World englishes
What are the most spoken languages in the world? And by
how many people are they spoken? (Native)
Mandarin / Spanish / English / Hindi / Portuguese / Bengali / Russian
. What are the most spoken languages in the world? And by
how many people are they spoken? (Native + 2nd language)
English / Mandarin / Hindi / Spanish / French / Arabic / Bengali
Why did English become a global language?
spoken in all five continents > British colonial policy (in 70 countries)
What are the advantages of having a global language?
Mutual comprehension without translation
Communication in international institutions (NATO) (EU) (World Bank)
and in international context (Air traffic control / scientific conferences ...)
What are the disadvantages of having a global language?
- may demotivate people from learning other
languages
- may foster the death of minority languages in the
long term
- an elite of native speakers, who can succeed more easily, or who can
more easily manipulate non-native speakers
For how long will English be the global language?
No possible answer to this question
How did English become a global
language?
1. English originated from the dialects spoken by Germanic tribes
that migrated from present-day Denmark and Northern Germany
to Southern Britain.
2. From Southern England, it then progressively spread throughout
England and to the rest of the British Isles and of the world (discovery of the New World and colonialism).
English as a global language, due to:
Financial power of the UK and US after the Industrial
Revolution (~1750) (business/ banking)
Cultural power of the UK and US in the 20th century ( tv / music / air traffic control / internet ...)
Political power after WW2 ( International communication (NATO, UN, EU))
Linguistic change can happen at different rates, but seems to be
unavoidable and affects all linguistic levels
- phonetic, e.g. cot-caught merger;
- morphological, e.g. the loss of cases from Old English;
- lexical, e.g. balcony (from French), skunk (from native Am. langs);
- syntactic, e.g. do constructions did not exist in Old English.
Linguistic change can be due to:
- external factors (invasions, colonisations, etc.)
- internal factors (languages change intrinsically simply due to usage:
more frequent items change more rapidly)
While English spread around the world, it acquired and
developed specific characteristics in every place.
When English speakers settle in a new country (e.g. the first
settlers in America), they adapt their language to the new
environment. This can be a matter of weeks (early borrowings
in Am. Eng., such as moccasin, wigwam, skunk, squaw).
When speakers of a speech community spread out geographically
(à mass migrations),
the languages start
evolving independently
thereby causing
diversification.
What is a linguistic variety (dialect)?
linguistic variety = any language which is sufficiently different
from but mutually intelligible with another one
Such differentiation can be grounded
geographically (e.g., British English vs American English)
à diatopic variants
historically (e.g., Old English vs Modern English)
à diachronic variants
socially (e.g., Cockney vs RP)
à diastratic variants
Key characteristics of a language vs a dialect:
Østandardization & norms
Ø functions in society
Ø autonomy
Accent
refers to a variant that differs mainly phonetically
Dialect
refers to a variant that differs at various levels:
phonetic (pronunciation and intonation)
morphological (e.g., yous)
lexical (e.g., lorry - truck in America, thank you - mahalo in Hawai, etc.)
syntactic (e.g. generalised use of preterit: I just ate; double negation: they
don’t do nothing for nobody)
pragmatic (e.g., honorifics, expressions of politeness: using the first name
may be perceived as impolite in Asia)
The standard of a language is a linguistic variety itself, which
gained political and social importance at some point in history,
received an extensive codification.
Received pronunciation
- Also known as BBC English, Oxford English, Cambridge English, Queen’s
English, Public School Pronunciation.
/Received à accepted, approved.
- Prestigious variety reflecting the pronunciation of educated speakers:
Taught in public schools (Eton, Benenden) and universities (Oxford, Cambridge).
NB: public schools (≠ state schools) are private schools for the elite!
Associated to higher classes and good education.
Supposedly non-regional and widely understood
(actually reflects the pronunciation in the South-East of England)
It is (or was) a prerequisite for some professions.
