[Music] chapter one a world language the English language is spoken today in parts of Europe the Americas Asia Africa Australia New Zealand and in some of the islands of the Atlantic Indian and Pacific Oceans it is spoken as a first language by 37 to 400 million people it is also used as a second language by a similar number of people and as a foreign language by hundreds of millions more English is probably used in some way by about a quarter of all the people in the world because so many people in so many places speak or use English it is often called A World Language who uses English and why is it such a widely spoken language in countries like Britain and the US English is the first language of most people in other words it is the first language people learn as children and they communicate in English all the time in other countries like India Kenya Singapore and Papua New Guinea large numbers of people use English as a second language they have their own first language but because English is one of the official languages they use it in education business government radio and television finally in many countries English is taught in schools as a foreign language but it is not an official language English is also used for many different kinds of International Communication people in science medicine and business often communicate in English English is the language of much of the world's pop music and films the languages of international sea and air traffic control known as CPE and airpak use English they use a small number of English words and sentences to make communication clearer and simpler for example in CPE instead of saying sorry what was that or what did you say you say say again much of the world's news is reported in English on television the radio the internet or in newspapers the spread of English around the world began with the British settlement of North America the Caribbean Australia and Asia in the 17th and 18th centuries it continued in the 19th century when the British controlled parts of Africa and the South Pacific English also became important internationally because in the 19th century Britain was the most important industrial nation in the world many new machines came from Britain so people had to learn English in order to learn how to use them in the 20th century the use of English spread with the growth in international business air travel developed making more international business possible faster ways of International Communication like the telephone and more recently the computer became more widely used many people wanted to do business with American companies because the US was rich and in order to do this they had to speak English when International companies and organizations developed English was often chosen as the working language for example English is the working language of the European Central Bank although the bank is in Germany in Asia and the Pacific nine out of 10 International organizations work only in English English is important not because it has more first language speakers than other languages Chinese has more but because it is used extremely widely will this situation continue this is an interesting question but first first let us look at how English began chapter 2 the beginnings of English our understanding of the history of English began at the end of the 18th century when Sir William Jones a British judge who lived in India began to study Sanskrit this is a very old language of India and at the time was used in Indian law like others before for him Jones noticed many similarities between Sanskrit Latin Greek and other European languages for example Pitter parter parter father mar mar mar mother asy EST Esty is Tria tra Trace three sapta sepm HEPA seven people had thought that Latin Greek and All European languages came from Sanskrit but Jones disagreed in 1786 he he wrote that Sanskrit Greek and Latin all came from a common source which had perhaps disappeared there was a lot of interest in his idea and other people began to study these three languages their work proved that Jones was right we now know that Sanskrit Greek Latin English and many other languages all belong to one enormous family of languages called the Indo European family Jones's common source from which all these languages developed is now known as Proto indoeuropean it is thought that a group of people called the Kens spoke this language or dialects of it and lived in what is now Southern Russia from sometime after 5,000 BC in about 3,500 BC the Kens probably began to spread west across Europe and east across Asia as groups of kyin traveled further and further away from each other they began to develop stronger differences in their dialects with the passing of time these dialects became different languages when some of them the Greek Anatolian and indo-iranian languages appear in written form in about 2,000 to 1,000 BC they are clearly separate languages similarities between some languages as they are spoken today suggests that they probably come from Proto indoeuropean for example there are similar words in European and indo-iranian languages for people in the family mother father animals dog sheep horse parts of the body Eye Ear the weather rain snow and for weapons these similarities allow us to imagine something of the life of the Kens they worked on the land some of the time made clothes from wool and used wheels more than two billion people speak in Indo European language as their first language the speaker of Hindi in India the speaker of Portuguese in Brazil and the speaker of English in Australia all Express themselves in indoeuropean languages the Kelts were the first group of Indo-European speakers to move across Europe towards the end of the fifth century BC they began to leave their Homeland north of the Alps in Central Europe they went to the Black Sea turkey Southwest Spain and Central Italy the whole of Britain and Ireland as they traveled different dialects of their language developed the Kelts who settled in Turkey spoke galatian those in Spain spoke celtiberian and those in France Italy and Northern Europe spoke gorish the Kelts who went to Ireland and later Scotland spoke goidelic gelic and those who went to Southern England and Wales spoke bonic or British unfortunately for the Kelts in Britain other people wanted to take advantage of the Island's good farming land and valuable Metals in ad43 the Romans invaded Britain they remained there for almost 400 years and almost all of what is now England came under their control they never went very far into w Wes or Scotland they introduced a new way of life and a new language Latin British Kelts in the upper classes and the towns became used to life with laws and police roads baths and theaters some learned to speak and write Latin however a new language did not develop from Latin in Britain as French did in Gaul and Spanish did in Spain from the middle of the 3rd Century ad the Romans grew weaker and weaker as the Germanic peoples of Northern Europe invaded more and more Roman lands in ad. 410 the Romans finally left Britain without the Roman army to guard it the country was in danger from other Invaders in ad. 449 people from Jutland in modern Denmark the jutes arrived in southern Britain and the angles also from Denmark came and settled in eastern Britain in 477 the Saxons from what is now Germany came and settled in Southern and Southeastern Britain these three Germanic peoples were very different from the Romans the Romans had governed the British Kelts but they had not taken their lands the jutes Angles and Saxons came in larger numbers and they settled on the lands belonging to the British Kelts some of the British Kelts left and went North some went West into Wales and Cornwall and others went over the sea to Britany in what is now northern France the jutes stayed in Kent in the southeast of Britain but the angles moved North and the Saxons went Southwest they slowly organized themselves into Seven Kingdoms in what is now England and Southeast Scotland in the seventh century the kingdom of North Umbria in the north was very strong and a great center of learning in the 8th Century Mercia in the center became the most important Kingdom and in the 9th century wessix in the South and Southwest became the strongest Kingdom the Invaders called the British Kelts wealas meaning foreigners later this meant both Kelts and servants from wealas comes the Modern English word Welsh the British Kelts called all the Invaders Saxons at first but in the 6th Century the word Angi was used to mean the whole group of Invaders later Angi became angle today we call them Anglo-Saxons from the various Germanic dialects used by these people English developed chapter three Old English Old English is the language that was spoken from the middle of the fifth century to the middle of the 12th century in what is now England and Southern Scotland during this time the language changed and took in words from other languages there were four main dialects of Old English West Saxon in the South and Southwest kentish in the Southeast mercian in the center and east and north umbrian in the north the dialects had small differences of grammar vocabulary and pronunciation unlike other Invaders the Anglo-Saxons kept their own language and did not learn the language of the British Kelts they did not take many Celtic words into their dialects either only about 20 Celtic words are found in Old English the Anglo-Saxons borrowed some Celtic words for parts of the countryside which were new to them for example the words CAG and t meaning a high Rock and Kum for a deep valley the names of some English cities London and Leeds for example are Celtic and the word dubis which meant water became Dover different Celtic words for River or water survive in the river names aen esque and ooze and temps is also Celtic meaning dark river however there are very few ordinary Celtic words in Old English and no one is really sure of the reason for this Old English in the fifth and sixth centuries did have some words that were not Germanic these were Latin words which the Anglo-Saxons had borrowed from the Romans before invading Britain but there were not many only about 50 some examples are Strat Street wayal wall and wean wine most angloa could not read or write but those who could write used runes these were letters which had been used by the Germanic peoples since about the 3r century ad they were cut into stone or weapons and were often used to say that someone had made or owned something the arrival of Augustine and about 40 monks in 597 brought changes to Anglo-Saxon life in Britain and to Old English they had come from Rome to teach the Anglo-Saxons about Christianity although Christianity was not new in Britain this was the first organized attempt to make the people of Britain Christians Austine and the monks were welcomed in Canterbury in the Southeast by King ethelbert of Kent and queen Bera who was a Christian in the following Century these monks and others took Christianity over the south of the country in the north people learned about Christianity from the Irish monk Aiden who arrived there in 635 by the end of the 7th Century all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were Christian the monks built churches and taught poetry Greek and Latin as well as Christianity as a result a number of Latin words entered Old English about 450 appeared here in Old English