and grammar is made explicit and written down. Once
codified in writing, then language becomes an object of consciousness in the material world, in that it
can be seen as well as heard, and thus ‘fixed’ or ‘pinned down’. Changes to the language are thus more
open to regulation and control by its community of users, especially by the more powerful sections of
society.

Stage 4: Implementation – the chosen variety is implemented throughout a community,

usually by becoming the language of instruction in education and being adopted by public institutions
such as the law, government and the media.

The reason why various regional dialects and accents exist in England today dates back to the late
Middle Ages and beyond. The reason why prejudices against their use persist is due to the theory of
language upon which the processes of standardization was based. This was a prescriptive theory, based
upon an idealized form of language and how it ought to be used, rather than upon descriptive theory,
and how it actually is used. Prescriptive theories of language immediately give rise to value judgements.
From the late Middle Ages onwards, judgements on the selection of a dialect were based upon notions
of ‘correctness’, ‘the best’ and the ‘pure’, which linked language with morality, and by appealing to an
idealized form of usage. In making the case for the standardization of English, it was argued that the
‘best’ language was that spoken by the ‘best’ people and any other form was deemed ‘corrupt’ and
spoken by ‘corrupt’ people.

The history of the English language can be divided into four periods: Old English (400ad to 1100 ad);
Middle English (c.1100 ad to 1500 ad); Early Modern English (c.1500ad to 1800 ad) and Modern English
(from 1800). By the end of the Middle English period (1100 ad -1500 ad), England had five main dialects,
each with its own earlier history. The Old English dialect of Northumbrian developed into Scots and
Northern English, north of a line from the Humber to the Lake District. The Mercian dialect of Old
English became the West Midlands and East Midlands dialects. Below the Rivers Thames and Severn the
Southern dialect was spoken, while Kentish remained in the far south east.

A brief history of the standardization of English in the USA

American English now dominates the world. It is often standard American English which is
taught to foreign learners around the globe, and it is not unusual to find people from the Pacific, the Far
East and even Europe speaking English with an American accent and using American idioms. Since the
Second World War and from the 1940s onwards, American English has consolidated its position through
its dominance of the entertainment industry and in recent decades, through its dominance of
information technology and the internet. American English, like that of British standard English, owes a
great deal to its social and cultural history. The main feature of American English in contrast with
standard British English is in lexical variation and variation in pronunciation. There is very little, if any,
syntactic variation. Many words, such as moccasin, jazz, zucchini, bagel, and kosher, have been
borrowed from the languages of non-English speaking immigrants, as well as from the indigenous
peoples. Some recognizably British words have developed variant meanings such as mad meaning angry;
are you through? meaning are you finished? and bad or wicked meaning good. There is also a good deal
of cross-over between the two varieties, American English and British English, in that American technical
innovation has imported into British English words such as program, telephone and typewriter. Other
words express a culture and environment different from the British with words such as lynch, blizzard,
joy-ride, bayou, levy and prairie. So, in British English, you drive a car, fill up with petrol, wipe your
windscreen, check your bonnet and boot are shut and drive down the road, dual carriage way or
motorway overtaking lorries. In American English, you drive an automobile, fill up with gas, wipe your
windshield, check your hood and trunk are shut, and drive down the freeway, expressway or divided
highway, overtaking trucks. In England people queue, whilst in America they stand in line. Phonetic
variation does exist across the USA as well, but given its relative youth as a country, this is shown not so
much by regional variation of the kind that exists in England. Rather, phonological variation exists on
divisions between urban and rural areas and between different ethnic groups.