British English, or UK English (BrE, BE, en-GB[1]), is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries and of the United States since the mid 20th century, it has become the lingua franca in many parts of the world. It is used in the United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border, sharing it with from forms used elsewhere.[2] There is confusion whether the term refers to English as spoken in the British Isles The term derives from the adjective British and the plural of the noun isle. In classical Latin the plural term Britannicae insulae, was rarely used, though the singular Britannia insula was used denoting Great Britain only. In Old English the term Breotone ealond 'Britain's islands' dates to the 10th century or to English as spoken in Great Britain Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest in Europe. With a population of approximately 58.9 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Ireland is to its west, and it is surrounded by over 1000 smaller islands and islets,[3] though in the case of Ireland Ireland (pronounced /ˈaɪrlənd/ , locally [ˈaɾlənd]; Irish: Éire, pronounced [ˈeːɾʲə] ( listen); Ulster Scots: Airlann, Latin: Hibernia) is the third-largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of, there are further distinctions peculiar to Hiberno-English Hiberno-English – also known as Anglo-Irish and Irish English – is English as spoken in Ireland, partly the result of the interaction of the English and Irish languages. English was mainly brought to Ireland during the Plantations of Ireland in the sixteenth century[citation needed] and established itself in Dublin and in the area of Leinster.

There are slight regional variations in formal written English in the United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK with a land border, sharing it with (for example, although the words wee and little are interchangeable in some contexts, one is more likely to see wee written by someone from northern Britain Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest in Europe. With a population of approximately 58.9 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Ireland is to its west, and it is surrounded by over 1000 smaller islands and islets or from Northern Ireland Northern Ireland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west. At the time of the 2001 UK Census, its population was 1,685,000, constituting between a quarter and a third of the island's total population and about 3% of the than by someone from Southern England Southern England is an imprecise term used to refer to the southern counties of England. Differing usages apply the term with varying geographic extents or Wales Wales /ˈweɪlz/ (Welsh: Cymru; pronounced /ˈkəmrɨ/ (help·info)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom, bordered by England to its east, and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It is also an elective region of the European Union. Wales has a population estimated at three million and is officially bilingual, with both Welsh). Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described as "British English". The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken[citation needed] and a uniform concept of "British English" is therefore more difficult to apply to the spoken language. According to Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English (p. 45), "[f]or many people...especially in England [the phrase British English] is tautologous In rhetoric, a tautology is an unnecessary or unessential repetition of meaning, using different and dissimilar words that effectively say the same thing twice (often originally from different languages). It is often regarded or thought of as a fault of style and was defined by Fowler as "saying the same thing twice." It is not necessary," and it shares "all the ambiguities and tensions in the word British, and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity".

Contents

History

Main article: History of English English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic invaders from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of England. One of these

English English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries and of the United States since the mid 20th century, it has become the lingua franca in many parts of the world. It is is a West Germanic language The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as English, Dutch and Afrikaans, German, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish. The other two of these three traditional branches of the Germanic languages are the North and East Germanic languages that originated from the Anglo-Frisian The Anglo-Frisian languages are a group of Ingvaeonic West Germanic languages consisting of Old English, Old Frisian, and their descendants. The Anglo-Frisian family tree is: dialects The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by scholars of language. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors, such as social class. A dialect that is brought to Britain Great Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest in Europe. With a population of approximately 58.9 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Ireland is to its west, and it is surrounded by over 1000 smaller islands and islets by Germanic settlers The Germanic peoples are a historical ethno-linguistic group, originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Common Germanic in the course of the Pre-Roman Iron Age. The descendants of these peoples became, and in some areas contributed to, the ethnic groups of North from various parts of what is now northwest Germany Germany (pronounced /ˈdʒɜrməni/ ), officially the Federal Republic of Germany (German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, pronounced [ˈbʊndəsʁepuˌbliːk ˈdɔʏtʃlant] ( listen)), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south and the northern Netherlands The Netherlands (pronounced /ˈnɛðərləndz/ ; Dutch: Nederland, pronounced [ˈneːdərlɑnt] ( listen)) is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south,. Initially, Old English Old English is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary register of Anglo-Saxon. It is a West Germanic language and is closely related to Old was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon Anglo-Saxons is the term usually people used to describe the Germanic-speaking tribes in the south and east of Great Britain from their arrival in the 5th to 6th centuries and throughout the Early Middle Ages. Their Anglo-Saxon language derives from "Ingvaeonic" West Germanic dialects and transforms into Middle English from the 11th Kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon West Saxon, primarily spoken in Wessex, was one of four distinct dialects of Old English. The three others were Kentish, Mercian and Northumbrian, eventually came to dominate. The original Old English language Old English is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written in parts of what are now England and south-eastern Scotland between the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. What survives through writing represents primarily the literary register of Anglo-Saxon. It is a West Germanic language and is closely related to Old was then influenced by two waves of invasion; The first was by language speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family; they conquered and colonised parts of Britain in the 8th and 9th centuries. The second was the Normans The Normans were the people who gave their names to Normandy, a region in northern France. They descended from Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of mostly Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock. Their identity emerged initially in the first half of the tenth century, and gradually evolved over succeeding centuries until they in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman Old Norman was one of many langue d'oïl dialects. It was spoken throughout the region of what is now called Normandy and spread into England, Southern Italy, Sicily, and the Levant. It is the ancestor of modern Norman, including the insular dialects , as well as Anglo-Norman. Old Norman is often confused with Old French, which is sometimes used and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman The Anglo-Norman language is a term traditionally used to refer to the variety of Old Norman used in England and to some extent elsewhere in the British Isles during the Anglo-Norman period. When William the Conqueror led the Norman invasion of England, he, his nobles, and many of his followers from Normandy spoke an Oïl language called Norman. These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it was never a truly mixed language A mixed language is a language that arises through the fusion of two source languages, normally in situations of thorough bilingualism, so that it is not possible to classify the resulting language as belonging to either of the language families that were its source. Although the concept is frequently encountered in historical linguistics from the in the strict linguistic sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication).

Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian The Anglo-Frisian languages are a group of Ingvaeonic West Germanic languages consisting of Old English, Old Frisian, and their descendants. The Anglo-Frisian family tree is: core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept, whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary A person's vocabulary is the set of words they are familiar with in a language. A vocabulary usually grows and evolves with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge.

Dialects

Dialects This is a list of varieties of the English language. Dialects are linguistic varieties which differ in pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar from each other and from Standard English and accents The regional accents of English speakers show great variation across the areas where English is spoken as a first language. This article provides an overview of the many identifiable variations in pronunciation, usually deriving from the phoneme inventory of the local dialect, of the local variety of Standard English between various populations of vary between the four countries of the United Kingdom Countries of the United Kingdom is a term used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales: these four together form the sovereign state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. While "countries" is the term commonly used to describe them, because of a lack of a formal British constitution, and owing to, and also within the countries themselves. There are also differences in the English spoken by different socio-economic groups in any particular region.

The major divisions are normally classified as English English There are many different accents and dialects throughout England and people are often very proud of their local accent or dialect, but there are many associated prejudices— illustrated by George Bernard Shaw's comment: (or English as spoken in England, which comprises Southern English Southern English English is a phrase given to describe the different dialects and accents of the British English spoken in southern England dialects, Midlands English dialects and Northern English Northern English is a group of dialects of the English language. It includes the North East England dialects, which is similar in some respects to Scots. Among the other dialects are Cumbrian, Tyke and Scouse. Northern English shows Viking influence because the area was all north of the Danelaw. Norwegian has had a greater impact on most northern dialects), Welsh English Welsh English, Anglo-Welsh, or Wenglish refers to the dialects of English spoken in Wales by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly influenced by Welsh grammar and often include words derived from Welsh. In addition to the distinctive words and grammar, there is a variety of accents found across Wales from the South Wales Valleys to, Scottish English Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. It may or may not include Scots depending on the observer and the closely related dialects of the Scots language Scots or Lowland Scots refers to the Germanic varieties spoken in Scotland and parts of Ulster. It is not to be confused with Scottish Gaelic, the surviving Celtic language of Scotland. The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. The Scottish and Northern English dialects include many words originally borrowed from Old Norse Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300 and a few borrowed from Gaelic Scottish Gaelic is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. This branch also includes the Irish and Manx languages. It is distinct from the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages, which includes Welsh, Cornish and Breton. Scottish, Manx and Irish Gaelic are all descended from Old Irish.

Following its last major survey of English Dialects The Survey of English Dialects was undertaken between 1950 and 1961 under the direction of Professor Harold Orton of the English department of the University of Leeds. It aimed to collect the full range of speech in England and Wales before local differences were to disappear. Standardisation of the English language was expected with the post-war (1950–1961), the University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a major teaching and research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire and, with over 33,000 full-time students, one of the largest universities in the United Kingdom. It is a member of the Russell Group and is ranked in the top ten of UK universities for market share of research funding.:10 Dating back to the establishment has started work on a new project. In May 2007 the Arts and Humanities Research Council The Arts and Humanities Research Council is a British Research Council and non-departmental public body that provides government funding for grants to undertake research in the arts and humanities, mainly to universities in the United Kingdom. The AHRC also manages funding for university museums, galleries and other collections on behalf of HEFCE awarded a grant to a team led by Sally Johnson, Professor of Linguistics and Phonetics at Leeds University, to study British regional dialects.[4][5]