literature some were about the life of the church for example monuk Monk and sko school others were words for things in the house Fister window and chest chest some verbs from Latin were spend to spend Sean to dance and tan to turn at first the monks wrote only in Latin but then they began to write in Old English this was unusual people in other northern European countries did not begin writing in their own languages until much later learning spread and flowered among the Anglo-Saxons and by the 8th Century England was a center of learning in Western Europe the vocabulary of Old English was almost completely Germanic much of it about 85% has disappeared from Modern English and has been replaced with words from Latin or French however many of the words in Modern English that are most often used come from Old English a few examples are the and can and get other words in Modern English which come from Old English are for very basic things and ideas some examples are man person chilt child who house aan eat slan sleep other words which survive from Old English are names of places the Anglo-Saxons used Ford for a place where a river can be crossed ham for village ton for Farm or Village and wick for house or Village these words survive in many names for example Oxford Birmingham Brighton Warick some Modern English names for the days of the week come from the names of anglo-saxon gods and goddesses Tuesday is named after two Wednesday after wooden both gods of War Thursday after thunor God of Thunder and Friday after free goddess of love like other Indo-European languages Old English made new words by putting two other words together for example bookcraft book skill meant literature Sun day Sun's day meant Sunday poets often did this to make beautiful descriptions one expression for body was bone house and one for the sea was the water's back Old English also made new words by adding letters before or after the main word for example gone to go became inone to go in up gone to go up and utan to go out the word blo blood became bloy Bloody and blint became blint ler blindly the words in a sentence in Old English often appeared in a different order from those in Modern English in Modern English the girl helped the boy and the boy helped the girl have different meanings which we understand from the word order in Old English people understood the meaning of a sentence from the endings of each word and these endings changed to show the job that each word did in the sentence nouns also change their endings for the plural for example gumma Man became Gan Stan Stone became stanas and yeu gift became yea nouns had three genders and adjectives and articles changed with the gender of the noun however many of the possible changes to words did not happen in practice there were more personal pronouns than in Modern English for example there was H him him to him he her and heer to her him also meant to it and to them there were also the pronouns wit meaning we too and Y meaning you to verb endings change too the past tense of most verbs was made by changing a vowel in the present tense so sing changed to sang for example in Old English there were about twice as many of these irregular verbs as there are today the past tense of regular verbs was made by adding the endings de Eed or o for example the past tense of liban to live was lived the past tense of kusan to push wasused and the past tense of LAN to love was LOD in the 8th Century Britain was visited by the Vikings or Danes as the Anglo-Saxons called them from 787 they came in many small groups from Denmark and Norway and stole gold and silver from towns and churches on the North Coast in 793 and 794 they destroyed lindis van and jarro two very important Christian centers of learning in the northeast of England in 850 a large Viking Army took London and Canterbury and so a War Began which continued until 878 then King Alfred the Anglo-Saxon King of wessix from 871 to 899 won an important battle and made an agreement with the Vikings to separate England into two parts after that the northern and Eastern part known as the the Dane law was controlled by the Vikings and the rest of England was controlled by King Alfred in order to bring back the centers of learning that had been destroyed King Alfred decided to make English not Latin the language of education and literature so at the age of 40 he learned Latin and began translating books into Old English He described his plan in these words therefore it seems better to me that we should also translate certain books which are most necessary for all men to know into the language that we can all understand and also arrange it so that all the youth of free men now among the English people are able to read English writing well later he had other books translated into Old English one of these was historia ecclesiastica gentis anglorum the history of the English church and people which had been written in about 731 by a monk in North Umbria called bead this is the most important source of information about early English History that we have in the translation and in other early English writings we begin to see the word English English used to describe the people and the language King Alfred also started a history of England in English the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle this was written by monks in different parts of the country it described what had happened in the past in England and also what happened every year at the time of writing it was the first Chronicle in Europe that was not written in Latin most of the Old English works that have survived were written after King Alfred's death one of the greatest writers was a monk from Wessex called ilick 955 to 1010 he wrote many Christian works and a guide for young monks called colloquy this was written in Latin as a conversation between a teacher and a student and it is important for two reasons it tells us a lot about the daily life of monks and Ordinary People and it also tells us a lot about Old English because in one copy someone has written the old English words above the Latin words the greatest piece of literature in Old English that has survived is a poem of about 3,000 lines called baywolf this was probably made in the middle of the 8th Century although it was not actually written down until about 250 years later it tells the story of a brave man from Scandinavia called baywolf he fights and kills a terrible animal called grindle and and then kills grindle's mother who is just as terrible it is a poem about life and death bravery and defeat War and Peace in the Dane law the Vikings and the English were able to communicate quite well because their two languages Old Norse and Old English were both Germanic one effect of this was that old English became simpler many of the different word endings disappeared plural endings became simpler as the s ending was more widely used and many verbs which used to change their vowel to make the past tense now began to take the de ending instead another result was that thousands of words from Old Norse entered Old English between four and 500 remain in use today with hundreds more in the dialects of northern England and Scotland we can see that the speakers of the two languages live together closely because the Old Norse words that came into Old English are words from everyday life words for the house window parts of the body leg neck and common verbs get take want there are also many words beginning with SK like skin skirt and Sky others are bag dye egg husband same some old Norse words replaced Old English words for example zuster Old Norse replaced Old English for sister in some cases both the Old Norse and Old English words for the same idea were used for example there was wish Old English and want Old Norse and sick old English and Ill Old Norse the Old Norse word r replaced the old English synon and the old Norse verb ending s for the third person singular in the present tense began to be used the old no they there and them slowly replace the old English He her and hem in the following centuries the Vikings also left their mark on place names more than 1,500 places in northern England have Scandinavian names over 600 end in by which means Farm or town for example witby others end in t h o r p e small village and TFT piece of land for example scunthorp and blacktoft Modern Family names that end in s o n like Johnson and Davidson also come from the Vikings battles between the Vikings and the English continued in the 10th Century from 10:16 to 1041 England had Danish Kings who were Then followed by an English king Edward when Edward died in 1066 Harold the leader of wessix was chosen to be the next king however William one of Edward's cousins said that Edward had promised that he would become king of England William was the leader of Normandy in northern France he decided to take an army to England and fight Harold chapter 4 the Normans in England at the Battle of Hastings on the 14th of October 1066 King Harold was killed and his army was defeated by the Normans on Christmas Day 1066 William was made King of England in London and over the next four years he completed his conquest of England and Wales this Conquest had a very great effect on the development of the English language William had large Stone castles built from which Norman soldiers controlled the towns and Countryside he took very large areas of land from Rich English families and gave them to his Norman followers each of these new land owners had his own group of soldiers and each gave land to his own followers so there was usually one Norman family in each English Village Normans worked in the government and business and control the Church Norman French immediately became the language of the governing classes and remained so for the next 200 years French and Latin were used in government the church the law and literature very little was written in English although English monks continued writing the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle until 1154 English was still spoken however in its different Regional dialects the use of French continued in England during the 12th century partly because many of the Norman Kings and land owners also had land in Normandy and other parts of France and they spent a lot of time there French was not spoken only by people of Norman or French blood it was also spoken by English people who wanted to be important slowly however English became more widely used by the Normans many of the Normans married English women so they and their children spoke English in 1177 one English writer reported that with free men it was impossible to know who was English and who was Norman in 124 King John of England lost Normandy to the king of France and during the next 50 years all the great landowning families in England had to give away their lands in France they became less involved with France and began to feel that England was their country the upper classes continued to speak French as a second language and it was still used in government and the law however French started to become less important socially in England partly because the Norman French spoken in England was not considered good by speakers of Parisian French in France the upper classes began to feel prouder of their English than of their French most Ordinary People could not speak French at all at the end of the 13th century one poet wrote Le men French known among