- Estimated to be used by 3-5% of the UK population
- Widely used in the media and in language teaching.
Cockney
- Dialect spoken in the London area (esp. East London) by the
working class.
- Long vowels tend to be diphthongized
/iː, uː, ɔː/ à [əi, əʉ, ɔʊ] (e.g. tea, do, short)
- Consonants
/h/ dropping (e.g. Hampshire)
/t/ tends to be replaced by [ʔ] (e.g. can’t, butter)
/θ, ð/ tend to be fronted to /f, v/ (e.g. think, brother)
Dark l (= /l/ non followed by a vowel) is vocalized to [o]
(e.g. well [weo]).
- Morpho-syntactic features
me instead of my (e.g. me book)
was for were (e.g. you was)
double negatives (e.g. I didn’t see nothing)
ain’t instead of haven’t, isn’t, aren’t (e.g. I ain’t seen him)
adverbs without -ly (e.g. trains are running normal)
demonstratives (e.g. them books)
- Lexicon: rhyming slang (a word is replaced by a phrase rhyming with
that word – ex.: bees and honeyà money, clever mike à bike).
Estuary English
- There is a trend by some RP speakers to move away from the most
conservative features of RP:
tune, endure à conservative RP /tj, dj/ à EE /tʃ, dʒ/
sure, poor à conservative RP/ʊə/ à EE /ɔː/
Glottal stops for /t/ in certain contexts
- Estuary English first used by Rosewarne (1984) to indicate this
trend getting more and more preponderant (= London Regional
English by Cruttenden).
Thames Estuary
Actually Essex and Surrey
- Mainly spoken in Essex and Surrey
- The happy vowel and the thank you vowel are long in EE /iː, uː/
(but short in RP /ɪ, ʊ/).
- RP /aʊ, aɪ/ à EE [æʊ, ɑɪ]
e.g. mouth, price
- Dark l can be vocalized as [o]
e.g. milk, wall
- Palatalisation of /tj, dj/ is systematic also under stress à /tʃ, dʒ/
e.g. Tuesday, reduce
- RP syllabic /n/ à EE /ən/
e.g. station
- RP /nt/ à EE /n/, but only in twenty, plenty, want + V, went + V.
Glottal stops
- Conservative RP: no glottal stops
- Modern RP: /t/ à /ʔ/ in syllable coda if followed by a C
Football, I can’t go, at the door, he might come, …
- Estuary English: as above + always word-finally
I can’t assume, ticket office, …
- Cockney: as above + word-internally between vowels
A little bit of bread with a bit of butter on it
Intrusive r
- Linking r (all British Englishes). Orthographic r which links
two words ending and starting in a vowel:
/ The rear of the car. /ðə ˈrɪər əv ðə ˈkɑː/
/ Poor Ann!
/ Or he did.
Intrusive r (not accepted in RP). Non-orthographic r which
links two words ending in a non-high vowel and starting with a
vowel:
I saw him [aɪ ˈsɔː r ɪm]
(even word internally) drawing [ˈdrɔːrɪŋ]
Dialectology
- Branch of linguistics studying language variation geographically
(also: dialectal geography, or in French: géolinguistique)
- The Italian poet Dante mentions dialectal differences between Romance
vernaculars (14th cent.), grouped as:
langues d’oïl (Northern France)
langues d’oc (Southern France &
Iberic peninsula)
langues de si (Italian peninsula)
North vs south
South /ɑː/ à North /æ/ (ou [a]) for ask words, due to the
bath-trap split
South /ʌ/ à North /ʊ/ due to the foot-strut merger
In other words, these two are the main isoglosses that distinguish
between northern & southern varieties.