Johnson's team are[a] sifting through a large collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by the "Voices project" run by the BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually referred to by its abbreviation "the BBC", is the world's largest broadcaster. In common with the public broadcasting organisations of many other European countries, it is funded yearly by a television licence fee. This is charged to all UK households owning a television capable of receiving, in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout the country. The BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles about how the British speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information will also be collated and analysed by Johnson's team both for content and for where it was reported. "Perhaps the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the English language is as diverse as ever, despite our increased mobility and constant exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio."[5] Work by the team on this project is not expected to end before 2010. When covering the award of the grant on 1 June 2007, The Independent The Independent is a British newspaper published by Tony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily newspapers. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press stated:

“ Mr Upton, who is Professor of English at Leeds University The University of Leeds is a major teaching and research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire and, with over 33,000 full-time students, one of the largest universities in the United Kingdom. It is a member of the Russell Group and is ranked in the top ten of UK universities for market share of research funding.:10 Dating back to the establishment, said that they were "very pleased" – and indeed, "well chuffed" – at receiving their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had come from the Black Country The Black Country is a loosely defined area of the English West Midlands conurbation, to the north and west of Birmingham. By the late 19th century, this area had become one of the most intensely industrialised in the nation. The South Staffordshire coal mines, the coal coking operations, and the iron foundries and steel mills that used the local, or if he was a Scouser he would have been well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink"[6] ”

Accent

Regional

The form of English most commonly associated with educated speakers in the southern counties of England is called the "Received Standard", and its accent is called Received Pronunciation (RP).[7] It derives from a mixture of the Midland and Southern dialects which were spoken in London during the Middle Ages[8] and is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners.[7] Although educated speakers from elsewhere within the UK may not speak with an RP accent it is now a class-dialect more than a local dialect. The best speakers of Standard English are those whose pronunciation, and language generally, least betray their locality.[8] It may also be referred to as "the Queen's (or King's) English", "Public School English", or "BBC English" as this was originally the form of English used on radio and television, although a wider variety of accents can be heard these days. Only approximately two percent of Britons speak RP,[9] and it has evolved quite markedly over the last 40 years.

Even in the South East there are significantly different accents; the London Cockney accent is strikingly different from RP and its rhyming slang can be difficult for outsiders to understand.

Estuary English has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of RP and some of Cockney. In London itself, the broad local accent is still changing, partly influenced by Caribbean speech. Communities migrating to the UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to the country. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 100 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's school children. As a result, Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors.

Since the mass immigration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and its close accent borders, it has become a source of various accent developments. There, nowadays, one finds an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a mixture of many different local accents, including East Midlands, East Anglian, Scottish, and Cockney. In addition, in the town of Corby, five miles (8 km) north, one can find Corbyite, which unlike the Kettering accent, is largely based on Scottish. This is due to the influx of Scottish steelworkers.

Outside the southeast there are, in England alone, other families of accents easily distinguished by natives, including:

Although some of the stronger regional accents may sometimes be difficult for some anglophones from outside Britain to understand, almost all "British English" accents are mutually intelligible amongst the British themselves, with only occasional difficulty between very diverse accents. However, modern communications and mass media[citation needed] have reduced these differences significantly. In addition, most British people can to some degree temporarily 'swing' their accent (and particularly their vocabulary) towards a more neutral form of "standard" English at will, to reduce difficulty where very different accents are involved, or when speaking to foreigners. This phenomenon is known in linguistics as code shifting.

Ethnicity

Main article: Multicultural London English Main article: Black British English

Standardisation

As with English around the world, the English language as used in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland is governed by convention rather than formal code: there is no equivalent body to the Académie française or the Real Academia Española, and the authoritative dictionaries (for example, Oxford English Dictionary, Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Chambers Dictionary, Collins Dictionary) record usage rather than prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other strains of English, and neologisms are frequent.

For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the 9th century, the form of language spoken in London and the East Midlands became standard English within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accepted use in the law, government, literature and education within Britain. Largely, modern British spelling was standardised in Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), although previous writers had also played a significant role in this and much has changed since 1755. Scotland, which underwent parliamentary union with England only in 1707 (and devolved in 1998), still has a few independent aspects of standardisation, especially within its autonomous legal system.

Since the early 20th century, numerous books by British authors intended as guides to English grammar and usage have been published, a few of which have achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in print for long periods and to have been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most notably of all, Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers. Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication is included in style guides issued by various publishers including The Times newspaper, the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press, and others. The Oxford University Press guidelines were originally drafted as a single broadsheet page by Horace Henry Hart and were, at the time (1893) the first guide of their type in English; they were gradually expanded and eventually published, first as Hart's Rules and, most recently (in 2002), as part of The Oxford Manual of Style. Comparable in authority and stature to The Chicago Manual of Style for published American English, the Oxford Manual is a fairly exhaustive standard for published British English, to which writers can turn in the absence of any specific document issued by the publishing house that will publish their work.

