People Saying Beef in a Different Accent

Dialect of English spoken and written in the United Kingdom

British English language
Native to	United kingdom
Ethnicity	British people
Language family	Indo-European Germanic W Germanic Ingvaeonic Anglo-Western frisian Anglic English British English
Early forms	Former English language Heart English Early Modern English language
Standard forms	Received Pronunciation Standard Scottish English Standard Hiberno-English
Writing system	Latin (English alphabet)
Official condition
Official language in	United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland (originally England) United Nations (with Oxford spelling)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
IETF	en-GB[1] [2]

An overview of differences in spelling across English dialects.

British English language (BrE) or Anglo-English is the standard dialect of "English as used in Keen Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere."^{[iii] [six]} Variations exist in formal, written English in the Great britain. For example, the describing word wee is nearly exclusively used in parts of Scotland, Northward East England, Republic of ireland, and occasionally Yorkshire, whereas the adjective little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English language within the United Kingdom and this could be described past the term British English. The forms of spoken English language, withal, vary considerably more than than in virtually other areas of the world where English is spoken^[7] and so a uniform concept of British English language is more hard to employ to the speech. According to Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English, British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions in the discussion 'British' and as a result tin be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more than narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity".^[8]

History [edit]

English language is a W Germanic linguistic communication that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was by and large speaking Common Brittonic—the insular diversity of continental Celtic, which was influenced by the Roman occupation. This group of languages (Welsh, Cornish, Cumbric) cohabited alongside English into the modern menses, simply due to their remoteness from the Germanic languages, influence on English was notably limited. All the same, the degree of influence remains debated, and it has recently been argued that its grammatical influence accounts for the substantial innovations noted between English and the other West Germanic languages.^[9]

Initially, Old English was a various group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of England. Ane of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually came to dominate. The original Old English was then influenced past two waves of invasion: the start was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who settled in parts of United kingdom in the 8th and 9th centuries; the 2nd was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this chosen Anglo-Norman. These 2 invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some caste (though information technology was never a truly mixed linguistic communication in the strictest sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic advice).

The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive English is, the more than information technology is from Anglo-Saxon origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more than it contains Latin and French influences e.g. swine (like the Germanic schwein) is the animal in the field bred by the occupied Anglo-Saxons and pork (like the French porc) is the beast at the table eaten by the occupying Normans.^[ten] Another example is the Anglo-Saxon 'cu' meaning moo-cow, and the French 'bœuf' meaning beefiness.^[xi]

Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian cadre of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic cadre of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance co-operative of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English language developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary.

Dialects [edit]

Dialects and accents vary amongst the four countries of the Great britain, equally well equally inside the countries themselves.

The major divisions are commonly classified as English English language (or English every bit spoken in England, which encompasses Southern English dialects, West Country dialects, East and West Midlands English dialects and Northern English language dialects), Ulster English (in Northern Republic of ireland), Welsh English language (not to be confused with the Welsh language), and Scottish English (not to exist dislocated with the Scots language or Scottish Gaelic language). The various British dialects likewise differ in the words that they accept borrowed from other languages. Around the heart of the 15th century, there were points where within the 5 major dialects there were about 500 ways to spell the give-and-take though.^[12]

Following its last major survey of English Dialects (1949–1950), the University of Leeds has started work on a new project. In May 2007 the Arts and Humanities Research Council awarded a grant to Leeds to study British regional dialects.^{[xiii] [fourteen]}

The team are^[a] sifting through a large collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by the "Voices projection" run by the BBC, in which they invited the public to send in examples of English all the same spoken throughout the country. The BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles nearly how the British speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information will also be collated and analysed past Johnson'south squad both for content and for where it was reported. "Maybe the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the English language is as diverse equally ever, despite our increased mobility and constant exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio".^[xiv] When discussing the award of the grant in 2007, Leeds University stated:

that they were "very pleased"—and indeed, "well chuffed"—at receiving their generous grant. He could, of grade, have been "bostin" if he had come from the Blackness Country, or if he was a Scouser he would have been well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink".^[15]

Regional [edit]

Most people in Britain speak with a regional emphasis or dialect. However, near 2% of Britons speak with an emphasis called Received Pronunciation^[16] (also called "the Queen's English", "Oxford English" and "BBC English"^[17]), that is essentially region-less.^{[18] [nineteen]} It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in London in the early modern menstruation.^[19] Information technology is ofttimes used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners.^[xix]

In the South Eastward at that place are significantly different accents; the Cockney accent spoken by some Due east Londoners is strikingly unlike from Received Pronunciation (RP). Cockney rhyming slang can be (and was initially intended to be) difficult for outsiders to understand,^[twenty] although the extent of its utilise is often somewhat exaggerated.

