English as Global Language: the Historical Context

Chapter I
1. English as a Global language
1.1 What is a Global language
1.2 What makes a Global language
1.2.1 The Necessity of a Global language
1.2.2 Language and Technology
1.3 English as a lingua franca
Chapter II
2. The Historical Context
2.1 The Germanic Origin and the Old English
2.2 The French influence on English
2.3 The period of Early Modern English
2.4 The period of Modern English
Chapter III
3. English around the World
3.1 The American and the British English
3.2 English in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand
3.3 English in South Africa and Asia
Chapter IV
4. The English influence
4.1 International relations and travel
4.2 The media
4.3 Broadcasting
Conclusion
Bibliography

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 CHAPTER I
English as a Global language

The first chapter of the present paper aims to explore English as a global language. This
chapter is divided into four sections and each of them will discuss separately features that denote
English as a global language. At the begging of this chapter we will consider the global English.
It will be given a short explanation of a word language, there will be examined the English roots
and its development through the history. A second section will give an explanation of the term
global language. The third section is subdivided and it will be dealt with the characteristics and
the necessity of a global language. One of the subdivisions in this section will consider the impact
of technology on language. The forth subchapter examines lingua franca. In this section it will be
discussed in which terms English is considered for a global language.
Definition given in Oxford’s dictionary says that a language is a system of
communication based upon the words. The word language originates from old-French term for
language “langage” which is rooted in the Latin “lingua” and it means “tongue” (The Online
Oxford Dictionary, 2016). Language binds all together, it functions as a tool of communication
that we use to express our feelings. As human beings, we are able to communicate with each
other. Using language we can exchange acquired knowledge, beliefs, opinions, etc. People are
able to communicate verbally using words in order to express their feelings, wishes, tanks,
promises, etc. this type of communication is called linguistic communication while the actions
that we perform as human beings such as laughing, smiling, crying are interpreted as non-
linguistic communication.
When discussing English as a global language, it is important to investigate English roots
and its development. Along with the High and Low German, Faroese, Swedish, Norwegian,
Danish, Icelandic and Dutch, English make part of the Germanic family of languages. Germanic
and Romance languages belong to the Indo-European family of language. During the history the
Indo-European tribe inhabited the territory of Eastern Europe, north of the black sea, but when
the resources became deficient the tribe separated and started to settle the territories of India,
Persia, Russia, Greece, Italy, British isles. After the groups from the original Indo-European tribe
separated, the Germanic tribe settled the territory of today’s Germany and southern Scandinavia

2
(Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 20). Later on the Germanic tribes are going to be the first ones
who influenced the English language and its development.
The territory of England was inhabited by the Celts. When the Germanic tribes conquest
England, the Celts moved to the west and south to the territory of Wells, Cornwall, and Scotland.
What remained was Anglo-Saxons civilization. The language that they were using was called
Old-English or Anglo-Saxon. Some research has shown that Anglo-Saxon dates from 450-1150
(Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 21). This language was a sort of a mixture language that was
invented by the Germanic conquerors, mainly the Saxons (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006:21).
After the Germanic conquest, there was a period of English development that followed
after the Normand conquest and it was influenced by the French, Celts, and English in the period
from 1150 to the 1450 (Brutt-Griffler, 2002:4). Another period that contributed to the
development of English was from 1450 to the 1700 which was called “Early modern period of
English” (Brutt-Griffler, 2002:4). With the spread of English to the North America and Australia
there has begun the epoch of “Modern English” (Brutt-Griffler, 2002:4). Afterwards, English
spread around the globe and it was developed by the English, Africans and Asians (Brutt-Griffler,
2002:4). Language was changing through the history and its richness was directly related to the
civilization that was using it.
English is learned and spoken internationally by a large number of people. English found
its purpose in various fields of modern life. English is now used in diplomacy, economy, science,
technology, business, tourism, etc. The usage of English in diverse spheres of modern life,
indicated that English is considered for a global language. English has established its status as a
global language by becoming one of the symbols of our time. It seems that no other language had
such an amazing impact on other languages, cultures, and world history.
English is now spoken as first or native language in countries such as USA, Britain,
Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, some of the Caribbean countries, Canada (Crystal,
2003:4). Thus there are a lot of countries that teach English as a foreign language in their public
schools, there are many people that are bilingual or even multilingual so the fact that English is
becoming a global language is not surprising at all.
In today’s world where economic and business success depend much on the proper
branding of the product, the adequate advertising and marketing are from vital importance for the
success. Many companies decided to use English in their advertising campaigns in order to attract

3
the foreign customers. It all started in the nineteenth century when “the advertising slogan
became the feature of the medium” (Crystal, 2003:93). Namely, massive production increased the
flow of goods and the new acquired techniques of printing enabled the advertising in newspapers
and magazines. What is also interesting is that the publishers realized that the income from
advertising would provide them lower selling prices of their magazines. And by using this
method there would be a mutual benefit. Later on the advertising conveyed to billboards, electric
displays, posters, etc. By growing of international markets, advertising globally spread, and by
this English started to be recognized all over the world.
Massive progress in the fields of science and technology has emerged the need to
facilitate a worldwide exchange of knowledge. The latest industrial and technological
developments demand a global language that everyone is going to be able to understand.
Nowadays, English is present in every existing media, chiefly due to the spread of the Internet.
Internet plays a great role in our lives. It is almost impossible to imagine life without the Internet.
Internet provides us plenty of information it enables communication between the people who are
not at the same place, nor country. Due to the rapid spread of the Internet, English became one of
the most frequent languages. People are now able to exchange knowledge and information over
the Internet.
English acts as a common language between the persons who doesn’t have the same
mother tongue. Nowadays, English found its purpose in various fields of modern life. It is often
used as a language of international relation, the language of science, the language of international
business, even the language of tourism and popular culture. Since international trade increases
every year and brings new countries in touch, English is often called an international language of
business. What also makes English a global language is the fact that is recognized in every
existing media.

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 1.1 What is a Global language

Definition of a global language given by David Crystal says that “a language achieves a
genuinely global status when it develops a special role that is recognized in every country”
(Crystal, 2003:3). This definition refers to the fact that a global language has to be acknowledged
by the speakers other than the native ones.
The factors that influence on one language to be global are the number of countries
where the language is considered as the native one, that is, the first language, also the number of
countries which are adopting the language as their official language, and the number of countries
where the language is learned as a foreign language, as an elective course in schools. Global
language as the term says, is a language that is learned and spoken around the globe. Its main
characteristic is the large number of speakers, not only the native ones, but also the second and
foreign language speakers.
What is important to be emphasized when discussing the global language is the
distinction between the terms “second language” and the “foreign language.” Official language
of a country is a language that is used as a means of communication in diplomacy, government,
law, education systems, etc. This language is also called a “second language,” and its primary
function is to act as an addition to a person’s native language (Crystal, 2003:4). The persons who
use this language are called second language speakers. What marks the “foreign language”
distinct from the “second language” is the fact that the “foreign language” is used in a country,
but it doesn’t quite have a special status as the official language of a country. In most cases this is
a language that is learned for cultural insight and person’s interest in that language.
English now has a special status in more than seventy countries, such as India,
Singapore, Ghana, Malta, etc. English is also taught in more than 100 countries as a foreign
language, and it is more and more encountered in schools as the main foreign language which is
replacing other languages. For instance, in 1996, English substituted French, which was
functioning as the main foreign language in Algerian schools, since Algeria was a former French
colony (Crystal, 2003:5).
When discussing global language it is important to distinct whether the fluency and
comprehensibility are on satisfying level. Crystal points out that the persons from countries
5
where English has a status of official language are not as competent in language as they are
expected to be. While the Scandinavian countries, where English is learned as a foreign language,
have a high level of proficiency in English (Crystal, 2003:6).
The number of English speakers whether the native ones, second or foreign language
speakers is constantly increasing. Due to the “three pronged development-of first language,
second language and foreign language speakers” (Crystal,2003:6) it is estimated that eventually
global language will become more spoken and learned than any other language. Crystal claims
that English already reached the stage where “almost the quarter of the world’s population is
fluent or competent in English” (Crystal, 2003:6).
The fact that English is required in many spheres, whether it is medicine, diplomacy,
technology, science, aviation, puts English in a position to be one of the most studied languages
of a modern time. For instance, if you are interested in discovering something more about
technology, you will have to be familiar with English since the technical terminology is chiefly
based on English words, but also the latest technological developments and research are mainly
published in English magazines. The same situation is in aviation since English is considered as
an international language. If you are interested in aviation career you are going to be required of
English proficiency while the fluency in other languages is considered only as an advantage for
aviation employees. Even if you are interested in any type of research, if you have a certain
linguistic competence in English, you are going to be able to find feedback material from all over
the world only by using the Internet.
World has become an enormous market where we are able to exchange whatever we
produce, make or acquire. In order to facilitate the communication and to make those transfers
easier people need a global language. Global language is used in order to decrease cultural and
language barriers. It functions as a tool of communication between the persons of different
nationality, ethnicity, etc. Global language has established its position in today’s modern world.
Together with the technological and scientific development, Internet, networking, global
language has become one of the symbols of our time.

