Dealing with

2

Dealing with main varieties, we can talk of:

                    British English (BrE)

                    American English (AmE)

                    Australian English (AuE)

                    Canadian English

                    South African English

                    New Zealand English

                    Caribbean English

In addition, each main variety of English has sub-varieties or regional variations. For example, within the British English variety we have: Cockney, Essex English, Geordie, Received Pronunciation, Scottish English, Standard English and so on.

British English, or English (BrE, BE, en-GB), is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere. The Oxford English Dictionary applies the term to English "as spoken or written in the British Isles; esp[ecially] the forms of English usual in Great Britain", reserving "Hiberno-English" for the "English language as spoken and written in Ireland".

There are slight regional variations in formal written English in the United Kingdom. For example, although the words wee and little are interchangeable in some contexts, wee (as an adjective) is almost exclusively written by some people from some parts of northern Britain (and especially Scotland) or from Northern Ireland, whereas in Southern England and Wales, little is used predominantly.

Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described by the term British English. The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken, so a uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to the spoken language. According to Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English, "For many people . . . especially in England [British English] is tautologous," and it shares "all the ambiguities and tensions in the word British, and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity."

Dialects

Dialects and accents vary amongst the four countries of the United Kingdom, as well as within the countries themselves. There are also differences in the English spoken by different socio-economic groups in any particular region.

The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England, which comprises Southern English dialects, West Country dialects, Midlands English dialects and Northern English dialects), Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh language), and Scottish English (not to be confused with the Scots language). The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. The Scottish and Northern English dialects include many words originally borrowed from Old Norse and a few borrowed from Gaelic, though most of the structure and common words are conservative Anglo-Saxon, hence "kirk" (church), "beck" (stream), "feart" (feared), "fell" (hillside), "kistie" (chest, box), "lang syne" (long ago) and so on.

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 a team led by Sally Johnson, Professor of Linguistics and Phonetics at Leeds University, to study British regional dialects.

Johnson's team are sifting through a large collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by the "Voices project" run by the BBC, in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout the country. The BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles about how the British speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information will also be collated and analysed by Johnson's team both for content and for where it was reported.

"Perhaps the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the English language is as diverse as ever, despite our increased mobility and constant exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio." Work by the team on this project is not expected to end before 2010. When covering the award of the grant on 1 June 2007, The Independent stated:

Mr Upton, who is Professor of English at Leeds University, said that they were "very pleased"—and indeed, "well chuffed"—at receiving their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had come from the Black 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" Regional

The form of English most commonly associated with the upper class in the southern counties of England is called Received Pronunciation (RP). It derives from a mixture of the Midland and Southern dialects which were spoken in London in the early modern period and is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners. Although speakers from elsewhere in England may not speak with an RP accent it is now a class-dialect more than a local dialect. It may also be referred to as "the Queen's (or King's) English", "Public School English", or "BBC English" as this was originally the form of English used on radio and television, although a wider variety of accents can be heard these days. About two percent of Britons speak RP, and it has evolved quite markedly over the last 40 years.

In the South East there are significantly different accents; the London Cockney accent is strikingly different from RP and its rhyming slang can be (and was initially intended to be) difficult for outsiders to understand.

Estuary English 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. Communities migrating to the UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to the country. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 100 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's school children. As a result, Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors, and Multicultural London English has emerged as a mixture of these influences.

Since the mass internal immigration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and its position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of various accent developments.

In Northampton the older accent has been influenced by overspill Londoners. There is an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a transitional accent between the East Midlands and East Anglian. It is the last southern midland accent to use the broad "a" in words like bath/grass (i.e. barth/grarss). Conversely crass/plastic use a slender "a". A few miles northwest in Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the town of Corby, five miles (8 km) north, one can find Corbyite, which unlike the Kettering accent, is largely influenced by the West Scottish accent. This is due to the influx of Scottish steelworkers.

In addition, most British people can to some degree temporarily "swing" their accent towards a more neutral form of English at will, to reduce difficulty where very different accents are involved, or when speaking to foreigners. This phenomenon is known in linguistics as code shifting.

American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States.

English is the most common language in the United States. Though the U.S. federal government has no official language, English is the common language used by the federal government and is considered the de facto language of the United States because of its widespread use. English has been given official status by 28 of the 50 state governments.

The use of English in the United States was a result of English colonization. The first wave of English-speaking settlers arrived in North America in the 17th century. Since then, American English has been influenced by the languages of the Native American population, the languages of European and non-European colonists, immigrants and neighbors, and the languages of slaves from West Africa.