hund un own common men know no French among a hundred scarcely one Ordinary People did not need to learn from French and probably did not want to it was the language of the Normans who had destroyed many English towns and Villages English was the language of the country and people were proud of it and of their history a poet in around 1300 wrote in his introduction to the poem Kor Mundi this ilkb EST translat into English tongue to raer For the Love of English Slater English L of England for the common at understand this book is translated into the English language for the love of the English people English people of England and for the common people to understand the continuing bad feeling between England and France resulted in the Hundred Years War 1337 to 1453 during this time National feeling grew and the English language was seen more and more as an important part of being English between 1348 and 1375 England was hit several times by the illness known as the Black Death and almost a third of the people in England died many churchmen monks and school teachers died and were replaced by less educated men who spoke only English there were fewer ordinary working people so they could ask for better conditions from the land owners many left the land and went to work for more money in the towns as ordinary people became more important their language English became more important too it was used more and more in government as fewer and fewer people could understand French in 1362 English was used for the first time at the opening of parliament when Henry IV became king in 1399 England had its first English-speaking King since 1066 in the following century English took the place of French in the home in education and in government it also became the language of written communication so that after 1450 most letters were in English not Latin English had survived but it had changed chapter 5 Middle English in the four centuries that followed the Norman Conquest the English language changed more than in any other time in its history thousands of words from French came into the language and many Old English ones left it at the same time the language changed grammatically Al mainly by becoming simpler the English used in this time is called Middle English one way the grammar grew simpler was by losing some of the different endings for nouns adjectives and pronouns for example by the 15th century the plural noun ending e s was accepted everywhere in England although some plurals with en survived children is one of them other noun endings which have survived are the apostrophe s the boy's book and the s apostrophe the boy books adjectives and nouns also lost their grammatical gender and the became the only form of the definite article the main change to verbs was to the past tense some of the old English verbs began to to end in ed for example the past tense of climb was Clum but the word climbed also began to appear in the 13th century in the 14th century most of the thousands of verbs which had entered the language from French also formed the past tense with Ed sometimes the change went the other way so node became new but usually Ed was used there are still about 250 irregular past tense verbs in English but this is only about half the number that there were in Old English in Old English there were two main tenses past and present in Middle English other tenses developed which used be have shall and will shall and will began to be used to express the future have and be were both used for the perfect tenses at first but in the end have was used for perfect tenses as in they have gone and B was used for the passive as in it was done B was also used for the continuous tenses as in he is coming these tenses were not used very often at this time but later they were used much more when the different noun endings disappeared people had to put words in a particular order to express meaning the most common order they used was subject verb object they also used prepositions for example in with and by instead of noun endings so the expression de and Nas became by day and by night in Middle English all these grammatical changes were possible because from 1066 until the end of the 12th century very little was written in English the official papers of the government and the church were written in Latin or French this meant that people were free to make changes to their spoken language very easily if English grammar was much simpler by the end of the 15th century its vocabulary was much richer between 1100 and 1500 about 10,000 French words were taken into English 3/4s of which are still in use French words came into every part of life the words blanket ceiling chair dinner fruit lamp and table described things in the Home Science and the Arts were enriched by the ideas and words dance grammar literature medicine music painting poet square and many more new words arrived to describe the law crime judge prison and punish for example and some things in nature received new names flower forest mountain river and ocean French words very often replaced Old English words for example people from the French purpler replaced leoda Old English but sometimes both the French and the old English words survived with small differences in meanings for example ask Old English and demand French wedding Old English and marriage French King Old English and Sovereign French sometimes French words were used for life in the upper classes and Old English ones for life in the lower classes for example the words for the animals in the fields were Old English cows sheep and pigs but the words for the meat on the table were French beef mutton and pork new English words were made from some of the new French words almost immediately for example the English ly and F L endings were added to French words to make gently beautiful and peaceful at the same time several thousand words also entered English from Latin they came from books about law Medicine Science literature or Christianity these books often used Words which could not be translated into English one translator wrote there is many words in Latin that we have not proper English according their to there are many Latin words that we do not have English words for so translators often took the Latin word and made it into an English one some words which came into Middle English from Latin at this time were admit history impossible necessary and picture one important source of Latin words was the first translation of the Bible from Latin to English which was made by John wickliff and his followers between 1380 and 1384 they followed the Latin very closely using many Latin words more than a thousand Latin words appear for the first time in English in their translation of the Bible the changes to the grammar and vocabulary of Middle English did not happen at the same time everywhere the old English dialects continued to develop differently from each other the main dialects in Middle English were similar to those of Old English but they used different words word endings and pronunciations understanding people from different places even those which were quite close was difficult ult there is a famous description by William kton who later brought the printing machine to England of a conversation in Kent between a farmer's wife and some Sailors from London about 80 kilometers away the sailors asked for some egis but she did not know this word in her dialect eggs were Ain thinking that they must be speaking a foreign language she told them she could speak no French French couldn't speak French when people wrote they used the words and pronunciations of their dialects for example the sound H in the middle of words was spelled GH in the South and CH in the north so Knight pronounced NI at that time could be spelled as n ght or ni HT One Word could have a number of different spellings there were more than 20 ways of spelling people for example p e p y l l e p l e PW p e more than 500 ways of spelling through more than 60 ways of spelling she and many more variations sometimes a spelling from one dialect has survived together with the pronunciation from another for example example bu us Y is the spelling from one dialect but the pronunciation byy is from another from the 13th century English was used more and more in official papers and also in literature much more literature has survived from this time than from the earlier time of Old English there are songs long poems and explanations of Christianity and the Bible here is part of a song from around 1225 it is about the cucko a bird that visits Britain in the early summer summer is AUM in pluda sing cuu groweth Sade and bloweth made and springeth the woodoo new sing cucko Summer has come in loudly sing CUO the seed grows and the field comes into flower and the wood comes up now sing cuu the greatest writer in Middle English was Jeffrey chorer 1343 to 1400 chorer who lived in London was both a poet and an important government official he wrote in the East Midlands dialect spoken by people living in the Oxford London Cambridge triangle and used many words from French he also used rhyme which was used in French and Italian poetry his best known work the Canterbury Tales written in the 1390s begins with these famous words that ail with his sh s the Dr of March ha P to the RO and bath their every Vine in switch Lor of which virtue and gendered is the floor than long and folk to go on Pilgrim ASA when April with its sweet showers has pierced the drought of March to the root and bathed every vein in such liquid from which strength the flower is engendered then people long to go on pilgrimages the poem is about a group of ordinary people who Journey to the large church at Canterbury together telling each other's stories on the way they are a varied group of characters and Cha describes them colorfully there is the wife woman of bath the cook the Clark a student at Oxford the man of law the Shipman the Monk and many others in their stories and conversations cha gives us plenty of details about their lives for example he makes fun of the French spoken in England and French Shep full fair and fsly after the skull of Stratford at aboa for French of Paris was to hear unoa and French she spoke extremely beautifully with an accent from Stratford at Bow because the French of Paris was unknown to her cha was very good at describing people and also at writing conversation which sounded very real he had a great effect on writers in the 15th century and many of them copied him another very popular poem in the 14th 15th and 16th centuries was Pier's Plowman by William langland 1330 to 1400 in this langland wrote about the difficulties of the poor in England the bad customs of the church and also the perfect Christian Life it was a dream poem in which the writer describes what he has seen in a dream this kind of poem was popular in France and Italy at the time but langland wrote it in the way Old English poems were written he did not use rhyme instead in each line he used several words that begin with the same sound this short piece from near the beginning of the poem shows how he did this he was wary for wondered and went May to resta under a broad Bank be borner Ceda and Ai and led and Locker in the waters is slumbered than a sling it swed so merry f giman a marvelous swaven that he was in a Wilderness wiy never where I was tired of wandering and went to rest under a broad Bank by the side of a brook