1.2 What makes a global language

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 In the present section it will be examined what factors influence on one language to be
global. The main characteristics of global language are large number of speakers, its usage in
diplomacy, science, technology, and international organizations and its geographical extent.
During the history, Latin was considered for a common language or the lingua franca.
Due to the enormous power of Roman Empire, Latin had a role of international language of that
time. Even when Roman Empire became weaker, Latin preserved its glory owing that to the
Roman Catholicism. Crystal claims that “without a strong power-base, of whatever kind no
language can make progress as an international medium of communication” (Crystal, 2003:7).
By this he means that the language could be internationally successful as long as the speakers of
the language are successful.
One of the important characteristics that denote a global language is political power.
According to Crystal, language can become global mainly for one reason “the power of its
people-especially its political and military power” (Crystal, 2003:9). Thus, the global language
dominance cannot be related only with military and political power. Economic, technological,
industrial, and other global developments are contributing the international language.
“World English is the product of the mother-tongue English language nations,
particularly the US and the UK” (Brutt-Griffler,2002: 107). This is one of the reasons why
English is so widely spoken today, due to the power of the countries where English is used,
especially the United States and the United Kingdom. English was spread in postcolonial
countries and slowly became one of the most spoken languages. Period of imperialism influenced
in great measure the global language. “Imperialism facilitated the development of global
language by contributing to the creation of a language of trade” (Brutt-Griffler,2002: 111). By
the development of industry the flow of goods was increasing so as the need of trading. Since
England and the United States were in the centre of the industrial development their native
language that is, English imposed as the lingua franca of the world’s market.

1.2.1 The Necessity of the global language

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 Language usually reflects the culture, the customs and the overall way of life established
and maintained in a community sometimes for hundreds of years. Therefore, for a translation to
be able to keep its original meaning, it is very important for the translation to be not only aware
of major cultural differences, but also to be thoroughly familiar with both societies and their
cultures.
In the modern world, translation has become a very important for successful diplomatic,
scientific, and cultural exchange between people and communities. Unfortunately, today,
translators are faced with numerous difficulties regarding potential cultural ambiguities that may
influence the results of the result of the translation process. If there is a country where several
languages are spoken it is more difficult for individual to enable the communication between
different groups.
Language is sometimes used not only as the means of expressing thoughts but also as the
way to stress the membership of an individual to a specific cultural group. Language is also used
as to underline the differences between the two cultural groups. It is often the case that in one
society various subcultures develop and the variants of same language become markers that
reflect divisions between the groups.
In countries where two or three languages are used, bilingualism or trilingualism is
adequate solution. But if there are communities where many languages are in contact like, for an
instance, in some parts of Africa and Asia, lingua franca is needed to ensure the communication.
In such communities, it is often adopted a simplified version of a language, which is called pidgin
and it represents a mixture of elements of their languages (Crystal, 2003:11).
Since 1950s many world organizations were founded, such as World Bank and United
Nations (UN) both in 1945, UNESCO and UNICEF in 1946, the World Health Organization in
1957, etc. (Crystal, 2003:12). The organizations that were also founded are political groupings
such as European Union and The Commonwealth. Considering that they deal with problems
which are affecting the whole world, mitigating circumstance in communication is certainly a
common language. This solution is considerable hence it is much easier way to enable the
communication in such context (Crystal, 2003).
Only small number of languages is adopted as official language of international
organizations. For instance, the UN approved only English, French, Spanish, Russian and
Chinese as official languages. One of the main reasons why lingua franca is a necessity in this

8
type of organization is costs reduction. Some research has shown that the large amounts of
money of the international organizations could be spared if to cut down the costs of the
translation and interpretation (Crystal, 2003:12).
Tough there are many benefit from a global language it has been up to debate what risks
it brings. First of all, there is a possibility that small languages could disappear. There is a risk
that the increased adoption of a global language could lead to the weakening and eventually the
disappearance of some minor languages.
One of the main concerns is that those people who are the native speakers of the global
language would be in the better position than those which are using the global language as their
second or even foreign language. Another potential problem that may arise is the fact that the
native speakers could lack of motivation in learning other languages. It is even considered that
people around the world would be learning only the global language which eventually will cause
that the other languages vanish. If insisting on using only one language and exclude others it may
be interpreted as a threat to the ideals of multiculturalism.
It can be concluded that global language partially emerges due to the political, industrial,
economic power of its people. Due to the British imperialism and its industrial power, English
was spread around the world. In the colonial countries, English is deeply institutionalized in their
government institutions, education, etc. But, due to the American economic, industrial,
technological development English consolidated and maintained its position as global language.
Nowadays, English is extremely important for the development in fields of tourism, advertising,
scientific development, and many other areas.

1.2.2 Language and technology

With the development of the technology, there is a greater need of the global language.
The development of the Internet facilitated the communication between the people who are
physically distant from each other. With the development of the Internet, the international
communication was never easier. Nowadays, it is possible for the scientists, academics,
businessman from different parts of the world to communicate, arrange their meeting via the
internet. All this would be much more complicated if they wouldn’t be speaking the same

9
language. Common language or lingua franca is especially appreciated in the world of academic
business society. In order to communicate by using a multiple translations it would be much
easier to adopt a common language.
The technological development contributed to the arising of the corpus-based method
of the linguistic research. This type of research is generally recent in linguistics. The definition
says that “In the language sciences a corpus is a body of written text or transcribed speech which
can serve as a basis for linguistic analysis and description. Over the last three decades the
compilation and analysis of corpora has led to a new scholarly enterprise known as a corpus
analysis” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 733). It is hard to imagine that compiling and
analyzing texts was exclusively manually done in 1960s when the computer technology wasn’t
much developed nor expanded. Nowadays, with the help of the computer technology and the new
acquired programs the collection of the texts is easier.
By the technological development the need of global language is growing. People
became more mobile with the development of the computers, internet, electronic mail, social
networks, etc. Today it is possible to send mail and to be sure that it will arrive to the recipient in
short notice. People are able to exchange data only by using the internet. Not only that the
communication between people is facilitated, but people also become physically more mobile
since the development of air transport. Now there are more and more people who wish to travel
abroad. Data has shown that there are far more travelers using this mean of transport rather than
any other one. Whenever people from different countries, cultures, nationalities, people who
speak different languages get in touch, they need to find a common language to communicate.