Estuary English language has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of RP and some of Cockney. In London itself, the broad local accent is still changing, partly influenced by Caribbean speech. Immigrants to the UK in contempo decades take brought many more languages to the state. Surveys started in 1979 past the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 100 languages existence spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's schoolchildren. As a result, Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, course, historic period, upbringing, and sundry other factors.^{[ commendation needed ]}

Since the mass internal migration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and given its position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of diverse accent developments. In Northampton the older accent has been influenced past overspill Londoners. In that location is an accent known locally equally the Kettering accent, which is a transitional accent betwixt the East Midlands and East Anglian. It is the concluding southern Midlands emphasis to employ the wide "a" in words like bath/grass (i.e. barth/grarss). Conversely crass/plastic employ a slender "a". A few miles northwest in Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the boondocks of Corby, five miles (8 km) north, ane tin find Corbyite which, dissimilar the Kettering accent, is largely influenced by the Westward Scottish accent.

In addition, many British people tin can to some degree temporarily "swing" their accent towards a more neutral class of English at will, to reduce difficulty where very different accents are involved, or when speaking to foreigners.^{[ citation needed ]}

Ethnicity [edit]

This department is empty. You tin help past calculation to it. (July 2018)

Features [edit]

Phonological features characteristic of British English revolve around the pronunciation of the letter of the alphabet R, equally well every bit the dental plosive T and some diphthongs specific to this dialect.

T-stopping [edit]

In one case regarded equally a Cockney feature, in a number of forms of spoken British English, /t/ has become commonly realised equally a glottal stop [ʔ] when information technology is in the intervocalic position, in a process called T-glottalisation. National media, being based in London, have seen the glottal stop spreading more widely than it once was in word endings, not being heard equally "no[ʔ]". Information technology is yet stigmatised when used at the beginning and key positions, such as later, while often has all only regained /t/ .^[21] Other consonants subject to this usage in Cockney English are p, as in pa[ʔ]er and m equally in ba[ʔ]er.^[21]

R-dropping [edit]

In most areas of England, outside the West Country and other nigh-by counties of the UK, the consonant R is not pronounced if non followed by a vowel, lengthening the preceding vowel instead. This phenomenon is known as not-rhoticity. In these same areas, a tendency exists to insert an R between a word catastrophe in a vowel and a next word beginning with a vowel. This is called the intrusive R. It could be understood equally a merger, in that words that once ended in an R and words that did not are no longer treated differently. This is also due to London-centric influences. Examples of R-dropping are machine and sugar, where the R is not pronounced.

Diphthongisation [edit]

British dialects differ on the extent of diphthongisation of long vowels, with southern varieties extensively turning them into diphthongs, and with northern dialects normally preserving many of them. Every bit a comparing, North American varieties could be said to be in-between.

North [edit]

Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are unremarkably preserved, and in several areas likewise /oː/ and /eː/, as in go and say (unlike other varieties of English language, that change them to [oʊ] and [eɪ] respectively). Some areas go as far as not diphthongising medieval /iː/ and /uː/, that give rise to modern /aɪ/ and /aʊ/; that is, for case, in the traditional accent of Newcastle upon Tyne, 'out' will sound equally 'oot', and in parts of Scotland and North-West England, 'my' will be pronounced as 'me'.

South [edit]

Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are diphthongised to [ɪi] and [ʊu] respectively (or, more technically, [ʏʉ], with a raised natural language), so that ee and oo in feed and food are pronounced with a motion. The diphthong [oʊ] is also pronounced with a greater movement, normally [əʊ], [əʉ] or [əɨ].

People in groups [edit]

Dropping a morphological grammatical number, in commonage nouns, is stronger in British English than Due north American English.^[22] This is to treat them equally plural when once grammatically singular, a perceived natural number prevails, especially when applying to institutional nouns and groups of people.

The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment:

Police force are investigating the theft of work tools worth £500 from a van at the Sprucefield park and ride car park in Lisburn.^[23]

A football squad can be treated too:

Arsenal have lost just i of 20 dwelling Premier League matches against Manchester City.^[24]

This tendency can be observed in texts produced already in the 19th century. For example, Jane Austen, a British author, writes in Chapter 4 of Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813:

All the earth are good and agreeable in your eyes.^[25]

Yet, in Chapter xvi, the grammatical number is used.

The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence.

