Chapter 5- Language

Key Issue 3- Why Do Individual Languages Vary Among Places?


  • Dialects of English

  • Distinguishing between Language and Dialects


Official Languages

  • Official language: used by the government to enact legislation, publish documents, and conduct other public business

  • In Some cases, the official language is the only one used in public schools

  • Working language: is designed by an international organization or corporation as its primary means of communication for daily correspondence and conversations

    • The United Nations has six official working languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish

    • The European Union has 24 official and working languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish and Swedish

    • English is the official language of 56 countries and the predominant nonofficial language of several, used for official documents but does not have official status

    Informal Languages

  • Informal Languages: being created through mixing English with other languages

    • Franglish- a mix of French and English, French is the official language of 29 countries and is a lingua franca for international relations

      • Language is a national pride and identity for France, the French government uses terms that are solely from French that are mixed and borrowed since Franglish hurts the national pride

    • Spanglish- a mix of Spanish and English, diffused into the United States (diffuses Spanish to the US)

      • New words have been invented in Spanglish

        • Ex: Textar instead of une mensajito

    • Denglish- mix of German and English

      • D stands for Deutsch (german word for german)

  • Pidgin: a group that learns a lingua franca may learn a simplified form, used to communicate to speakers of another language

    • no native speaks and is always spoken in the native country

    • groups combine grammer rules and lingua franca words creating a mixing of the language


Dialect

  • Dialect: regional variation of a language distinguished by distinctive vocabulary, spelling, and pronunciation

    • speakers of a dialect can understand speakers of another dialect

    • different dialects reflect features of the environment where they live

    • documented through the study of particular words, words not used don’t typically cross a boundary

  • Subdialect: is a sub division of a dialect, 2 subdialects of the same dialect share few differences but mostly in pronounication and vocabulary

  • Isogloss: word usage boundary created by a word determined by collecting data from people, every word has a unique isogloss

American and British English

  • speakers of a language migrate to other locations other dialects develop

    • English speakers to North America because of englishs larger number of speakers, it has a large number of dialects

    • North Americans speak differently from British, India, Australia and other English speaking countries

    • English language was brouch to the North American continent by colonists from England who settled around Atlantic Coast in the seventeeth century

    • earliest colonists were most responsible for dominant language patterns that exist today

U.S. English differens from English of England in 3 ways because of the lack of spatial interaction

  • Since we are seperated by the atlantic Ocean, English in both areas evolved independently

  1. Vocabulary

    The vocab in US differes from the England vocab because settlers in Americans encountered new obejcts and experiences

    new environment and physical features had to be given new names

    Indigenous native americans also created english names in the americas

    ex. canoe, moccasin, squash, moose raccoon

    new inventions appeared they got different names on each side of the atlantic

    ex. life - england, elevator - american

  2. Pronounciaiton

    colonists and british pronounce words differently because interaction between the groups are confined to exchange of letters and other printed matter rather than direct speech

    americans pronounce unaccented syllables with more clarity than do british english spearkers

    pronounication has changed more in england that in the us, people in the united states do not pseaker “proper” englsih bedcause when the colonists left negland “proper” english was not what it is today,

    colonists from upper clans english became the model in england for pronounciation

  3. Spelling

    American spelling has came from British standard because of a strong national feeling in the US for an independent identiity

    webster argued that spelling and grammer reforms help a national language reduce cultural dependence on england and inspire national pride

    the spelling differences between british and american english are mainly because of the diffusion of Websters ideas in the united states

Dialects in the United Kingdom

  • english varies by regions within individual countires, northerners souns different from southeneres in US and in England