1.3 English as a lingua franca

Lingua franca is language used as a common means of communication among the

speakers of different languages (The Online Oxford Dictionary, 2016). Lingua franca can be any
language that is used to enable the communication between the people who don’t speak the same
language. The term lingua franca originates from late 17th century and it is Italian literally
meaning Frankish tongue (The Online Oxford Dictionary, 2016). At the time that language was a
mixture of Italian and French, Greek, Spanish and Arabic which was used in the eastern
Mediterranean. Some data has shown that this mixture of language was developed by the
10
Crusaders and traders in the eastern Mediterranean and this language was a simplified version of
the Romance languages.
Through history, many languages are intertwined as languages used in diplomacy such
as Latin and in the 18th century French, even the diplomatic notes intended for British leaders
were written in French. Today English has become one of the most frequently used diplomatic
languages. Along with English the leading languages of diplomatic correspondence in the U. S
are Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish and the recently added Arabic.
English as a lingua franca, abbreviated as ELF, is a term established for English as
international or global language. There are many theorists who tried to explain the way English is
used as a lingua franca. The majority of ELF speakers are nonnative speakers. English has
diversity of uses in different fields. Along with this multiple usage, nonnative speakers have
brought a sort of variety of English language, in terms of linguistics. The most evident area of
previously mentioned diversity is accent. According to some linguists, variation in accent is
admissible as long as it is understandable and the conversational flow is secured. The
interlocutors are required to be aware of differences in accents as well as the cultural differences
that they could encounter.
It must be also emphasized that cultural differences between societies may cause
significant problems during the communication. These problems are even more relevant when the
two societies are geographically and historically distant, or when the languages belong to
different language families. Language is in essence a reflection of society’s customs, culture, art,
science and overall values, and any discrepancies related to these areas may cause troubles in
communication.
In the past, when the ties between countries were not as strong as they are today, many
important and often historical decisions were made based on the very limited diplomatic
communication. In this historical setting, even minor translation mistakes sometimes lead to
serious consequences in terms of negative impact on relationship between nations. Bad
translation wasn’t always solely a result of an unintentional mistake. It was sometimes used as a
tool for purposefully creating diplomatic crisis and blunders. In today’s world, communication is
significantly more intensive, partially because of the activity of mass media, internet and social
networking sites. Mistranslation due to the cultural differences, instead of creating diplomatic
incidents, carries a much bigger risk in terms of resulting in media blunders and embarrassment

11
for political establishment. Therefore, many countries are now using English as official language
of diplomatic meetings in order to avoid those risks.
In today’s world, successful marketing has become an essential tool for good business
performance. Another important trait of contemporary economics is the emergence of
multinational corporations that have a developed network of businesses across the globe. In this
setting, the importance of successful translation of economic messages, such as business slogans,
logos, etc. is ever increasing. In the recent two decades, many marketing blunders have been
made due to the inadequate translation which did not take into account cultural differences. These
blunders often resulted in huge financial losses for the company in question and damage to the
reputation of both the firm and its product/service. It seems that particularly difficult to translate
are short messages such as slogans that are intended for general population. Sometimes, a minor
mistake during translation of these slogans may completely alter the original meaning and cause
serious consequences. This is why many international companies choose to preserve original
meaning of advertisements by using English language considering it as a global lingua franca.
English is appreciated all over the world. It is a language of a modern world. Lingua
franca is needed now more than ever. There are many nations that are cooperating they need to
communicate with each other which indicates that the number of the English speakers increases
on daily basis.

CHAPTER II

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 The Historical Context

This chapter deals with the history of the English language, its development and
origins. The aim of this chapter is to investigate the historical events and the people that
influenced on the English language and made it what it is today. The first section will discuss its
Germanic origins and the Old English, also known as Anglo-Saxon. The second section deals
with the period of English development that followed after the Normand conquest. Another
section deals with the period of Early Modern English. And at the end of this chapter we will
discuss about Modern English.
Through the centuries, language was constantly changing. Even the Greek philosophers
were aware of the fact that language is changing in certain periods of time. However, major proof
about scientific approach to the language change and its description appeared only in the
nineteenth century (Hogg, 1992:26). The first quarter of the nineteenth century was very
significant for the development of the methodology in genetic linguistics. The relationship
between the languages was defined as: “Two or more languages are genetically related if they
stem from the same ancestor; the fact and the degree of the relationship are established on the
basis of the deep-cutting structural agreement which cannot be due to the chance” (Hogg,
1992:26). Latin, Germanic, Celtic, Greek, Sanskrit, and some other languages, are considered to
be grounded in the same proto-language that is, in the Indo-European family of languages (Hogg,
1992:26).
When discussing the history of one language it is impossible to give the exact date or
place where one language emerged. Thus, there are written evidence how language developed
through the history. What is familiar about the history of the English is that the first impact was
made by the Germanic tribes, who migrated to the British Isle. English that we are familiar with
today is the product of the various nations. English is so diverse due to the influence of
Germanic, Celtic, French, and Nordic nations. All these nations influenced on English in different
epochs during the history.

2.1 The Germanic Origin and the Old English

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 English is part of Germanic family of languages. Other members of Germanic family of
languages are the High and Low German, Faroese, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic and
Dutch (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006:20). “The term Germanic describes a group of closely
related languages which were used in the southern Scandinavia and northern Germany in the first
millennium before Christ.” (Hogg, 1992:28) It is considered that languages from Germanic
family of languages originate from the same language, Proto-Germanic, which wasn’t a written
language. Thus, it is considered that the Finish is quite similar to the Proto-Germanic. Some
research has shown that a source of information is provided by borrowings into Finnish, though it
is a non Indo-European language. (Hogg, 1992:28)
When the groups from original Indo-European tribe separated, the Germanic tribe
departed the Indo-European primeval homeland, and settled the territory of today’s Germany, the
Low Countries, and southern Scandinavia. It is estimated that they settled on this territory
probably at the beginning of the Common Era at the latest. (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 20)
Saxons, Angles, Jutes, and Frisians were people who formed the Germanic tribes. They were
described as a “roving, restless, aggressive lot like their Indo-European forebears before them,
always seeing the other side of rivers, valleys, of bodies of water as greener, as more fertile,
more suited to their idea of a proper home than they were living.” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson,
2006: 20)
In the period around 449 AD, Germanic tribes began the conquest of England (Kachru,
Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 21). Considering that in good weather conditions, the English Channel
wasn’t a great barrier, it seemed convenient for the Germanic tribes to begin the conquest of
England, even if their sailing forces were under the expectation. The Celts, who were already
living on the territory of the British Isle, moved west and south into Cornwall, Wales, and
Scotland. The civilization that emerged was an Anglo-Saxon civilization and the language that
they were using is called the Old English or Anglo-Saxon. It is estimated that this language dated
from 450-1150 (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 21).
One of the first traces about the language of Germanic invaders appeared from the
names which were found in seventh and eighth century Latin manuscripts. (Hogg, 1992:10) One
of the significant manuscripts is Bede’s “Ecclesiastical History of English people,” which gave
the information about these people and their language (Hogg, 1992:10). Bede was Benedictine