Negatives [edit]

Some dialects of British English language use negative concords, too known equally double negatives. Rather than changing a discussion or using a positive, words like nobody, not, nothing, and never would exist used in the aforementioned sentence.^[26] While this does not occur in Standard English, it does occur in not-standard dialects. The double negation follows the idea of two different morphemes, one that causes the double negation, and ane that is used for the betoken or the verb.^[27]

Standardisation [edit]

Every bit with English effectually the world, the English linguistic communication as used in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland is governed by convention rather than formal lawmaking: there is no body equivalent to the Académie française or the Existent Academia Española. Dictionaries (for example, the Oxford English language Dictionary, the Longman Lexicon of Contemporary English language, the Chambers Lexicon, and the Collins Lexicon) record usage rather than attempting to prescribe it.^[28] In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time: words are freely borrowed from other languages and other strains of English, and neologisms are frequent.

For historical reasons dating back to the ascension of London in the ninth century, the form of language spoken in London and the E Midlands became standard English language within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accustomed use in the law, government, literature and education in Britain. The standardisation of British English is thought to exist from both dialect levelling and a idea of social superiority. Speaking in the Standard dialect created class distinctions; those who did non speak the standard English would exist considered of a lesser form or social status and often discounted or considered of a low intelligence.^[28] Another contribution to the standardisation of British English language was the introduction of the printing press to England in the mid-15th century. In doing then, William Caxton enabled a common language and spelling to be dispersed amidst the entirety of England at a much faster rate.^[12]

Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English (1755) was a large step in the English language-language spelling reform, where the purification of language focused on standardising both speech and spelling.^[29] By the early on 20th century, British authors had produced numerous books intended every bit guides to English grammar and usage, a few of which achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in impress for long periods and to accept been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most notably of all, Fowler's Mod English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers.^[30]

Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication is included in style guides issued by various publishers including The Times paper, the Oxford Academy Press and the Cambridge Academy Printing. The Oxford University Printing guidelines were originally drafted equally a single broadsheet folio by Horace Henry Hart, and were at the time (1893) the beginning guide of their type in English; they were gradually expanded and eventually published, first equally Hart'south Rules, and in 2002 every bit role of The Oxford Manual of Fashion. Comparable in authorization and stature to The Chicago Manual of Mode for published American English, the Oxford Transmission is a fairly exhaustive standard for published British English that writers tin can turn to in the absence of specific guidance from their publishing firm.^[31]

British English Relationship with Commonwealth English language. [edit]

British English is the basis of, and very like to Commonwealth English language,^[32] that is English spoken and written in commonwealth countries, though oft with some local variation. This includes English spoken in Malta, Commonwealth of australia, New Zealand, South Africa. It also includes South Asian English used in South Asia (eg Bharat, Sri Lanka), South East Asian countries (eg Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia) and parts of Africa. Canadian English language is based on British English, but has more influence from American English ^[33] British English, for instance, is the closest English language to Indian English language, but Indian English has actress vocabulary and some English words are assigned unlike meanings ^[34]

See also [edit]

• American English
• Australian English
• British Sign Language
• Canadian English
• Commonwealth English language
• Hiberno-English
• Newfoundland English
• New Zealand English
• American and British English language spelling differences

References [edit]

Notes [edit]

1. ^ In British English collective nouns may exist either singular or plural, co-ordinate to context. An example provided by Partridge is: " 'The committee of public safety is to consider the thing', but 'the commission of public safety quarrel regarding their adjacent chairman' ...Thus...singular when...a unit of measurement is intended; plural when the idea of plurality is predominant". BBC television news and The Guardian style guide follow Partridge but other sources, such as BBC Online and The Times style guides, recommend a strict noun-verb understanding with the collective substantive always governing the verb conjugated in the singular. BBC radio news, however, insists on the plural verb. Partridge, Eric (1947) Usage and Abusage: "Commonage Nouns". Allen, John (2003) BBC News fashion guide, page 31.

Citations [edit]

