English as a Global Language
For more than half a century, immigrants from the Indian
subcontinent and the West Indies have added variety and diversity to the
rich patchwork of accents and dialects spoken in the UK. British
colonisers originally exported the language to all four corners of the
globe and migration in the 1950s brought altered forms of English back
to these shores. Since that time, especially in urban areas, speakers of
Asian and Caribbean descent have blended their mother tongue speech
patterns with existing local dialects producing wonderful new varieties
of English, such as London Jamaican or Bradford Asian English. Standard
British English has also been enriched by an explosion of new terms,
such as
balti (a dish invented in the West
Midlands and defined by a word that would refer to a 'bucket' rather
than food to most South Asians outside the UK) and
bhangra (traditional Punjabi music mixed with reggae and hip-hop).
The recordings on this site of speakers from minority ethnic
backgrounds include a range of speakers. You can hear speakers whose
speech is heavily influenced by their racial background, alongside those
whose speech reveals nothing of their family background and some who
are ranged somewhere in between. There are also a set of audio clips
that shed light on some of the more recognisable features of Asian
English and Caribbean English.
Slang
As with the Anglo-Saxon and Norman settlers of centuries past,
the languages spoken by today’s ethnic communities have begun to have an
impact on the everyday spoken English of other communities. For
instance, many young people, regardless of their ethnic background, now
use the black slang terms,
nang (‘cool,’) and
diss (‘insult’ — from ‘
disrespecting’) or words derived from Hindi and Urdu, such as
chuddies (‘underpants’) or
desi (‘typically Asian’). Many also use the all-purpose tag-question,
innit — as in statements such as
you’re weird, innit.
This feature has been variously ascribed to the British Caribbean
community or the British Asian community, although it is also part of a
more native British tradition - in dialects in the West Country and
Wales, for instance — which might explain why it appears to have spread
so rapidly among young speakers everywhere.
Original influences from overseas
The English Language can be traced back to the mixture of
Anglo-Saxon dialects that came to these shores 1500 years ago. Since
then it has been played with, altered and transported around the world
in many different forms. The language we now recognise as English first
became the dominant language in Great Britain during the Middle Ages,
and in Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From
there it has been exported in the mouths of colonists and settlers to
all four corners of the globe. ‘International English’, ‘World English’
or ‘Global English’ are terms used to describe a type of ‘General
English’ that has, over the course of the twentieth century, become a
worldwide means of communication.
American English
The first permanent English-speaking colony was established in
North America in the early 1600s. The Americans soon developed a form of
English that differed in a number of ways from the language spoken back
in The British Isles. In some cases older forms were retained — the way
most Americans pronounce the <r> sound after a vowel in words
like
start,
north,
nurse and
letter is probably very similar to pronunciation in 17th century England. Similarly, the distinction between past tense
got and past participle
gotten still exists in American English but has been lost in most dialects of the UK.
But the Americans also invented many new words to describe
landscapes, wildlife, vegetation, food and lifestyles. Different
pronunciations of existing words emerged as new settlers arrived from
various parts of the UK and established settlements scattered along the
East Coast and further inland. After the USA achieved independence from
Great Britain in 1776 any sense of who ‘owned’ and set the ‘correct
rules’ for the English Language became increasingly blurred. Different
forces operating in the UK and in the USA influenced the emerging
concept of a Standard English. The differences are perhaps first
officially promoted in the spelling conventions proposed by Noah Webster
in
The American Spelling Book (1786) and subsequently adopted in his later work,
An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). Both of these publications were enormously successful and established spellings such as
center and
color
and were therefore major steps towards scholarly acceptance that
British English and American English were becoming distinct entities.
Influence of Empire
Meanwhile, elsewhere, the British Empire was expanding
dramatically, and during the 1700s British English established footholds
in parts of Africa, in India, Australia and New Zealand. The
colonisation process in these countries varied. In Australia and New
Zealand, European settlers quickly outnumbered the indigenous population
and so English was established as the dominant language. In India and
Africa, however, centuries of colonial rule saw English imposed as an
administrative language, spoken as a mother tongue by colonial settlers
from the UK, but in most cases as a second language by the local
population.
English around the world
Like American English, English in Australia, New Zealand and
South Africa has evolved such that they are distinct from British
English. However, cultural and political ties have meant that until
relatively recently British English has acted as the benchmark for
representing ‘standardised’ English — spelling tends to adhere to
British English conventions, for instance. Elsewhere in Africa and on
the Indian subcontinent, English is still used as an official language
in several countries, even though these countries are independent of
British rule. However, English remains very much a second language for
most people, used in administration, education and government and as a
means of communicating between speakers of diverse languages. As with
most of the Commonwealth, British English is the model on which, for
instance, Indian English or Nigerian English is based. In the Caribbean
and especially in Canada, however, historical links with the UK compete
with geographical, cultural and economic ties with the USA, so that some
aspects of the local varieties of English follow British norms and
others reflect US usage.
An international language
English is also hugely important as an international language and
plays an important part even in countries where the UK has historically
had little influence. It is learnt as the principal foreign language in
most schools in Western Europe. It is also an essential part of the
curriculum in far-flung places like Japan and South Korea, and is
increasingly seen as desirable by millions of speakers in China. Prior
to WWII, most teaching of English as a foreign language used British
English as its model, and textbooks and other educational resources were
produced here in the UK for use overseas. This reflected the UK's
cultural dominance and its perceived ‘ownership’ of the English
Language. Since 1945, however, the increasing economic power of the USA
and its unrivalled influence in popular culture has meant that American
English has become the reference point for learners of English in places
like Japan and even to a certain extent in some European countries.
British English remains the model in most Commonwealth countries where
English is learnt as a second language. However, as the history of
English has shown, this situation may not last indefinitely. The
increasing commercial and economic power of countries like India, for
instance, might mean that Indian English will one day begin to have an
impact beyond its own borders.