14
monk, at the monastery of Jarrow. He lived from 673 to the 735 and he dedicated his life to
research. He was a scientist, theologian, a historian, and a biographer. One of his most
acknowledged works is “Ecclesiastical History of English people.”Bede wrote about Christianity
in Britain and influenced on improvement of cultural importance in England (Algeo, 2010:80).
It is considered that the Anglo-Saxons king Alfred the Great, which reigned from 871
until 899, translated, or at least, was involved in the translation of Bede’s work from Latin
(Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006:22). Some of the works for which is considered that king Alfred
provided translation are Boethius’s “The Consolation of Philosophy,” Pope Gregory the Great’s
“Pastoral Care” Orosius’s “History” (Algeo,2010: 83). It is also considered that the king Alfred
the Great initiated the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, though the work was completed only two
centuries later (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006:23).
The “The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” had important role in history of Anglo-Saxons since it
describes their social and cultural life. The work presents the period from the invasion of Britain
by Julius Caesar to the period of reign of the King Alfred. Later on, the work was extended up to
the Normand Conquest and it ended describing events from 1154 (Marsden, 2004:61). “The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle” provides information about the political situation in the country, the
battles over the territory, and also about the historical facts (Marsden, 2004:61). Beside this, one
of the significant works from the period of Old English was undoubtedly “Beowulf” which is still
studied as one of the greatest world’s classics. Along with the “Beowulf” there is, a great number
of religious poems, but also the war poem “The Battle of Maldon” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson,
2006:22).
The most certain fact about Germanic invaders is that they were coming from diverse
Germanic tribes in northern Germany including the southern part of Jutland peninsula hence they
were using diverse Germanic dialects that later on influenced English. The proof of their
aggressiveness is the fact that by the end of the 6th century their dominance spread almost all over
the England’s territory (Algeo,2010:80). One of the first Germanic tribes that invaded England
were Jutes who settled the southeastern territory of England, which is still known by its Celtic
name, Kent, and later on, Saxons who settled the area from the Thames northward to the Scottish
highlands, except of Wales (Algeo,2010:80).
The Old English was described as “heavy” language. “It was heavily inflected and richly
conjugated with three genders and four cases, and numerous subclasses of nouns, verbs, and

15
adjectives” (Kacru,Kachru,Nelson,2006: 21). One of the chief differences between the Old and
the Modern English is the fact that the Old English had grammatical gender. Grammatical gender
classifies a noun into one of the three categories and denotes whether a noun is masculine,
feminine, or neuter. It is estimated that grammatical gender was preserved in English until the
period of French influence (Algeo,2010: 91). The grammatical gender is the characteristic of
Indo-European languages like Greek, Latin, etc. and it is still preserved in German. Grammatical
gender was affecting the concord in grammar. What this means is that if a noun was masculine or
feminine, or singular or plural, adjectives modifying it, had to be as well masculine or feminine,
or singular or plural (Algeo,2010: 91).
Apparently, the Old English was much complex version than the English that we are
familiar with today. There are a number of dissimilarities between the Old English and the
English, which is spoken nowadays. One of the instances which describe complexity of English
from that period is the definite article “the” which required 18 different forms in order to decline
it: “three genders in the singular, four cases for the singular and the plural, and an instrumental
case for masculine and neuter singular” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 22). The most evident
difference between the Old and the Modern English is that the Old English was much more
inflected than the Modern English is. Modern English has less inflection in nouns, adjectives
(Algeo, 2010:92).
Old English was under the influence of Celtic and Latin. The place-names such as Kent,
York, Cornwall, Avon, London, etc. prove Celtic linguistic influence on the Old English (Kachru,
Kachru, Nelson,2006). Firstly, the vocabulary of Old English was extended by the words
borrowed from the Latin which was spoken in the period of Roman conquest, and later on, from
the Latin used in period of Christian conquest. Some of the words that integrated in today’s
English from the Latin of Roman conquest are: “mile, pit, cheap, wine, camp, etc.” (Kachru,
Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 23)
Christianity came to the Anglo-Saxons from two ways, one of them from Rome
introduced by Saint Augustine, and another one from Celtic Church with the Irish missionaries
(Agleo, 2010: 81). When Christianity came to the British Isle in 597, and with it, the Latin of
Christian conquest, many new words were adopted in the English vocabulary. Some of the words
which are borrowed are: “church words like bishop, angel, disciple, human, relic, and rule,
school words such as school, verse, meter, and grammar, and some other words like elephant,

16
talent, oyster, radish, etc.” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 23) There were four dialects which
were used in Old English. Speech of Jutes who settled in Kent was called Kentish, West Saxon,
used in area south of Themes except of Kent, Mercian used in areas from Thames to Humber
except of Wales, and Northumbrian spoken north of the Humber. (Agleo, 2010 )
Most of the Latin loanwords from this early period of English are related with
agriculture, military affairs, commerce, etc. Those are the words which Germanic people found
out through the communication with Romans. For instance, “vinum” in Latin, “win” in Old
English and “wine” in Modern English. Other borrowings from Latin which maintained their
position in Modern English are “butyrum” in Latin, “butere” in Old English and “butter” in
Modern English, from Latin word “caseus” there was “cese” in Old English, meaning “cheese,”
“piper” in both Latin and Old English, and in Modern English “pepper,” “anchor” from Latin
“ancora” and in Old English “ancor,” “cealc” in the Old English, “chalk” in Modern English,
and in Latin “calx.” Latin has a lot of the loanwords from Greek, hence there are number of
words that actually originate from Greek, like, balsam, demon, crystal (Algeo, 2010: 249).
It is considered that the Scandinavian was last that influenced on English before the
Norman Conquest. Since its geographical proximity to England, only few days of sailing,
Vikings were breaking into the island. The British Isle seemed attractive to them chiefly due to
the wealth that they could steal. It is written in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that the first incursion
occurred in 787, and it is estimated that this type of attacks was repeating until 850 (Kachru,
Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 23). Vikings were described as being more interested in robbing than in
the conquest of the English territory. In 878, Alfred the Great won battle at Edington where he
defeated Danish king of East Anglia. The power of Vikings was limited to the area of
Northumbria and East Anglia (Algeo,2010).
By the end of the 11th century Scandinavians became assimilated with English people,
introducing their words in English thus some Scandinavian words appeared earlier in English. A
large number of the Scandinavian loanwords was used in areas Northumbria, East Anglia and in
parts of Mercia, which was predominantly inhabited by Scandinavians. The great number of
Scandinavian loanwords does not occur in written form until the period of Middle English.
Words that originate from Scandinavian such as score, scrub, skill, skin, skirt, gear, kilt, etc.
(Algeo,2010)

17
 When around the 1014 English king was exiled, England was governed by the Danish
king Svein (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 23). That period is considered as a period of Danish
influence mostly in parts of northern and eastern coasts of England which were occupied by the
Danish invaders. The Old English and the Old Danish, both Germanic languages, with similar
grammatical structures, conjugations, and declinations, both languages had the same division
between the strong and weak verbs, which is unique for the Germanic languages. The influence
of Danish is noticeable in place names, such as Rugby, Whitby, Derby, where the suffix -by
originates from the Danish, and it literally meant “farm” or “town.” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson,
2006:24) Some other words borrowed from the Danish are law, crawl, scowl, band, rotten, odd,
etc. (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 24)
Most of the Old English words which originate from German were the same or at least
similar in from and meaning to the equivalent words in Modern English like: god, hand, land,
under, word, etc. (Algeo,2010: 90) While there were others which preserved their form, but have
changed their meaning. The Old English term for “joy” was “dream,” “mod” meant “heart,
mind, courage” and not “mood” “ tid” was a word for “time” not for “tide” “ winnan” meant
“fight” not “win” and “sellan” was a word which meant “give” not “sell.” (Algeo,2010: 91)
There are some Old English words that maintained in Modern English only in hidden
form, for instance word for man, “wer,” is visible in “werewolf” literally meaning “man-wolf.”
“Tid” a word used for “time” preserved in the proverb “Time and tide wait for no man,” this
proverb is often used to emphasis the passage of time and to point out that some favorable things
shouldn’t be postponed, but according to John Algeo “time and tide” were just synonyms
(Algeo,2010: 91).