and as I lay and leaned over and looked into the water I fell into a sleep it sounded so pleasant then I began to dream a marvelous dream that I was in a Wilder I did not know where all poems were written to be read out to other people so the sounds of the words were very important a different kind of development in the 14th century was the growing use of family names people began to need these as they moved away from their Village or as their Village grew larger sometimes the family name had the father's name Johnson as in Anglo-Saxon times other names showed where a person lived Rivers Hill or his town Burton Milton his country French Holland or his work cook Fisher a person's family name could change five or six times during his lifetime in the 15th century a machine was brought to England which had a great effect on English this was the printing machine which William kton brought to London in 1476 suddenly it was possible to produce thousands of copies of books but what words and spellings should be used kton wrote and that common English that is spoken in on sheer varth from another certainly it is hard to pleas every man because of CH of Lage and the common English that is spoken in one region varies from another certainly it is hard to please every man because of the change in the language kton and other printers decided to use the East Midlands dialect mainly because it was spoken in London and used by government officials the printers did not make their decisions in a particularly organized way but slowly standard spellings developed however after this time The Sounds in many words changed or disappeared as a result there are now thousands of words that are spelled in the way that they were pronounced in caxton's time for example the letter k in N the letter W in wrong and the letter L in Wood were pronounced at this time by the end of the 15th century English was starting to be read by thousands of people in The Next Century it was read by many more and used by the great star of English literature William Shakespeare chapter six Modern English Begins the 16th century was a time of changes in Europe Europeans began to explore the Americas Asia and Africa and learning in all areas flowered in England the English language grew in order to express a large number of new ideas at the beginning of the 16th century Latin was the language of learning in all of Europe and it was seen as richer than English and the other spoken European languages however with the growth of Education the introduction of printing and the new interest in learning this began to change more and more people wanted to read books by Roman and Greek writers and in England they wanted to read them in English so these books were translated and other books about learning were written in English using English meant that a writer could reach more people as one 16th century printer explained to a writer who preferred Latin though sir your book be wise and full of learning yet it will not be so salable however the acceptance of English as a language of learning was not not complete until the end of the 17th century for example in 1687 Isaac Newton chose Latin when he wrote his prinkipia but 15 years later he wrote Optics in English during the 16th and 17th centuries writers in English borrowed about 30,000 words from about 50 languages mainly to describe new things and ideas about half of these words are still used today this very large growth of vocabulary was the main change in English at this time the new words came mainly from Latin for example desperate expensive explain fact other important sources for new words were French Italian Greek Spanish and Portuguese and as the Europeans traveled to more and more places so words came into English from America Africa and Asia for example chocolate and tomato came from Mexico banana from Africa coffee from turkey and Caravan from Persia not everyone liked this borrowing of words some thought that the strange words were unnecessary and hard to understand English could express everything quite well without them and the writers were only showing how much Latin they knew one man Sir John Chek wrote in 1557 I am of this opinion that our own tongue should be written clean unmixed with borrowing of other tongues I think we should write our own language without borrowing words from other languages but the borrowing continued and the new words which survived slowly lost their strangeness new words were also added to English in other words ways people were adventurous with language they used verbs as nouns laugh and invite or nouns as verbs or made adjectives from nouns Shady from shade or they put two words together chairman or they added new parts to words un to comfortable for example the age of Queen Elizabeth I queen of England 1550 8 to 163 was one of a great flowering of literature there were the poets Spencer and Sydney and the writers of plays Marlo Johnson and of course William Shakespeare Shakespeare 1564 to 1616 is considered the greatest writer of plays he expressed his understanding of human nature in extraordinarily Rich language in his plays and poems he had the largest vocabulary of any English writer and made about 2,000 new words and a large number of Expressions which are now part of Modern English for example he wrote it's early days it's too soon to know what will happen Tongue Tied unable to speak because you are shy the long and the short of it all that needs to be said about something Love is Blind his success and fame during his lifetime meant that his plays had a very great effect on English when Elizabeth the first died in 16003 she left no children so her cousin King James I 6 of Scotland became King James I of England in 164 the new king ordered a translation of the Bible into English there were many different English translations of the Bible and he wanted to have one main translation it was made by 54 translators who worked together in small groups using older translations as their guide the translators did not follow Shakespeare's example and make new words instead they used old ones even ones that were out of date or were becoming unusual for example they used ye instead of you U as a subject pronoun and the eth ending for verbs instead of s they did not use as many different words as Shakespeare either he had used 20,000 and they only used 8,000 they aimed to make the language sound like poetry when it was read out and usually they succeeded here is a short piece from a teaching of Jesus as an example ye have heard that it hath been said Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy but I say unto you love your enemies bless them that curse you do good to them that hate you that ye may be the children of your father which is in heaven for he maketh the sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth reain on the just and on the unjust the King James Bible appeared in 1611 and was read in churches everywhere in England Scotland and Wales for the next 300 years it was also read in people's homes and taught at school and for many people it was the only book that they read again and again as a result it had an important effect on the English language many expressions from it became part of the language for example the apple of somebody's eye a person who is loved very much by somebody by the skin of your teeth you only just managed to do something the salt of the earth a very honest person the straight and narrow an honest way of living its poetry had a great effect on many English writers in the centuries that followed during the 16th and 17th centuries there were some grammatical changes to English although not as many as those that had happened to Middle English people began use do with a main verb for example you could say I know not or I do not know you could say I know or I do know and you could say know you or do you know in the 17th century people began to use I know I do not know and do you know more often another verb change was the ending of the third person singular in the present tense by 1700 the th was no longer used and all verbs took s for example loveth was now loves pronouns also changed a little in 1500 the words ye and you were used in the same way as he and him but by 1700 ye had disappeared thou and thee were also used instead of you to children or people who were less important than yourself but these also disappeared in many dialects in the 17th century also during this time the word its replaced his to talk about things without gender the leg of a chair was now its leg not his leg changes in pronunciation were continually taking place from the middle of the 15th century the seven long vowels began to change for example in Cha's time the word for life was pronounced leaf and this became Leif and then Life by the 18th century similar changes happened to house which was who in Cha's time after two changes it finally arrived at its modern pronunciation house sounds in some other words disappeared for example the C and the W at the beginning of KN and right were lost the pronunciation of T in Castle and the in Wood also disappeared the big growth in vocabulary and the flowering of literature happened when England was quite peaceful however in the middle of the 17th century this peace was destroyed and the changes that followed had some interesting effects on the language chapter 7 bringing order to English Charles I the son of James I was not a popular King and in 1642 War Began between those who wanted to be king and those who did not in 1649 he was killed and England Wales and Scotland remained without a king until 1660 when his son Charles II returned to England Charles II died in 1685 and his brother James became king in 1685 but James II was so unpopular that in 1688 he left England and was replaced by his daughter Mary and her husband William of Orange all these changes made people wish for order and regularity in their lives and some people also wanted more regularity in their language the great growth in new words between 1530 and 1660 the fastest in the history of the language had left people uncertain what was happening to the language if so many foreign forign and newly made words continued to come into it would it remain English some people in England wanted to create an official organization to control the English language similar to the Academia deusa which had been started in Italy in 1582 and the academy Fran which had been started in France in 1635 one of these people was the writer Jonathan Swift who in 1712 wrote a proposal for correcting improving and ascertaining the English tongue Asain here means fix Swift disliked spelling changes newly fashionable words the habit of shortening words and bad grammar he wanted a group of people to fix The Language by making grammar rules making lists of words that were Incorrect and deciding on correct spellings the idea never succeeded partly because other people realized that change in a language was unavoidable but it made people think about the need for everyone to use the same spelling and grammar as a result different spelling guides dictionaries and grammar books began to appear although printing had brought some regularity into spelling many variations had remained in the 16th century even for personal names for example there are six known examples of Shakespeare's name that he wrote himself and in each one he spelled his name differently people used their own spellings which usually