1. ^ "English"; IANA language subtag registry; retrieved: 11 Jan 2019; bailiwick named equally: en; publication date: 16 October 2005.
2. ^ "Britain"; IANA linguistic communication subtag registry; retrieved: xi January 2019; bailiwick named equally: GB; publication engagement: 16 October 2005.
3. ^ "BRITISH ENGLISH | Pregnant & Definition for United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland English". Lexico.com. Retrieved 18 February 2022.
4. ^ "British English; Hiberno-English". Oxford English language Dictionary (2 ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Printing. 1989.
5. ^ British English, Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary
6. ^ The Oxford English Dictionary applies the term to English language as "spoken or written in the British Isles; esp[ecially] the forms of English usual in Great U.k.", reserving "Hiberno-English" for the "English language as spoken and written in Ireland".^[4] Others, such every bit the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary, ascertain information technology as the "English language as it is spoken and written in England".^[5]
7. ^ Jeffries, Stuart (27 March 2009). "The G2 Guide to Regional English". The Guardian. section G2, p. 12.
8. ^ McArthur (2002), p. 45.
9. ^ English and Welsh, 1955 J. R. R. Tolkien, as well see references in Brittonicisms in English
10. ^ "Linguistics 201: History of English language". pandora.cii.wwu.edu. Archived from the original on eighteen October 2017. Retrieved 29 July 2017.
11. ^ Why You lot Swear in Anglo-Saxon and Order Fancy Food in French: Registers, archived from the original on 28 October 2021, retrieved 18 March 2021
12. ^ ^{a b} "The History of English – Early Modern English (c. 1500 – c. 1800)". www.thehistoryofenglish.com. Archived from the original on 9 December 2014. Retrieved 28 July 2017.
13. ^ Professor Sally Johnson biography on the Leeds University website
14. ^ ^{a b} Mapping the English language language—from cockney to Orkney, Leeds University website, 25 May 2007.
15. ^ McSmith, Andy. Dialect researchers given a "canny load of chink" to sort "pikeys" from "chavs" in regional accents, The Independent, 1 June 2007. Folio 20
16. ^ "Received Pronunciation". Retrieved twenty March 2017.
17. ^ BBC English considering this was originally the form of English used on radio and television, although a wider variety of accents tin be heard these days.
18. ^ Sweetness, Henry (1908). The Sounds of English. Clarendon Printing. p. 7.
19. ^ ^{a b c} Fowler, H.W. (1996). R.W. Birchfield (ed.). "Fowler's Modern English language Usage". Oxford University Press.
20. ^ Franklyn, Julian (1975). A dictionary of rhyming slang. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. p. 9. ISBN0-415-04602-five.
21. ^ ^{a b} Trudgill, Peter (1984). Language in the British Isles. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. pp. 56–57. ISBN0-521-28409-0.
22. ^ [1], Oxford Dictionaries website, 2 April 2017.
23. ^ [2], BBC, 8 January 2017.
24. ^ [3], BBC, two Apr 2017.
25. ^ "Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen". www.gutenberg.org . Retrieved 27 February 2020.
26. ^ "Double negatives and usage – English Grammar Today – Cambridge Dictionary". dictionary.cambridge.org.
27. ^ Tubau, Susagna (2016). "Lexical variation and Negative Hold in Traditional Dialects of British English". The Journal of Comparative Germanic Linguistics. 19 (ii): 143–177. doi:10.1007/s10828-016-9079-4. S2CID 123799620.
28. ^ ^{a b} "The Standardisation of English". courses.nus.edu.sg.
29. ^ "The History of English language: Spelling and Standardization (Suzanne Kemmer)". www.ruf.rice.edu.
30. ^ "New edition of The Complete Plainly Words volition delight fans of no-frills". Independent.co.uk. 27 March 2014.
31. ^ "Mode Guide" (PDF). University of Oxford . Retrieved 14 June 2019.
32. ^ Matthews, R. J. (1982-12). "NEW ZEALAND ENGLISH: A Case STUDY". Earth Englishes. 2 (2): 75–80. doi:10.1111/j.1467-971X.1982.tb00525.x. ISSN 0883-2919.
33. ^ Tirban, N (2012). "The Major Difference between British and American English in Written and Spoken language" (PDF). Communication, Context, Interdisciplinarity (2012): 985–990. – via Google Scholar.
34. ^ Nuance, Niladri Sekhar (2007). "Indian and British English language: A handbook of usage and pronunciation (review)". Language. 83 (2): 465–465. doi:ten.1353/lan.2007.0065. ISSN 1535-0665.

Bibliography [edit]

• McArthur, Tom (2002). Oxford Guide to Globe English. Oxford: Oxford University Printing. ISBN 0-19-866248-3 hardback, ISBN 0-19-860771-7 paperback.
• Bragg, Melvyn (2004). The Chance of English, London: Sceptre. ISBN 0-340-82993-1
• Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Printing. ISBN 0-521-62181-Ten.
• Simpson, John (ed.) (1989). Oxford English Lexicon, 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

External links [edit]

• Sounds Familiar? – Examples of regional accents and dialects across the Britain on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar' website
• Accents and dialects from the British Library Audio Archive
• Accents of English from Around the World Hear and compare how the aforementioned 110 words are pronounced in 50 English language accents from around the earth – instantaneous playback online
• The Septic'south Companion: A British Slang Dictionary – an online lexicon of British slang, viewable alphabetically or by category
• British English Turkey

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_English

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