2.2 The French influence on English

The period of French influence, also known as the period of Middle English, date from
1100-1500 (Algeo,2010: 112). In 1066 the king of England, Edward the Confessor, died without
leaving heir. (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 24). The throne was inherited by Harold, the son of
Earl the Godwin, but shortly after he became king, he was challenged by William, duke of
Normandy, who claimed that he deserves to inherit the throne. In the same year he made precise
plan for the invasion and sailed with his army across the English Channel. They arrived at
18
Hastings, town on the English Channel, close to the south London. The duke of Normandy
defeated the king Harold. After the Hastings battle, in 1066 William was crowned king of
England (Algeo, 2010: 113).
The Normand Conquest brought to England French speaking monarchy. William’s court
and people that moved with him were all French speakers. French was rapidly spreading and
knowledge of French became necessary. Whether English people wanted to trade with Normans
or had to deal something in court, they were required to be familiar with French. Intermarriages
of English and Norman people contributed to the spread of French. The period of French
influence on English lasted for two centuries (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006). At the beginning
of the fourteenth century, English regained its position as the first language of the country. Thus,
due to the influence of French that lasted for two hundred years, this kind of English was
different from the one before.
During the period of French influence some things changed like culture, language,
architecture, etc. The dialect of Normand people was Norman French dialect, also known as
Anglo-Norman. Anglo-Norman is described as a variety of French which was used in England’s
government. There are plenty French words that supplemented the vocabulary of English which
are used even today. Words from the domain of law such as “legal, govern, crime, criminal,
criminality, justice, regal, jury, judge, verdict, advocate, royal, sue, defendant, defend, attorney,
prison, plea, fraud, juror, etc.” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 25) The French loanwords, listed
above basically make part of any courtroom where English is used as the chief language. Since
the language of the court at that time, was French, many terms related with administration and
law are loanwords from French. Due to long period of French presence in England, many words
used in every day conversation were borrowed from French. Some of them are: “joy, cap, face,
war, force, paint, pay, chase, etc. (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 25)
The pair words that also originate from French are: “criminal and criminality, difficult
and difficulty, legal and legality, etc.” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 25) Not only that the
individual and pair words were borrowed from French, but also the way of pronouncing those
words. Namely, most of the Germanic words from the English vocabulary were monosyllabic,
and there was a simple rule of stressing only the vowel in the word, for instance in words bé, bést
etc. The French loanwords had complex rules for stressing the words. Using the acute accent it
was marked the location of main stress in the word. (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 25)

19
 After the Norman Conquest, England became trilingual. English was used as a language
among the great number of England’s population, French was language used as a church
language while French was a language of England’s government. There were various dialects in
English from this period. The Northern dialect sounded like the Northumbrian dialect from
period of Old English while the Midland dialects, East and West Midland, sounded like Mercian
from the period of Old English. The Southern dialect resembles to West Saxon dialect. Since
London has been for four centuries very important and successful city, it is not surprising that
eventually the London speech became standard for the whole country (Algeo, 2010).
Some of the dialects were using different pronoun forms for instance, “ich” or “I”
pronoun forms which were used by the majority of the English population while the Northern
form for the first person singular was “ik.” Nominative forms “they” or “thai,” that originate from
Scandinavian, were used North and Midlands. The objective and genitive pronoun forms for the
third person plural “them,” “thaim,” “theim,” and “their” were mainly used in the North during
this period. What also varied from one dialect to another is the present participle. In the Midlands
they were using “–ende,” or “–ing(e)” in the North “–and(e)” and in the South “–inde” or “–
ing(e).” The –ing ending that maintained in the Modern English originates from the Old English
verbal noun ending –ung (Algeo, 2010: 131).
One of the most significant changes in English grammar that occurred in period of
Middle English is that the grammatical gender disappeared. Due to the integration of the
unstressed vowels into one sound, the number of inflectional endings in Middle English was
reduced. In comparison with Old English, which was extremely inflected, Middle English was a
language that had a few inflectional distinctions (Algeo, 2010: 129).
Due to the force of linguistic changing, English was further developing. Until the end of
“Middle English period” English become something that is very similar to modern English. The
main changes were noticed in grammar. For instance, changes in nouns, like the suffix –s, where
it has become only suffix that represents either the genitive “day’s” or the plural “days” which is
still used in today’s English (Kachru, Kacru, Nelson, 2006: 25).
Old English had four unstressed vowels a, u, e, o, in the final syllable later on, it has
been reduced to single unstressed –e. There has been some changes regarding the relation
between the verbs, strong verbs became weak, and inversely, weak became strong verbs. The

20
grammar was simplified in terms of morphology and language of that period was more and more
looking like the English that we are familiar with today (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 26).
In comparison with Old English which had comparative ending –ra, in Middle English
this comparative ending became –re, and later on –er, while the superlative suffixes –ost and –est,
which fell into one single suffix –est. There are some cases where the adjectives preserved from
the Old English their mutated vowel, for instance, “old, elder, eldest,” or “long, lenger, lengest”
(Algeo,2010: 133).
Many French words enriched English vocabulary. French influence on English in
domains such as law, administration, cuisine, etc. was enormous. It is estimated that the greatest
impact on English development in this epoch was certainly made by French. After the Norman
Conquest, many new words were adopted from French. The period of French influence is one of
the most significant for the development of English. Not only that the vocabulary was extended
but also the grammar became simplified. The English that emerged after the Normand Conquest
was the language with dominance of monosyllabic words, with a simplified morphology, and
sounds that are much easier to pronounce.

2.3 The period of Early Modern English

The period of Early Modern English took place between the periods of the Middle
English and the Modern English, and it is very important for the development of English. This
period is also known as the Renaissance. There are no general agreements about the year when
this period began. There is some evidence that claim it started somewhere between the 1400 and
1450 at the beginning of the pronunciation shift, while the other claim that it stared around 1500
after the effects of the printing revolution (Crystal, 1995: 56). Certainly, it is the printing that
contributed to the emerging of this period. The new acquired technique of printing provided more
opportunities for those who wanted to write and possibility for their works to be recognized in
wider circles. It is estimated that almost 20,000 books originate from the following 150 years
(Crystal, 1995: 56).

21
 Due to the discovery of printing, during the 16th century there was a great number of
new published works in English (Crystal, 1995: 56). There was a rapid development in fields of
language, literature, medicine, science, etc. Since there were no equivalent words in target
language, to describe new inventions and techniques, the easiest way was to borrow them from
the source language. The period of Early Modern English is marked by the discoveries of
Copernicus, Reformation, the European exploration of Africa and America.
During the period of Early Modern English, vocabulary was extended, and major
sources of borrowings were from Latin and Greek. The significant source of borrowing words
was still French, but due to the colonial extent in Latin America, Spanish and Portuguese became
important sources of new loanwords. Through the period of Renaissance there were many other
languages that influenced and contributed to the development of English. Scandinavian and
Celtic were still contributing to the development of English vocabulary while there were some
new languages influencing on English. For instance, some of the new influences came from
Italian, Asian, languages of Eastern Europe, from Africa, from America, etc. American colonies
were influencing English vocabulary in their early history. Source of loanwords were languages
of Amerindians and languages of other European settlers in the New World (Algeo,2010).
The vocabulary of English was constantly being enriched by borrowing words from
other languages. Great number of these words is coming from Latin, nevertheless the number of
words coming from Greek, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, is not insignificant. Some of the
loanwords from Latin and Greek are adapt, allusion, anonymous, appropriate, benefit,
catastrophe, crisis, encyclopedia, fact, monopoly, relaxation, pneumonia, transcribe, habitual,
etc. Other words borrowed from French are bizarre, chocolate, duel, entrance, equip, explore,
moustache, muscle, progress, probability, shock, vase, vogue, volunteer, etc. The following
words represent borrowings from Spanish and Portuguese: apricot, alligator, banana, barricade,
cannibal, canoe, cockroach, cocoa, corral, sombrero, tobacco, tank, potato, mosquito, hurricane,
sombrero, etc. Many Italian words were borrowed into English like, balcony, carnival, concerto,
cupola, design, giraffe, macaroni, soprano, plaza, opera, etc. (Crystal, 1995: 60).
When the period of worldwide exploration begun, there were over the 50 languages that
influenced on English even some of the indigenous languages of North America, Asia, and
Africa. What is interesting about these words is that some of them found the direct way to the
English vocabulary, while others were indirectly introduced in English over Latin, French, or