showed their own pronounciation other variations were introduced to show that words came from Latin for example the letter O was put into people the letter B into doubt and the letter C into Scissors because the Latin words populus dubit and sorum had these letters and different spellings were given to words like s o n NE e Sun a male child and s u n NE sun the star that gives light which sounded the same but had different meanings in the end this freedom to change spellings led to confusion in the 17th century people wanted to end this confusion and the appearance of the first English dictionaries slowly brought about more regularity in spelling during the 18th century ways of spelling that differed from these dictionaries were seen as Incorrect and a sign of stupidity or a bad education even today many people do not like making spelling mistakes and often use the spell check tool on their computers dictionaries were not unknown before the 17th century but they were Latin English ones the first English English dictionary appeared in 164 and was written by a school teacher called Robert cordrey it was called a table alphabetical and was a list of about 2,500 hard usual English words with explanations of their meaning and sometimes which language they had come from French or Greek here are some examples of the words in the table French accomplish finish or make an end of Barbarian a rude person Eclipse Greek a failing of the light of the sun or moon obsolete old past date grown out of use or custom a table alphabetical became very popular and similar dictionaries followed in the 18th century dictionary writers began explaining more ordinary words not just difficult ones in 1746 a group of book sellers asked a young writer called Samuel Johnson to prepare an English dictionary Johnson worked on this dictionary for nine years with the help of six other people for three years he read The Works of hundreds of English writers and found examples for words in the dictionary then he began to write the meanings of the words he chose hard words but also many ordinary ones when Johnson's a dictionary of the English language appeared in 1755 it was an immediate success it explained more than 42,000 words and as as well as the meaning of each word it gave the pronunciation and history of the word and sometimes how it was used a can't word was used only by one group a low word was informal and not suitable for writing Johnson gave as many different meanings of a word as he could there are 66 for take he very often gave an example from lit lature to show how the word was used in fact there are about 114,000 examples in the dictionary and they are a very large part of it most of them come from literature written between 1560 and 1660 here are some examples of words and their meanings from Johnson's dictionary to Bubble to cheat a can't word to NAB Nappa Swedish to catch unexpectedly to seize without warning a word seldom used but in low language woman we man wean Saxon whence we yet pronounce women in the plural women the female of the human race that man who hath a tongue is no man if with his tongue he cannot win a woman Shakespeare yellow boy a gold coin a very low word two bubble and yellow boy have both disappeared from English but toab has survived with this meaning it is still an informal word the dictionary was not perfect some of Johnson's explanations were harder to understand than the words themselves some expressed his personal opinions and some words were not listed because he disliked them also he could not fit in all his examples so words at the end of the dictionary have fewer examples than those at the beginning however it remained the most important English dictionary in Britain for more than a century help with spelling came from dictionaries help with grammar came from grammars there had been a few grammar books in the 16th and 17th centuries but in the second half of the 18th century a very large number suddenly appeared many of them told the reader how to write and speak correctly which really meant how to use language in the same way as in serious pieces of literature they were written for the rich and aimed to show the difference between the upper and lower classes they were widely used used because people wanted to show that they were educated the writers of these grammar books considered that the grammar of much spoken language and of regional dialects especially Scots was wrong they believed that the grammar of English should be the same as that of Latin for example they thought that a sentence should not end with a preposition because this did not happen in Latin so it would be correct to say I like the town in which I live but not I like the town which I live in the two most widely used grammar books were Robert LA's short introduction to English grammar which appeared in 1762 and lindle Murray's English grammar of 1795 these books had a great effect on people's views of grammar in the 19th and 20th centuries and still have some effect today some some people believe that there is only one correct way of saying things and argue for example about whether it is correct to say different to or different from as a result many first language speakers of English think that the way they speak and write is incorrect and are ashamed of it the opposite view that all ways of expressing an idea are grammatically correct if they can be understood clearly and that grammar is always changing is becoming more popular as a result some grammar books today simply describe how English is used instead of telling us how we should speak or write there were also some attempts in the second half of the 18th century to decide on one correct pronunciation there were many different ways of pronouncing words as there were a large number of regional accents until this time Regional accents were not considered to be bad in any way or to be a disadvantage however many people now wanted to speak correctly as well as write correctly the first person to teach people correct English pronunciation was an Irishman called Thomas Sheridan in the 1750s and 1760s he gave talks to large numbers of important people about the correct sounds and pronunciation ation of English words like correct spelling and grammar correct pronunciation was a sign of education and class Sheridan wrote in one of his talks pronunciation is a sort of proof that a person has kept good company Sheridan was followed by John Walker who wrote a critical pronouncing dictionary and Expositor of the English language in 1791 he took the pronunciation of educated people in London as his guide and saw other Regional pronunciations as wrong his dictionary was very successful in both Britain and the US in the 19th century many people began to feel disadvantaged because they did not speak correctly it was a long time before Regional accents became acceptable again chapter8 Modern English grows if speakers of English from 1800 were able to speak to those of today they would notice a few differences in grammar and pronunciation but not very many for the 19th century speakers the biggest problem would be the extremely large number of new words they would meet the developments in science in the last 200 years have led to hundreds of thousands of new words and expressions for new ideas machines materials plants animals Stars diseases and medicines many of these words and expressions are used only by scientists but others have become part of ordinary English we know that if we have bronchitis this word first appeared in writing in 1814 we can take antibiotics 1944 and we know that our genes 19 1911 come to us from our parents in our DNA 1944 we argue about whether we should use pesticides 1934 in farming or nuclear energy 1945 to make electricity the use of English in different parts of the world and easier and faster communication have together resulted in the appearance of thousands of other new words most of of them about 65% have been made by putting two old words together for example fingerprint 1859 airport 1919 and StreetWise 1965 the world of computers has introduced many of this type online 1950 userfriendly 1977 and download 1980 some new words have been made from Latin and Greek for example photograph 1839 helicopter 1872 Aeroplane 1874 and video 1958 others are old words that have been given new meanings for example pilot 197 was first used to mean the person who directs the path of ships and cassette 1960 used to mean a small box about 5% of new words have come from foreign languages like disco 1964 from French and pizza 1935 from Italian and a few words have come from the names of things we buy or use for example to Google 1999 from Google the popular internet search engine and podcast 2004 this word meaning a recording that you can get from the internet and play on your computer comes from iPod the popular music player and broadcast Beginnings or endings have been added to make new words disinformation 1955 is false information touchy feely 1972 describes people who Express their feelings too openly sometimes both a beginning and an ending have been added for example unput downable 1947 describes a book which is so interesting that you cannot stop reading it some words have been shortened photo 1860 for Photograph plane 198 for erpl and TV 1948 for television some words have put together sounds from two other words for example Motel 1925 a hotel for car drivers is made from motor and hotel only a very few new words have not been made from other words two examples are nylon 1938 to describe a man made material and flipflop 1970 a type of shoe that makes a noise as you walk the growth in vocabulary is clear when we look at the making of the Oxford English Dictionary OED in the 19th and 20th centuries this dictionary contains all English words since 1150 even those that are no longer used it shows with examples when each word was first used in writing and how the meaning of a word has changed over the centuries finding all this information was a very big job although no one realized at the beginning exactly how big a Scotsman called James Murray was appointed as the Director of work on the dictionary in 1879 and the plan was to finish the job in 10 years Murray organized a very large reading program hundreds of people sent him examples of how work were used after 5 years the first part of the dictionary was completed but it only went from a to entt everyone realized that the job was going to take a lot longer than 10 years in fact it took another 44 sadly Murray did not live to see its completion he died in 1915 age 78 while he was working on the letter U however he knew that he had helped to make a dictionary which would give a detailed history of the English language the first OED was completed in 1928 and explained the meaning and history of 44,800 words and expressions with examples from literature and other writing the second OED completed in 1989 explained the meanings of 65,00 100 words although many of these perhaps 20% are no longer used it shows how the words were or are used and has 2.5 million examples from all kinds of books it contains some scientific words and words from North America Australia New Zealand South Africa the Caribbean India and Pakistan but not all scientific or Regional words in English the second OED went online in 2000 and every 3 months new material is added to this online dictionary as part of the writing of the third OED at the same time work