See also

References

Notes

a. ^ In British English collective nouns may be treated as either singular or plural, according to context. A example provided by Partridge is: " 'The committee of public safety is to consider the matter', but 'the committee of public safety quarrel as to who its next chairman should be' ...Thus...singular when...a unit is intended; plural when the idea of plurality is predominant." BBC television news and The Guardian style guide follow Partridge but other sources, such as BBC Online and The Times style guides, recommend a strict noun-verb agreement with the collective noun always governing the verb conjugated in the singular. BBC radio news, however, insists on the plural verb. Partridge, Eric (1947) Usage and Abusage: "Collective Nouns". Allen, John (2003) BBC News style guide, page 31.

  1. ^ en-GB is the language code for British English , as defined by ISO standards (see ISO 639-1 and ISO 3166-1 alpha-2) and Internet standards (see IETF language tag).
  2. ^ Peters, p 79.
  3. ^ The Oxford English Dictionary defines British English as "the English language as spoken or written in the British Isles; esp[ecially] the forms of English usual in Great Britain, as contrasted with those characteristic of the U.S.A. or other English-speaking countries."
  4. ^ Professor Sally Johnson biography on the Leeds University website
  5. ^ a b Mapping the English language – from cockney to Orkney, Leeds University website, 25 May 2007.
  6. ^ McSmith, Andy. Dialect researchers given a 'canny load of chink' to sort 'pikeys' from 'chavs' in regional accents, The Independent, 1 June 2007. Page 20
  7. ^ a b Fowler, H.W. (1996). "Fowler's Modern English Usage". Oxford University Press.
  8. ^ a b Sweet, Henry (1908). "The Sounds of English". Clarendon Press.
  9. ^ Learning: Language & Literature: Sounds Familiar?: Case studies: Received Pronunciation British Library

External links

Dialects and accents of English by continent
Africa Cameroon · Liberian · Malawian · Namibian · South African · Ugandan
Asia Burmese · Hong Kong · Indian (regional/occupational dialects) · Malaysian (Manglish) · Pakistani · Philippine · Singaporean (Singlish) · Sri Lankan
Europe
Black British · Brummie · Channel Island · Cockney · Cumbrian · East Anglian · East Midlands · Estuary · Geordie · Gibraltarian (Llanito) · Irish · Kentish · Lancashire · Mackem · Malta (Maltenglish) · Manc · Manx · Mid Ulster · Multicultural London · Norfolk · Northern · Received Pronunciation · Scottish · Scouse · Southern · West Midlands · Welsh · West Country · Yorkshire
North America
United States African American Vernacular · Appalachian · Baltimorese · Boston · Buffalonian · Cajun · California · Chicano · General American · Hudson Valley · Inland Northern American · Midland · New England · New Jersey · New York City · North Central American · Northeast Pennsylvania · Pacific Northwest · Pennsylvania Dutch English · Philadelphia · Pittsburgh · Southern American · Tidewater · Western · Yat · Yooper
Canada Cape Breton · Lunenburg · Maritimer · Newfoundland · Ottawa Valley Twang · Quebec · West/Central Canadian
Caribbean Bahamian · Jamaican
Other Belizean · Bermudian
South America Falkland Islands · Guyanese · Trinidadian
Oceania Australian (Australian Aboriginal · Torres Strait) · New Zealand
Related Basic · International · Engrish · English as a lingua franca · Globish · Pidgin · Mid-Atlantic · Plain · Simplified · Special · Standard · American and British English differences · E-Prime

Categories: British English | British culture | English dialects | English language | Languages of the United Kingdom

 

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Elevator Shafts?
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Elevator Shafts?

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ue, 23 Jun 2009 21:15:32 GM

Alright, I know that in England "elevators" are called "lifts." But what about the space in the building where the elevator is lifted and lowered? You know, the part where someone would fall through if they walked through a lift door ...

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What is different between Australian English and British English?
Q. In OS X, there is this option for Australian English (click TextEdit and press Command-Shift-: ). It's basically the same as British English when I used it to edit American essays I got from my friends who live in U.S. Why can't they just simply call Australian and British English simply English and American English: "American English" or "U.S. English". Sorry if this is a confusing question.
Asked by Rami - Tue Aug 12 19:54:04 2008 - - 3 Answers - 0 Comments

A. Australian english is basically the same as British, far more so than American english anyway. They do have different words for certain things (mainly slang) but spellings are the same. To the person that said British English is posh, NO it's correct and original.
Answered by Lovely Rita - Tue Aug 12 20:04:52 2008

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