22
Italian. During this period the writing of English language dictionaries reached a great level of
expertise. (Crystal, 1995)
The first English dictionaries emerged in the period of Early Modern English. The first
dictionary which provided definitions of English words was “Table Alphabeticall” written by
Robert Cawdrey in 1604. Other dictionaries from the following period, were “An English
Expositour” in 1616 by John Bullokar, “English Dictionarie” in 1623 written by Henry
Cockeram, from Thomas Blount “Glossographia” in 1656, “New World of English Words” in
1658, written by Edward Phillips, “English Dictionary” in 1704 by Edward Cocker, Nathan
Bailey “Universal Etymological English Dictionary” in 1721 and in 1730 Bailey and his
associates published “Dictionarum Britannicum” which contained 48,000 entries. Based on
Bailey’s work, in 1755, Samuel Johnson published “Dictionary of English Language” thus it had
less entries than the “Dictionarum Britannicum” (Allgeo, 2010: 157). It is considered that the
“Dictionary of English Language” was the most significant contribution to linguistics of that
time. Johnson improved the spelling and set a standard for the words use.
The English grammar was based on the rules from the Latin grammar. Some of the
terminology was also borrowed from Latin. One of the most influential representatives of
prescriptive grammar was Robert Lowth. He lived from 1710 to 1787, and he was a theologian, a
professor of poetry at the Oxford from 1741 to1753, and his most significant work was “Short
Introduction to English Grammar” written in 1762. (Algeo,2010: 158) He introduced the rules for
the modal verbs shall and will which were created in “Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae” by
John Wallis those rules were considered as incorrect for the majority of English speakers (Algeo,
2010: 158). One of the most important grammarians of the late 18th century was Lindley Murray,
whose most significant work was “English Grammar”
The English language grammar from the period of early Modern English doesn’t differ
much from the one of the Middle English period. As already discussed, until the end of the
Middle English period the –es had been accepted as the genitive to all nouns singular, and the
plural suffix. It emerged that most of the nouns had two forms like they have today, e.g. sister
and sisters. Thus, the apostrophe that was useful in distinguishing the written forms of the
genitive singular and plural e.g. sister’s and sisters’ was adopted only in 17th and 18th centuries
(Algeo,2010: 161).

23
 Irregular noun plurals like geese, feet, teeth, mice, men, women, etc. survived until
today. Some of –n plurals remained in the early Modern English, such as “shoon” meaning shoes,
“kine” or cows, oxen, children, etc. The fact is that the –n in children was not present in the Old
English but it was eventually added with the other –n plurals while the oxen is one of the rare
which survived from the Old English (Algeo,2010: 161).
Adjectives and adverbs were still forming comparatives with –er and superlatives with
–est thus it was still used the form from the Old English, mo(e) or more, and most. Tough there
occurred major changes in the pronouns. Due to the potential overlooking of the lower-case i, I
was capitalized. The distinction made in Middle English between the first and second person
singular, my and mine and thy and thine, was made until the 18th century when my became only
correct form of first person possessive, later on mine was used as a nominal, as the s-forms like
hers, yours, etc. (Algeo,2010: 162)
It is estimated that contracted verb forms appeared in writing in the 17th century, but
they were probably used before in spoken language. Verb forms which were consisting of the
verb be plus a present participle occurred in Old English, but they were rarely used until the 15 th
century. For instance, won’t originates from wol(l) not, an’t originates from 17th century while
the form ain’t appears in 18th etc. (Algeo,2010: 177) Disappearance of distinctive inflectional
endings for noun without the genitive and plural –s, the number of prepositions increased during
the period of early Modern English (Algeo,2010).
Many classical works were translated in this period and many terms from Latin and
Greek were introduced into English since there was a lack of English equivalents. In order to
enrich the vocabulary of a language some writers, like Thomas Elyot, were seeking for the
improvement of the English language. They considered that their obligation was to approach this
new acquired techniques and inventions in fields of linguistic, medicine, science, etc. to the
English people. It was considered that English wasn’t at the same level like Latin and Greek
especially in fields of science and medicine, English was often described as a language of every
day conversation, but not as a language of library (Crystal, 1995).
The most influential works of that time were works of William Shakespeare, and the
King James Bible (Crystal, 1995) William Shakespeare’s influence is mainly reflected in the area
of lexicon. His works provide many examples of the English development. His poems and plays
were instances for word formation, syntax, contemporary pronunciation, language use (Crystal,

24
1995: 62). Words like: accommodation, countless, dislocated, eventful, etc. are words which
appeared for the first time in Shakespeare’s works and even today are still used.
The King James Bible was published in 1611, the same year that Shakespeare retired
(Crystal, 1995:64). The 54 translators were translating this work. What is unique for this work is
that many irregular verbs preserved their older forms, for instance: “digged” instead of dug,
“spake” instead of spoke, “gat” instead of got, “holpen” instead of helped, etc. (Crystal,
1995:65) In Shakespeare’s works there are used both, modern and old constructions, of verb do
with negatives and in questions, while in the King James Bible there lacks the modern use of this
constructions. For instance, the old version: “they knew him not” while the modern was “they did
not know him” (Crystal, 1995:65).

2.4 The period of Modern English

The period of Modern English represents a kind of English that differs from those of
the earlier periods. The period of Modern English started in the 18th century (Crystal,1995: 76).
English from this period, especially the grammar, punctuation, and spelling is quite similar to the
English that we are familiar with. This period is marked by the geographical expansion, and
increasing of number of English speakers.
Since the period of early Modern English, the science and technological vocabulary has
been constantly improving. Technological achievements, important discoveries and theories, like
Faraday’s electricity and Darwin’s evolution theory, were adopted worldwide, introducing new
terms and styles of expression in English vocabulary. Until the end of the 19th century it emerged
a recognizable variety of scientific English (Crystal,1995). What also marked this period is the
rapid development in domains of physics, chemistry, and biology which led to the enrichment of
the English vocabulary. Some of the new terms of the period Modern English are: altimeter,
ampere, centigrade, voltmeter, watt, electron in the domain of physics, bacterium, chromosome,
chlorophyll, leukocyte, symbiosis, etc. in the domain of biology. The great number of the
medicine and biological terms was introduced into English vocabulary, such as aphasia,
claustrophobia, diphtheria, gastritis, laryngitis, kleptomania, cirrhosis, neuritis, etc.
(Crystal,1995:87).