is continuing on the words and meanings already in the dictionary and changes are made if necessary for some words there are more details of their history to add or earlier or later examples North American and other Regional pronunciations are given as well as British ones these are the first changes to Murray's work since the first OED appeared in 1928 the work on the third OED began in 1993 will probably finish in 2018 the OED has had a great effect on our knowledge and understanding of English it has given us a lot of information about the history of words and expressions and has helped us understand how language changes over time the way dictionaries are made has been changed by computers there are now extremely large collections of examples of English works on computer that dictionary writers can use they can look through these for examples of words and see how they are used and they can use the internet to search for words they can also ask readers or all over the world to send examples to a website which means that they can get words from a very wide variety of places information about informal words and slang for example is now much easier to find because of the internet and when a dictionary is written it can be kept on computer and put on a website for about the past 100 years new words have been able to travel fast around the English-speaking world because of the telephone newspapers radio television films pop music and the internet these ways of communication can reach extremely large numbers of people television and radio have also influenced pronunciation in the 1920s the British Broadcasting Corporation BBC chose an accent for all its speakers to use on the radio this was the accent of the educated people in government at the universities in the Army and the church it was known as received pronunciation or RP or The King's English the use of RP on radio and later on television meant that more people heard it and thought that it was the accent that socially important people used it was not acceptable to use strong Regional accents on television and radio or in teaching and government however in the 1960s social differences in Britain began to break down and Regional accents became more acceptable everywhere and as the number of radio and television programs grew more people with different accents had to be employed today RP is no longer an important accent and most educated people in England not Scotland Wales or Northern Ireland now speak a kind of RP which has some of their Regional accent in it television has also made some Regional dialects popular for example you can now hear parts of the dialect called Estuary English which is from London and the southeast of England in many other parts of England see chapter 10 for more about dialects the biggest technological development in recent years is of of course the internet people can now communicate in writing on their websites through email on message boards and in chat rooms the internet has had a number of effects on English firstly new words have been made to describe the internet itself and its activities for example cyberspace 1982 email 1982 website 19 1993 and blog 1999 or new meanings have been given to Old words for example link 1951 chat 1985 virtual 1987 and surf 1992 secondly people have developed a new informal way of writing in chat rooms and on message boards many users shorten a lot of words using just single letters or numbers and often they do not use capital letters or much punctuation many use their own spellings or spellings that are often used in chat rooms some people also use Smileys little pictures of faces with different Expressions to show how they feel they also use groups of letters for some expressions for example LOL means means laughing out loud BTW means by the way BBL means be back later sentences you could see in a chat room or on a message board are are you a l r y t are you all right I am good th HX Smiley I'm good thanks du Z ne1 know how to make carrot cake does anyone know how to make carrot cake people also use similar language when they send messages by phone for example th HX for you are MSG stop how are you thanks for your m message how are you I am fine stop see you at work I'm fine see you at work after learning the rules of written English at school many people are now enjoying playing with language breaking the old rules and making new ones chapter nine English in the US England and and America are two countries separated by the same language wrote George Bernard Shaw in 1942 is this true today do Americans speak a different kind of English from the British if so why and why do they speak English at all to answer the last question we must go back to the year 167 when a group of English people sailed across the Atlantic and reached the East Coast of America they called their settlement jamest town after King James I and they called that part of the country Virginia they were not the first English people in America in 1585 and 1587 people had tried to settle on the island of Rano in what is now North Carolina they were not the first Europeans to settle in America either the Spanish had lived in Florida since 1565 but the people of Jamestown were the first successful English settlers and they were followed by other English adventurers who also settled in Virginia then in 1620 more English settlers landed north of Virginia in what became Massachusetts New England these were the people from the ship called the mayflower who came because they wanted to follow a different kind of Christianity from the kind in England others followed and by 1640 about 25,000 English people were living in New England at this time Sailors from England and other European countries were taking Africans to America and selling them as slaves the first 20 African slaves were brought to America in 1619 the Africans had to live in terrible conditions during the long sea voyage and many did not survive this inuman business was ended in 188 but people were allowed to own slaves until the end of the American Civil War in 1865 by that time there were more than 4 million Africans Living in America during the 17th and 18th centuries more and more people arrived in America the British government sent prisoners to America as a punishment and other settlers arrived from France Germany the Caribbean and the north of Ireland the people from the north of Ireland were called the Scots Irish because their families had moved to Ireland from Scotland by the year of American Independence 1776 about one in seven settlers in America was Scots Irish in the 19th century large numbers of people left Ireland Germany Italy and other European countries for America many were Jews from Central and Eastern Europe by 1900 there were 75 million people living in America in the latter part of the 20th century people from Asia and Spanish-speaking countries also arrived and by 2000 there were more than 280 million people in America American English developed from the languages used by these different people the first English settlers immediately discovered animals birds and plants that were new to them and which needed names in English sometimes the settlers used English words for example Blackbird for a bird that looked similar to the English Blackbird sometimes they made new words from other English words for example Backwoods a forest with few people and Blu grass a kind of grass with blue green leaves they also named thousands of places and rivers using words from the languages of the Native Americans for example Massachusetts Mississippi pomac the Spanish and French controlled some parts of the country until the 19th century so some place names are from French like Detroit St Louis and Illinois and some from Spanish like Los Ang Angeles San Francisco and Santa Fe New York was first New Amsterdam until the English took it in 1664 and the names Brooklyn from brookin Harlem Harlem and the Bronx Bronx are reminders of its Dutch Beginnings occasionally the English settlers borrowed words for things or people from other European langu angues for example cookie from Dutch scent and dime from French Plaza from Spanish the settlers also began to give some old words new meanings for example Bill began to mean a piece of paper money and it replaced note some words from the English of the 17th century survive in American English but are not used now in British English for examp example fall meaning Autumn mad meaning angry and gotten as the past participle of get as in your dinner has gotten cold some of the pronunciation of the first settlers also survives in modern American English they pronounce the a in Grass a as in hat because the long a sound only began to be used used instead of a in England in the 18th century this short a is part of American pronunciation today most Americans also pronounce the r at the end of words for example car and before a consonant for example hard as the early settlers did as the settlers moved West in the 19th century they added many colorful new Expressions to American English these are now part of British English too for example to face the music to accept the unpleasant results of your actions to kick the bucket to die hot under the collar angry some Expressions come from the time when the railroads were built to go off the rails to behave strangely and to reach the end of the line to be unable to do any more with some something American English has borrowed only a few words from the languages spoken by the 19th century immigrants the reason for this is social people who had recently arrived in the US wanted to become American and they and their children learned English to do so however some words and expressions from other languages have found their way into American English for example check a bill for food or drink and kindergarten a place where very young children Play and Learn have come from German pasta spaghetti and other words for food have come from Italian from Yiddish the language of the East European Jews there are schmuck a stupid person and schlep to pull or a long tiring Journey African-Americans develop their own varieties of English which are all known today as African-American English or black English they had an effect on American English especially in the 20th century when large numbers of African-Americans left the South and moved North some words that they brought to American English are Jazz a kind of music first developed by African-Americans cool meaning excellent and dude another word for man at the time of Independence in 1776 Americans began to take an interest in their language they wanted to be separate from Britain in every way and to feel proud of their country and way of life someone who felt very proud of American English was a teacher called Noah Webster 1758 to 1843 between 1783 and 1785 Webster wrote a spell a grammar and a reader for American schools the spell was later sold as the American spelling book and was extremely successful selling more than 80 million copies in the next 100 years with the money from the spella Webster was able to write dictionaries in these he wanted to show that American English was as good as British English and that Americans did not have to copy the British his first dictionary appeared in 186 followed in 1828 by his famous work an American dictionary of the English language this was longer than Johnson's dictionary it explained about 70,000 words and so gave American English