VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

English is spoken today on all five continents as a result of colonial expansion in the last four
centuries or so. The colonial era is now definitely over but its consequences are only too clearly
to be seen in the presence of English as an official and often native language in many of the
former colonies along with more or less strongly diverging varieties which arose in particular
socio-political conditions, so-called pidgins which in some cases later developed into creoles.
The main varieties of English include;

i) British English

The abbreviation RP (Received Pronunciation) denotes what is traditionally considered the

standard accent of people living in London and the southeast of England and of other people
elsewhere who speak in this way. RP is the only British accent that has no specific geographical
correlate: it is not possible, on hearing someone speak RP, to know which part of the United
Kingdom he or she comes from. Though it is traditionally considered a “prestige” accent, RP is
not intrinsically superior to other varieties of English; it is itself only one particular accent that
has, through the accidents of history, achieved a higher status than others. Although acquiring its
unique standing without the aid of any established authority, it was fostered by the public schools
(Winchester, Eton, Harrow, Rugby, and so on) and the ancient universities (Oxford and
Cambridge). Other varieties of English are well preserved in spite of the leveling influences of
film, television, and radio. In several Northern accents, RP /a:/ (the first vowel sound in father) is
still pronounced /æ/ (a sound like the a in fat) in words such as laugh, fast, and path; this
pronunciation has been carried across the Atlantic into American English.

In the words run, rung, and tongue, the RP pronunciation of the vowel is like the u in but; in
some Northern accents it is pronounced like the oo in book. In the words bind, find, and grind,
the RP pronunciation of the vowel sound is /ai/, like that in “bide”; in some Northern accents, it
is /i/, like the sound in feet. The vowel sound in the words go, home, and know in some Northern
accents is /ɔ:/, approximately the sound in law in some American English accents. In parts of
Northumberland, RP it is still pronounced “hit,” as in Old English. In various Northern accents
the definite article the is heard as t, th, or d. In those accents in which it becomes both t and th, t
is used before consonants and th before vowels. Thus, one hears t’book but th’apple. When,
however, the definite article is reduced to t and the following word begins with t or d, as in t’tail
or t’dog, it is replaced by a slight pause as in the RP articulation of the first t in hat trick. The
RP /t∫/, the sound of the ch in church, can become k, as in thack (“thatch, roof”) and kirk
(“church”). In some Northern dialects strong verbs retain the old past-tense singular forms band,
brak, fand, spak for standard English forms bound, broke, found, and spoke. Strong verbs also
retain the past participle inflection -en as in comen, shutten, sitten, and getten or gotten for
standard English come, shut, sat, and got.

In Wales, people often speak a clear and measured form of English with rising intonations
inherited from ancestral Celtic. They tend to aspirate both plosives (stops) and fricative
consonants very forcibly; thus, two is pronounced with an audible puff of breath after the initial t,
and while may be heard with a voiceless /w/.

Scots, or Lowland Scottish, was once a part of Northern English, but the two dialects began to
diverge in the 14th century. Today speakers of Scots trill their r’s, shorten vowels, and simplify
diphthongs. A few Scots words, such as bairn, brae, canny, dour, and pawky, have made their
way into RP. Scots is not to be confused with Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic language still spoken by
about 60,000 people (almost all bilingual) mostly in the Highlands and the Western Isles.

Northern Ireland has dialects related in part to Scots and in part to the southern Irish dialect of
English. The influence of the Irish language on the speech of Dublin is most evident in the
syntax of drama and in the survival of such picturesque expressions as We are after finishing, It’s
sorry you will be, and James do be cutting corn every day.

ii) American and Canadian English

Before the Declaration of Independence (1776), two-thirds of the immigrants had come from
England, but after that date they arrived in large numbers from Ireland. The Great Famine of
1845–49 drove 1.5 million Irish to seek homes in the New World, and the European revolutions
of 1848 drove as many Germans to settle in Pennsylvania and the Midwest. After the close of the
American Civil War, millions of Scandinavians, Slavs, and Italians crossed the ocean and
eventually settled mostly in the North Central and Upper Midwest states. In some areas of South
Carolina and Georgia, enslaved Africans working on rice and cotton plantations developed a
contact language called Gullah, or Geechee, that made use of many structural and lexical features
of their native languages.