Cockney where
London
Brummie
Birmingham
Mancunian
Manchester
Ø /h/ dropping
Ø /t/ tends to be replaced by [ʔ]
Ø /θ, ð/ tend to be fronted to /f, v/
Scouse
Liverpool
Ø final /k/ becomes a fricative /x/
Ø final /t/ can become /ʔ/ or /h/
Geordie
Tyneside, esp. Newcastle
distinctive phonology, similar to Scots
diphthongs /eɪ, əʊ/ à /eː, oː/
Scotland
- English dialects have been
spoken in south-eastern
Scotland since the Middle Ages.
- Scots = standardised language
based on such dialects, used at
the Scottish court and for the
literature.
- Scots lost status after Scotland
lost independence (union of
London and Edinburgh
parliaments in 1707), people
gradually took up English and
now speak it with distinctive
features.
- It is still spoken in some rural
areas.
- Scottish English is the variety of (Standard)
English spoken in Scotland,
- Scots is considered by some a dialect of English
or a (West-Germanic) language of its own,
- Gaelic is a distinct Celtic language.
-
English is a shift variety
in most of Scotland.
- However, it is a contact
variety in areas where
Gaelic is still spoken
(Western Highlands and
the Hebrides).
- Sc. Eng. is rhotic: post-vocalic r is always pronounced.
- /r/ can be flap [ɾ], trill [r], or approximant [ɹ], depending
on speakers.
- /ʍ/ is retained (e.g. which, what).
- /l/ is often dark in all positions.
- /x/ occurs in Scottish words such as loch (lake).
- RP /eɪ, əʊ/ à Sc. Eng. /e, o/ (bay, boat)
- RP /aʊ/ à Sc. Eng. [əʊ] or [aʊ]
- No phonological length distinction for vowels, and no r-modification.
$ RP /æ, aː/ àSc. Eng. /a/ (bad, marry, bard, path, father)
$ RP /ʊ, uː, ʊə/ à Sc. Eng. /u/ (put, boot, poor)
$ RP /ɒ, ɔː/ à Sc. Eng. /ɔ/ (pot, paw, fork)
$ RP /iː, ɪə/ à Sc. Eng /i/ (bee, peer)
$ RP /ɪ, e, ʌ/ à Sc. Eng. /ɪ, e, ʌ/, incl. before r (bird, fern, hurt)
Scottish vowel length rule: vowels /i, e, o, u/ are (phonetically) long if
followed by /v, ð, z, ʒ, r/ (e.g. leave vs lead) or at the end of a
morpheme.
Aye > yes
Bairn > child
Bonnie > pretty
Braw > fire
Burn > stream
Carry-out > take-away
Folk > people
Infirmary > hospital
Kirk à church
Lad/lass > boy, girl
Loch > lake
To mind > to remember
Outwith > outside
Wee > small
Ireland
Consonants
$ S. Ir. is rhotic. (i.e., <r> is always pronounced)
$ RP /ð, θ/ à S. Ir. Eng. [d, t]
$ /ʍ/ is retained by some speakers (e.g. which, what)
$ Final plosives can be aspirated (e.g. top, back)
Vowels
$ Ask words have the /æ/ vowel
$ RP /ʌ/ à S. Ir. Eng. [ɔ]
$ Many, any have /æ/ instead of /e/.
- Reduplication (exploited in Hollywood films)
$I have no time at all at all.
- Yes and no tend to be avoided (calque from Irish)
$ Are you going? –I am.
$ Is it time? –It is.
- Do be (calque from Irish) as habitual be
$ He does be working every day.
$ It’s him I do be thinking of.
- Will instead of shall:
$ Will I put out the light?
(Adapted or unadapted) loanwords from Irish
$ Boreen (rural road)
$ Ceili / Ceilidh (music and dancing session)
$ Colleen (girl)
$ Fáilte (welcome)
$ Garsún (boy)
$ Gaeltacht (the region when Irish is still the most spoken language)
$ Grá (affection, love)
$ Taoiseach
Some archaic forms:
$ Bold (naughty)
$ To cog (to cheat)
$ Delph (crockery)
$ Foostering (fuss)
$ Yoke (thing)