the same importance as British English in the minds of Americans 60 years earlier Benjamin Franklin had suggested many changes to English SP in and his ideas influenced Webster in both his dictionaries Webster suggested new spellings and many of these are now the accepted American spellings for example Center c n t r color c o l o r and traveled t r a v e l e d some of his other suggestions were not followed s o o p soup b r e d bread and m d i i n medicine for example Webster also influenced American pronunciation by saying that each part of a word must be clearly pronounced for example secretary not secretary so what are the differences between American and British English today as well as differences in pronunciation there are some small differences in grammar and spelling but the main difference is in vocabulary thousands of words are used differently firstly different words are sometimes used in American and British English to talk about the same thing for example the street level floor of a building is called the first floor in America American English and the ground floor in British English you drive on the freeway in the US but on the motorway in Britain there are also different expressions in American and British English for example the American Expressions to drop the ball to make a mistake to be in the chips to suddenly have a lot of money and to go south to become less valuable able are not used in British English similarly many British expressions are not part of American English some British people dislike the effect of American English on British English but this has not stopped thousands of American words entering British English and becoming completely accepted for example okay 1840 Supermarket 1933 teenage ma 1941 and fast food 1951 although there are clear differences between the American and British varieties of English television music films and more recently the internet have helped people on both sides of the Atlantic to understand each other's English more easily chapter 10 all kinds of English I'm G the the de I'm going into town today Northeastern England didn't fast yourself don't upset yourself Central and Southern Scotland they work hard isn't it they work hard don't they Wales I'm after seeing him I've just seen him Ireland y'all come here come here everyone Southern us it's a be it's wonderful Australia she sing real good she sings very well Jamaica I am not knowing I don't know India make you know mine um take no notice of him or her Nigeria all over the world people speaking English as a first or second language use different vocabulary grammar and Accents in a large number of varieties of English a variety of English is a type of English spoken by one group of people in each English-speaking country one variety of English is used nationally this is the standard English of that country it is taught in schools and spoken on radio and television everyone in the country uses the same grammar vocabulary and spelling when they use their country country's Standard English though they may speak it with different accents different countries have different standarded englishes for example standard Australian English is different from standard British English in England as well as standard British English there are Regional and social dialects of English the most noticeable differences between them are those of pronunciation a well-known difference is the sound of the vowel a in words like grass in the South grass is pronounced as grass and in the north as grass the vowel u in words like up is pronounced up in the South and O in the North in some parts of the north happy is pronounced as happy or happy and in the Northeast KN is pronounced as neat in Esty English which began in the southeast of England some sounds are pronounced in the same way as in Cockney the dialect of East London the T in the middle and at the end of words disappears so the word better becomes better and the word what becomes what th becomes F and the becomes V so think becomes think and mother becomes mother this dialect has become popular among young people because of radio and television many new British dialects are developing people from the Caribbean India Pakistan and Eastern Europe have settled in the big cities in Britain young people from these groups use some of their own languages with the local dialect their friends copy them and in this way they make a new dialect there are also differences in grammar between the dialects some of the older dialects from the countryside use grammatical forms which Standard English has lost for examp example thee and thou for you singular modern dialects also use grammar that is different from Standard English I don't want no dinner I don't want any dinner them books those books she ain't come she hasn't come and in some dialects young people use in it at the end of a sentence for example now I can start calling you that is it can't I we need to go now is it don't we all dialects have some words and expressions both old and new that are different from Standard English for example butty a piece of bread and butter has been used in the north of England since the 19th century Nang good has come in recently to Cockney in London from bengoli outside England in Scotland Wales Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland there are other varieties of English Scots is very different from standard British English more so than any other British variety there are many differences in pronunciation grammar and vocabulary some Scots vocabulary is also used in Northern English dialects for example B for child and less for girl but a very large number of words 20,000 are listed in one book are used only in Scots the English spoken in Wales also has its own character The Voice Rises and falls in a way which is similar to Welsh and there are some words and expressions which have been borrowed from Welsh sometimes word order is changed to give something more importance for example great those are those are great in Northern Ireland Scots has had a great effect on English because large numbers of settlers came to Ireland from Scotland in the 17th century for example we a Scots word meaning little is used in the Republic of Ireland gelic and dialects from the west of England have had the most effect on English gelic is still spoken in the west of Ireland and the dialects of English in this part of the country show its effect more strongly than others for example people say is it cold you are are you cold or he's after doing that he's just done that the Irish English spoken on radio and television is closer to standard British English from the 17th century onwards Regional varieties of English were taken to North America the Caribbean Australia New Zealand Africa and Asia and they can still be heard in the varieties of English in these places for example in some dialects of American English there are many similarities to Irish English in pronunciation and some in grammar 's which means you plural comes from Irish English and so does any more in positive sentences for example they live here anymore which is they live here now in British English the three main Regional dialects of American English are Northern Midland and Southern these show the movement of settlers to the West settlers from New England in the Northeast moved past the Great Lakes those from the middle of the East Coast moved through the middle of the country and those in the South went along the coast to the South because the Midland dialect is spoken over the largest area and by perhaps 2third of the people this dialect is the best known outside America and is sometimes called General American African-American English or black English was born between the 17th and 19th centuries when millions of people from West Africa were brought to America and the Caribbean to work as slave slaves on large Farms growing cotton and sugar the slave buyers and the African slaves communicated on the slave ships in Pigeon English a simple kind of English that allowed speakers of different languages to communicate with each other when the Africans arrived in America and the Caribbean they continued to use pigeon English both with the slave owners and with each other as they often spoke different African languages later this pigeon English developed into a creole language when the slaves children and grandchildren started to use it as their first language African-American English probably developed from this Creole today African-American English has some grammatical differences from American English for example she come she's coming you crazy you're crazy 20 cent 20 cents French Dutch Spanish and Portuguese Creoles have also had a big effect on the English of the Caribbean other influences have been local languages and Hindi spoken by settlers from India in the Caribbean today there are a large number of English Creoles as well as local varieties of Standard English each Creole has a different vocabulary but their grammar and pronunciation are similar for example there is D for The Ting for thing and ax for ask here is part of a poem in Jamaican Creole by Louise Bennett it is called nor twang not even a little accent in it the poet complains that her son has come back from America without an American accent if you want please him make him think you bring back something new you always call him P this evening when him come say po if you want to please him your father make him think you've brought back something new you always call him PA this evening when he comes say poo the English of Canada is similar to both American and British English it uses some British words and some American ones for example Canadians fill their cars with gas American English but ask for the bill British English they often add a to the end of a sentence for example it's cold eh the pronunciation of Canadian English is very close to that of American English but one difference is the pronunciation of a which Canadians pronounce as o in some words so the word about sounds like a boat Australian English has developed from a number of varieties of English most of the 130,000 prisoners sent to Australia between 1788 and 1840 and the free settlers who joined them came from the south and east of England Scotland and Ireland the vowels in Australian English sounds similar to those in Cockney for example to die sounds similar to RP to die and some Australian expressions are from British Irish and American English American words are starting to be used more as a result of American films and television program RS some words for plants and animals and many place names have come from Aboriginal languages there are many very colorful expressions in Australian English for example to be as full as a boot to be very drunk first in best dressed the first people to do something will have an advantage couldn't lie straight in bed to be very dishonest New Zealand English and South African English have some similarities to Australian English in their pronunciation because all three countries were settled by English speakers at about the same time each variety has small pronunciation differences though and its own vocabulary in New Zealand English there are words from Maori and in South African English there are words from Africans and African languages other countries were also governed by the BR in the 19th and 20th centuries for example India Singapore Nigeria Kenya Papa New Guinea others