25
 Vocabulary has always been prone to the changes. Beside of the changes in the
domains of the technology and science there are many distinctions between the slang used in the
past and today. What is also interesting is that the dialects and regional vocabulary familiar to the
older generations has vanished. There have emerged great differences in pragmatics of the
language. There appeared the norms of interaction, pointing out the differences in various areas
such as the use of personal titles, first names, greeting formulae, the conventions of letter-writing,
taboo words, etc. (Crystal,1995). The new varieties, both national and international, are
considered for the greatest development in the language. Two greatest national varieties of
English are American and British English (Algeo,2010).
The first important step in the development of global English took place in the late
16th century (Crystal,1995). The first settlement from England was to America. The first English
speaking colonists in America were still using the English that they used in England. Thus,
eventually language was changing in England as well as in America. The new aroused
circumstances facing colonist in America eventually caused changes in language that they were
using, thus it retained many characteristics from the period of earlier English.
One of the differences between the American and British English is certainly the
national differences in word choice. There is a pile of equivalent British and American words
thus plenty of those words and expressions are understood and widely used in both countries. For
instance, American word automobile and its equivalent in British is car, or motor car, the
Americans use automobile in more formal contexts, and the ordinary term being car, while the
American word automobile occurs in the names of two English motoring organizations, Royal
Automobile Club, and the Automobile Organization (Algeo, 2010: 185).
There are some syntactical and morphological differences between the American and
British English. British are more prone than the Americans, to use a plural verb form. For
instance, British are more likely to use plural verb forms such as “the public are...” Such a verb
forms are more are mostly used with the names of the sports teams since they don’t have the
plural –s, in American usage they require singular verbs, for example, “Wimbledon Are Fancied
for Double.” (Alegeo,2010: 188) Some of the differences in the choice of the prepositions
between American and British English are that the Britons say they live in the street while the
Americans say they live on it, the American train passengers say they get on or off the train while
the British passengers says they get in or out the train (Algeo,2010: 188).

26
 The history of English form the beginning of the period this period has been constantly
been changing. Geographically, English was expanded around the globe firstly by the British
colonization and empire building, and secondly, and more recently by the American influence in
world affairs. That is why these two varieties are considered to be the most influential for the
development of English as a global language.

27
 CHAPTER III

English around the World

The third chapter of this MA paper aims to explore the movements of the English
language around the globe. Each of the sections will discuss English varieties around the world.
The first subchapter deals with two major varieties of English, the American English and British
English and the differences between them. Main goal of the second section is to explore English
in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. The third subchapter examines the English language in
South Africa and Asia.
Despite the fact that Britain’s former colonies become independent until the mid-
twentieth century, they kept the English language in order to serve for diverse internal functions
(Jenkins, 2006). English as a global language has become a main topic of much research. English
has spread around the world and it is adopted as international lingua franca by a large number of
countries. Its wide use in many spheres of modern life has contributed that English is now
discussed in terms of three different groups of users. First of them are those whose English
language is a mother tongue i.e., a native language speakers, then a second language speakers,
and the foreign language speakers.
According to Kachru, there are “Three Circles of English, the inner, the outer and the
expanding circle” which helps to describe the English on the international level. “The Inner
Circle” of the model represents those societies where English is the native language such as the
USA, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. “The Outer Circle” represents the postcolonial
Anglophonic countries like African and Asian countries, India and Singapore. “The Expanding
Circle” this circle is used to describe those countries where English is regarded as an
“international language” and it is learned as a “foreign language”. Countries of the “Expanding
Circle” are China, Greece, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, etc. (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 292).
English was rapidly spreading during the past decades so in addition to the model of “Three
Circles of English“ Kachru says that English can be regarded as a “additional language” and
“alternative language” in multilingual societies (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 292).

28
 3.1 The American and the British English

The first settlement from Britain to the American continent was made in 1607, when an
expedition arrived to Jamestown, Virginia, and later, in 1620, the New England. Many of the first
English-speaking settlers that founded South Atlantic colonies were Puritans who came as
religious dissenters. Due to their strong political and cultural bond with Britain, their native
country, English that is spoken in areas of New England and South, is quite similar with southern
British English, regarding some linguistic features. For instance, in some of the New England’s
and South accents, the post vocalic /r/ is not pronounced in words like car, card, four, etc.
(Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 59).
Later movements from North and South within the American continent, and inflow of
new settlers from different parts of world, brought to the diversity of dialects and many mixed
dialect areas. For instance, in the 17th century, Pennsylvania was settled mainly by the people
from the Midlands and the North of the England (Crystal, 2003: 33). In the 18th century there was
a wave of settlement from the Northern Ireland, many of those people stayed along the coast
mainly in the area of Philadelphia (Crystal, 2003: 33). By the end of the 1790s the number of
American population was 4 million people, most of them living on the Atlantic coast. Only a
century later the number of American population increased to the 50 million which were spread
within the American continent.
Thus, the people who influenced the American English did not come only from
England. The Spanish occupied parts of west and south-west. The French were settled in the
northern territories. The territory of today’s New York was settled by Dutch and territory of
Pennsylvania, by Germans. Due to the poverty and revolution in Europe, people fled to America
in 19th century, which caused a massive immigration to America. In 1900s the number of
American population was 75 million and it doubled until the 1950s (Crystal, 2003: 35).
The two major, and the most taught varieties of English are American and British
English. There is a large number of distinguishing features regarding the orthography, grammar,
lexis, phonology, of the American and British English. If we compare American and British
English, as far as the lexis is concerned there are some dissimilarities, for instance, gas in
American English while its equivalent in British English is petrol, fall in American English and
autumn in British English, railroad in American English and railway in British English. Some

29
other examples of dissimilarities between the American and British English are : biscuit, crisps,
chips, jam, football, wardrobe are words used in British English, while their equivalents in
American English are cookie, potato chips, French fries, jelly, soccer, closet (Kachru, Kachru,
Nelson, 2006: 63).
The most learned kinds of English are American and British English. General American
is the most correct pronunciation of American English while the term Received Pronunciation is
used for British pronunciation. When discussing the accents, General American pronunciation is
rhotic /'roʊtɪk/ this is why the letter “r” is always pronounced, while Received Pronunciation is
non-rhotic which means that “r” is in the most cases silent, unless it is followed by a vowel.
British pronunciation of the words that are consisting letter “r” is much smoother in comparison
to the American version where it sounds rougher. For instance, in British English in words like
car, jar, inform, etc. “r” is not pronounced, it is silent thus in American English you hear the
pronunciation of the letter “r.”
The pronunciation of the American /æ/ in words like dance, can’t, or grass differs from
British, since they are pronouncing these words with /a:/, unrounded /ᵅ/ versus /ᵄ/ in words like
dollar, lot, etc. and the postvocalic /r/ in the words like car, card etc.(Kachru, Kachru, Nelson,
2006: 63). The spelling differences in words consisting -o in American English, like honor, color
in British English are spelled with –ou, honour, colour, etc. Words like canceling, and traveling,
double the consonant –l in British English and they are spelled like cancelling, and travelling.
Words ending in –er in American English like theater, center in British English they are spelled
with –re theatre, centre. Words ending in –se in American English, such as license, defense, end
in –ce in British English, licence, difence (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 63).
As far as the dissimilarities in grammar are concerned, there are some differences
between the American and British English, when expressing possession for instance, Americans
use verb have while the Britons use have got. When referring to the future Americans use the
verb will, and the Britons shall (though shall has recently became obsolete in English and it is
used only with a modal value). As a consequence of the mixing during the colonial period,
American English was perceived as homogeneous, when comparing it with British dialects
(Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 63).