The dialect regions of the United States are most clearly marked along the Atlantic littoral, where
the earlier settlements were made. Three dialects can be defined: Northern, Midland, and
Southern. Each has its subdialects.

The boundary with Canada nowhere corresponds to any boundary between dialects, and the
influence of United States English is strong, being felt least in the Maritime Provinces and
Newfoundland and Labrador. Nevertheless, in spite of the effect of this proximity to the United
States, British influences are still potent in some of the larger cities; Scottish influences are well
sustained in Ontario. Canada remains bilingual. Less than one-fourth of its people, living mostly
in the province of Quebec, have French as their mother tongue.

iii) Australian and New Zealand English

Unlike Canada, Australia has no concentration of a European language other than English within
its borders. There are still many Aboriginal languages, though they each are spoken by small
numbers and their continued existence is threatened. More than 80 percent of the population is of
British descent, but significant growth in the numbers of immigrants, especially from Europe and
the Pacific Rim countries, took place in the last quarter of the 20th century.

Some Australian English terms came from Aboriginal peoples. Although there is remarkably
little regional variation in pronunciation throughout the entire continent, there is significant
social variation. The neutral vowel /ə/ (as the a in sofa) is frequently used, as in London
Cockney: arches and archers are both pronounced [a:t∫əz], and the pronunciations of the
diphthongs in RP day and go are more like (RP) die and now.

Although New Zealand lies over 1,000 miles away, much of the English spoken there is similar
to that of Australia. The blanket term Austral English is sometimes used to cover the language of
the whole of Australasia, but this term is far from popular with New Zealanders because it makes
no reference to New Zealand and gives all the prominence, so they feel, to Australia. Between
North and South Islands there are observable differences. In particular, Maori, which remains a
living language (related to Tahitian, Hawaiian, and the other Austronesian [Malayo-Polynesian]
languages), has a greater number of speakers and more influence in North Island.

iv) South Asian English

In 1950 India became a federal republic within the Commonwealth of Nations, and Hindi was
declared the first national language. English, it was stated, would “continue to be used for all
official purposes until 1965.” In 1967, however, by the terms of the English Language
Amendment Bill, English was proclaimed “an alternative official or associate language with
Hindi until such time as all non-Hindi states had agreed to its being dropped.” English is
therefore acknowledged to be indispensable. It is the only practicable means of day-to-day
communication between the central government at New Delhi and states with non-Hindi
speaking populations, especially with the Deccan, or “South,” where millions speak Dravidian
(non-Indo-European) languages—Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, and Malayalam. English is widely
used in business, in higher education, and in scientific research.

In 1956 Pakistan became an autonomous republic comprising two states, East and West. Bengali
and Urdu were made the national languages of East and West Pakistan, respectively, but English
was adopted as a third official language and functioned as the medium of interstate
communication. (In 1971 East Pakistan broke away from its western partner and became the
independent state of Bangladesh.) English is also widely used in Sri Lanka and Nepal.

v) African English

Africa is one of the world’s most multilingual areas, if people are measured against languages.
Upon a large number of indigenous languages rests a slowly changing superstructure of world
languages (Arabic, English, French, and Portuguese). The problems of language are everywhere
linked with political, social, economic, and educational factors.

The Republic of South Africa, the oldest British settlement in the continent, resembles Canada in
having two recognized European languages within its borders: English and Afrikaans, or Cape
Dutch. Although the English spoken in South Africa differs in some respects from standard
British English, its speakers do not regard the language as a separate one. South Africa’s 1996
constitution identified 11 official languages, English among them.

Elsewhere in Africa, English helps to answer the needs of wider communication. It functions as
an official language of administration in, and is an official language of, numerous countries, all
of them multilingual.

SELF EVALUATION
1. Describe the global spread of English language
2. What would you attribute to the global spread of English language