were governed by the US the Philippines and Puerto Rico in many of these countries English is an official language although it is not most people's first language in these countries the local languages and their Regional dialects have an effect on the pronunciation grammar vocabulary and use of English and new varieties of English develop these are sometimes called new englishes they have not been studied very deeply or for very long so it is difficult to get a clear picture of each variety however people are collecting information about these new varieties and studying them so in future we will know more about them in the newest varieties of English words from another language are very often used with English ones these varieties are often given amusing names for example in the US some Spanish speakers speak Spanglish which uses English and Spanish words in the same sentence English words are borrowed and given Spanish sounds and spelling such as Parkin parking other examples of these varieties are Singlish in Singapore hinglish in India Hindi and English and taglish in the Philippines Tagalog and English all these varieties of English from countries where English is used either as a first language or as a second language are used more and more by writers and filmmakers in this way many users of English are able to hear and read more than their own variety and words and Expressions can cross from one variety to another chapter 11 jargon and slang jargon and slang are kinds of English that are not part of Standard English jargon is the difficult or strange language used by a group of people to describe things that the rest of us do not know about for example doctors lawyers University teachers and business managers all use words and expressions that the rest of us do not understand in business some of this jargon comes from the world of the internet for example if you are in a big meeting with someone and they suggest discussing something with you offline they mean they want to talk to you privately later other management jargon is not from the world of computers for example a manager could ask you what could you bring to the table if you got this job can you think outside the box this means what could you give to our team can you think in unusual ways to find answers to problems there is also a lot of jargon in sports that is only understood by people who do these sports for example if you are not a mountain biker you will probably not know what a b funny hop is it is a jump that mountain bikers make when they come off the ground with both Wheels bunny is an informal word for rabbit a small animal that jumps a lot people use jargon because they need to describe very detailed things or ideas and the rest of us have to try and understand it slang is an extremely informal kind of language much more informal than jargon it is usually only spoken jargon is often written as well as spoken slang usually belongs to a group of people who use it to show that they belong to that group and that others do not sometimes they need language that others will not understand for example young people people in prison and people in the Army all have their own kinds of slang slang is colorful funny and often cruel it gives us new words for things we already have words for for example Rock up for arrive jargon on the other hand often gives us new words for new things or ideas most slang changes quite quickly because the people who use it need to make new words to keep confusing Outsiders but some slang lasts longer Pig for policeman has been used since 1800 other words become part of the informal language for example row meaning noisy argument was slang in Britain in the 18th century some slang words become part of Standard English for example joke meaning something that someone says to make people laugh was a slang word at the end of the 17th century other slang words change their meaning over time for example in American English previous meant arriving too soon in the 1900s in 1920 it meant tight of clothes and in the 1970s it meant a bit rude the slang used by African-American musicians has had a great effect on British slang since the second world war this effect has grown recently as American rap music with its fast spoken Rhymes has become popular around the world words from the US can now reach Britain in weeks through the internet and television for example awesome Wicked and bad meaning excellent have been widely used by young people in Britain but they were first first used in the US many slang words show that you like or dislike something for example in British slang lush means lovely boom means the very best and minging means bad in Britain a stupid person is called a div in the US a dummy in Australia a dill or a boof head a pretty but stupid girl girl is a bimbo in Britain and the US a boring person is a dweeb in the US a lazy man is a bludger in Australia a good-looking person is spunky in Australia or buff in the US and Britain the basic things in life are often given slang words food is grub in Britain and the US a word that has been used since the 17th century and Tucker in Australia money is Wonga or do in Britain green or Moola in the US there are also many words for having no money being drunk being sick crimes and criminals the police and different parts of the body Australians are very proud of their slang and often use it it has many shortened words for example arvo for afternoon Aussie for Australian Brey for breakfast and sunnes for sunglasses the Cockys of East London are also proud of their rhyming slang which is now widely used in this slang part of the slang expression rhymes with the word in standard English for example Garden plant means Aunt plates of meat means feet bread and honey means money it can become more difficult to understand when the rhyming word is not used for example I need some bread means I need some money today most new rhyming slang uses famous names for example Britney Spears means beers rhyming slang is also used in Australia and the US new slang words are always appearing and disappearing some words are used only by the small groups that made them others become part of national or International slang and others cross into ordinary spoken language in this way slang is an important source of new words in standard English chapter 12 the future of English it's good that everything's gone except their language which is everything Derek Walcott North and South 1982 we no longer control English in any meaningful way it is no longer our ship but the sea Andrew Mah 1998 the Jamaican poet Derek Walcott knows that English is still used in countries that were governed by Britain the British journalist Andrew Mah recognizes that English does not belong just to the British or Americans but to the whole world English continues to be used by speakers of other languages all over the world and to be changed by those languages but how will the situation change in the future in Britain the US Canada Australia and New Zealand English will remain the first language of most people but will continue to change New Slang and dialects will develop often from groups of people who speak other languages for example Spanish in the US and South Asian languages in Britain in countries where English is used as a second language it is possible that new languages will develop which use English and local languages an example example of this is Sheng a new Kenyan language which uses words from English Swahili and other African languages one guess is that the number of people who can use English well will continue to grow to over half the people in the world by 2050 some believe and that English will remain a world language for many years in this view the US will remain the rich country in the world American popular music and films will continue to be fashionable and English will still be the language of science Communications Technology International Business education at universities and television news English will continue to change but it will not lose its importance in the world however other people think that the future of English as a world language is not so certain Mandarin Chinese Spanish and Arabic may become other world languages as the numbers of people who speak these languages continue to grow and the countries where they are spoken become richer although international business May grow some of it may be with countries in the same part of the world and other shared languages may be used instead of English there are now more users of the internet who do not speak English as a first language than those who do so businesses and organizations have to provide information and services in different languages for these internet users in education International students may go to countries that are nearby for example more Asian students may go to China English may also lose its importance and popularity in the world of films and music if English remain a World Language some governments may try to stop its use in their own countries they may fear that the use of English will endanger their own languages and Customs some countries have already tried to stop the borrowing of English words by passing laws against the use of foreign words in some situations for example France in 1977 and 1994 and Poland in 1997 in other countries India for example there is much discussion about teaching children in English in schools some consider it harmful for the children's learning and also for the survival of their own languages others however think that it is necessary for the country's future survival in the world if English does remain a World Language how will it change will it break up into a number of different languages and as Latin developed into French Spanish Portuguese Romanian and Italian or will the different varieties disappear and only one kind of English survive it seems probable that as English is used internationally more and more the need for a standard grammar and vocabulary standard spelling rules and some standard pronunciation will remain perhaps a new simpler kind of world standard Engish English will develop from the regional varieties one which all users can easily use and understand if a sound is hard for people to make and words can be understood without it then it could disappear for example th is difficult for many speakers and does not have to be pronounced as TH or the so this sound could change on the other hand it seems that the number of regional Vari ities of English is growing and will continue to grow these varieties may become more and more different from the world standard kind of English although they may not become separate languages because they will have a lot of contact with standard kinds of English through television radio and the internet as the number of second and foreign language speakers of English grows larger than the number of first language speakers other languages will have a greater effect on English extremely large numbers of words from other languages will probably continue to cross into English at great speed the next step in the history of the English language is hard to see clearly because it depends on many things changes in business science technology and numbers of people will the speakers of English at the end of this Century speak a very different English from the one we use now who will use it and how these are interesting questions for all users of English [Music]