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 3.2 English in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand

The major settlement of the Britain’s supporters, to the Canada, followed the US
Declaration of Independence in 1776 (Crystal, 2003: 37). Most of the “United Empire Loyalists”
settled the territory of Canada since they considered themselves unable to stay in the US. First,
they settled the territory of today’s Nova Scotia, and later on they were moving to New
Brunswick and the other parts of the land. The population number of Canada estimated in 2001,
was 31 million, while two thirds of them, claiming that English is their native or home language
(Crystal, 2003: 37).
Canadian English has a great number of similarities with the English spoken in North
America and the non-native speakers find it very difficult to recognize the differences between
the two varieties. Canadian English is considered as a mixture of British and American features,
thus it has been developed to suit the needs of Canadians. The Canadian English was enriched by
the borrowings from French, for instance, cache being the French loanword used to describe a
place for storing supplies, or caboteur describing a ship engaged in coastal trade. Many people
confuse Canadian accent with American, while the Americans identify it with the British accents.
Thus, the Canadians prefer when they are not classified in neither of these groups (Crystal, 2003:
39).
Both Australia and New Zealand were colonized, by Britain, late. The Australia was
colonized in 1788 and later the New Zealand, around 1840 (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 74).
It is claimed that these colonization contributed to the linguistic similarity of the Australian and
New Zealand English. The people that migrated to Australia were rapidly moving within the
country and by the 1900s, there were nearly 4 million people on the territory of Australia, and by
the 2002, almost 19 million. (Crystal, 2003: 41) The great number of Australian settlers was
coming from Britain, which influenced on language and contributed that it changes. Some of the
Cockney accents from London and the brogue of Irish English can be heard even today in
Australia. There are even some expressions used in Australian English that originate from some
of the Aboriginal languages. The latest influence on Australian English was made by the
American English so the language of the country has a quite mixed character (Crystal, 2003: 41).

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 The English language came later to the New Zealand. Tough the Britons came later to
the New Zealand than to the Australia, the relationship between the New Zealand seems to be
stronger and the appreciation for British values and institutions seems to be on a much higher
level. (Crystal, 2003: 41) Due to the geographical proximity, Australian and New Zealand’s
English are considered as similar languages, thus there are dissimilarities.
There are plenty of linguistic aspects that are similar for the both varieties of English.
For instance, both, Australian and New Zealand English are unique because of “The raised short
front vowels /ᴂ/ and /ɛ/, fronting of /u/, the development of an on-glide for long high vowels /u/

and /i/, the raising of the nucleus in the diphthongs /aw/ and /ai/. /oʊ/ in both varieties exhibits a

lowering of the nucleus, in Australia /oʊ/ can be heard as /ai/.” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006:
77)
The most recognizable difference between the Australian and New Zealand English is in
the pronunciation of the vowels. The most evident is the vowel /ɪ/ in a word like bit which has a
different trajectory in these varieties of English. In Australian English, the vowel /ɪ/ appears to
the front of /i/ since it is raised and fronted, this is why sit can be confused with seat by the
speakers other than the native ones. Thus, in the New Zealand English the /ɪ/ sounds more like /˄/
so that sit could be mistaken by sut (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 78). Another distinguishing
characteristic of New Zealand English is the integration of the vowels /ɪ∂/ and /ɛ∂/ so that the
words like ear and air are pronounced the same (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 78).
Distinguishing characteristic of Australian English is the frequent usage of the nicknames
and hypocoristics, for instance, “Baza” or “Baz” for “Barry”, and the usage of the suffix –o in
place names, like “Arno for Arncliffe” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 78). The Australians are
prone to change the names and some other terms. For instance, “arvo for the afternoon”, this
makes them unique and different from the other varieties (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 78).
The most of the differences between the Australian and New Zealand English are
displayed in the vocabulary. Most of the words that are different are used for “indigenous flora
and fauna, and for the place names” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 78). Another distinguishing
feature between the Australian and New Zealand English, is the usage of the “utterance-final
participle eh” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 78).

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 3.3 English in South Africa and Asia

The British invasion on the territory of South Africa occurred in 1795, during the
Napoleonic Wars. The control of the British colonists was established in 1806, and English
became official language of the Cape region in 1822 (Crystal, 2003: 43). English was used in
law, education, and in some other institutions. British settlements continued in 1840s and 1850s,
and it is estimated that almost half a million English-speaking immigrants settled the territory of
South Africa by the end of the nineteenth century.
The English language spoken on the territory of South Africa was unique because of the
various regional accents that diverse groups of British settlers brought to the South Africa. For
instance, in the area of Cape and Midlands, there was present the accent of the London area,
while on the territory of Natal, the northern British accent. English was also used as a second
language in South Africa by many African speakers (Crystal, 2003: 43).
In South Africa, English was always a less spoken language, which gained official
status in 1925. It was chiefly spoken by the white people, mainly those of the British origin and
eventually it became a first language of many Africans. The Governor of the Cape, Lord Charles
Somerset, who aimed to Anglicize the African population, brought “Scottish Presbyterian
ministers to serve in churches and Englishmen to teach in country schools” in order to promote
the English language on the territory of Africa (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 160). Thus, the
African were refusing this idea of Anglicization, the period of Anglicization policy lasted until the
1910 when there was formed the Union of South Africa (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 160).
In South Africa, English language acts as a bond between the various cultural societies
since there are 11 official languages. English has a major role in the administration of South
Africa, in interaction between the diverse organs of the state. English is also used as the language
of medicine, science, commerce and international trade, diplomacy, technology, the internet,
media, international communication, etc. English presence in media both, electronic and printed,
has some sort of special status, considering that no other official language can be compared with
the presence of English in media.
English in South Asia has a special place due to the large number of various functions
in domains of modern life, in education, and in cross-cultural communication. Due to the large
number of speakers in India and in other five countries of the region: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal,

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Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, English is regarded as a “language of power and as a means of
economic uplift and upward social mobility” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 90).
The South Asian English origins are rooted in Britain. According to the historical data,
the first British influence occurred when the group of London merchants came to the Indian
subcontinent in 1600 (Crystal, 2003: 47). The first trading station was established in 1612 in
Surat. During the period from 1765 until the independence in 1947, English language became the
means of administration and education within the subcontinent (Crystal, 2003: 47). It is estimated
that the number of population in India reaches over 1 billion, and the number of English speakers
on this subcontinent, vary from 333 million to the 200 million (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006:
90). The fact that the English language has more speakers in India, than in the USA and the UK
combined, contributed to the widespread of English in the most significant domains of a country.
English language plays a great role in education of South Asian countries. English was
introduced by the “East India Company” at the beginning of 17th. English language was
spreading in the region along with the growing influence of the “East India Company” (Kachru,
Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 93). With the establishment of the universities of Bombay today’s
Mumbai, Calcutta and Madras now Kolkata and Chennai, English got a reputation of a language
that is used as “medium for higher intellectual activities” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 90). It
is estimated that until the 1920s English language has become a language of political discourse.
Eventually English language has become dominant language for education, administration,
judiciary, and the Indian media. (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 90).
What illustrates the best the spread of the English language in South Asian countries is
the English presence in the media. Some research has shown that the “audience prefers English
as the medium for gaining knowledge and information” (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 100).
The newspapers published in English reach the extraordinary number of copies. In South Asia
radio is mass medium with the largest reach, both geographically and socially, thus, except in
India, English is hardly to be heard on South Asian radios (Kachru, Kachru, Nelson, 2006: 100).

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Bibliography:
 Algeo, John (2010) “The Origins and the Development of the English Language”, 6th
Edition, Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, Boston;
 Brutt-Griffler, Janina (2002) “World English - A Study of its Development”, 1st Edition,
Multilingual Matters LTD, New York;
 Crystal, David (1995) “The Cambridge Encyclopedia of English Language” 2nd Edition,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge;
 Crystal, David (2003) “English as a Global Language” 2nd Edition, Cambridge University
Press, New York;
 Hogg, Richard M. (1992) “The Cambridge History of the English Language” 1st Edition,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge;
 Jenkins, Jennifer (2006) “World Englishes - A Resource Book for Students” 2nd Edition,
Routledge, London
 Kachru, Braj B. & Kachru, Yumina & Nelson, Cecil L. (2006) “The Handbook of World
Englishes”, 1st published by Blackwell Publishing, Oxford;
 Marsden, Richard (2004) “The Cambridge Old English Reader”, 1st Published by
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
 The Online Oxford Dictionary (2016),
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/language

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