Compared to English as spoken in England, North American English is more homogeneous. Some distinctive accents can be found on the East Coast (for example, in eastern New England and New York City) partly because these areas were in close contact with England and imitated prestigious varieties of British English at a time when these were undergoing changes. In addition, many speech communities on the East Coast have existed in their present locations for centuries, while the interior of the country was settled by people from all regions of the existing United States and developed a far more generic linguistic pattern. The red areas are those where non-rhotic pronunciations are found among some white people in the United States. AAVE-influenced non-rhotic pronunciations may be found among black people throughout the country. Most North American speech is rhotic, as English was in most places in the 17th century. Rhoticity was further supported by Hiberno-English, West Country English and Scottish English as well as the fact most regions of England at this time also had rhotic accents. In most varieties of North American English, the sound corresponding to the letter r is an alveolar approximant [ɹ] or retroflex [ɻ] rather than a trill or a tap. The loss of syllable-final r in North America is confined mostly to the accents of eastern New England, New York City and surrounding areas and the coastal portions of the South, and African American Vernacular English. In rural tidewater Virginia and eastern New England, 'r' is non-rhotic in accented (such as "bird", "work", "first", "birthday") as well as unaccented syllables, although this is declining among the younger generation of speakers. Dropping of syllable-final r sometimes happens in natively rhotic dialects if r is located in unaccented syllables or words and the next syllable or word begins in a consonant. In England, the lost r was often changed into [ə] (schwa), giving rise to a new class of falling diphthongs.

Furthermore, the er sound of fur or butter, is realized in AmE as a monophthongal r-colored vowel (stressed [ɝ] or unstressed [ɚ] as represented in the IPA). This does not happen in the non-rhotic varieties of North American speech.

Some other English changes in which most North American dialects do not participate:

                   The shift of /æ/ to /ɑ/ (the so-called "broad A") before /f/, /s/, /θ/, /ð/, /z/, /v/ alone or preceded by a homorganic nasal. This is the difference between the British Received Pronunciation and American pronunciation of bath and dance. In the United States, only eastern New England speakers took up this modification, although even there it is becoming increasingly rare. The realization of intervocalic /t/ as a glottal stop [ʔ] (as in [bɒʔəl] for bottle).

This change is not universal for British English and is not considered a feature of Received Pronunciation. This is not a property of most North American dialects. Newfoundland English is a notable exception.

On the other hand, North American English has undergone some sound changes not found in other varieties of English speech:

                    The merger of /ɑ/ and /ɒ/, making father and bother rhyme. This change is nearly universal in North American English. Exceptions are accents in northeastern New England, such as the Boston accent, and in New York City). The merger of /ɑ/ and /ɔ/.

This is the so-called cot–caught merger, where cot and caught are homophones.

This change has occurred in eastern New England, in Pittsburgh and surrounding areas, and from the Great Plains westward. For speakers who do not merge caught and cot:

The replacement of the cot vowel with the caught vowel before voiceless fricatives (as in cloth, off [which is found in some old-fashioned varieties of RP]), as well as before /ŋ/ (as in strong, long), usually in gone, often in on, and irregularly before /ɡ/ (log, hog, dog, fog [which is not found in British English at all]).

                    The replacement of the lot vowel with the strut vowel in most utterances of the words was, of, from, what and in many utterances of the words everybody, nobody, somebody, anybody; the word because has either /ʌ/ or /ɔ/;want has normally /ɔ/ or /ɑ/, sometimes /ʌ/. Vowel merger before intervocalic /ɹ/. Which vowels are affected varies between dialects, but the Mary-marry-merry, nearer-mirror, and hurry–furry mergers are all widespread. Another such change is the laxing of /e/, /i/ and /u/ to /ɛ/, /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ before /ɹ/, causing pronunciations like [pɛɹ], [pɪɹ] and [pjʊɹ] for pair, peer and pure. The resulting sound [ʊɹ] is often further reduced to [ɝ], especially after palatals, so that cure, pure, mature and sure rhyme with fir.

                    Dropping of /j/ is more extensive than in RP. In most North American accents, /j/ is dropped after all alveolar and interdental consonant, so that new, duke, Tuesday, resume are pronounced /nu/, /duk/, /tuzdeɪ/, /ɹɪzum/.

                    æ-tensing in environments that vary widely from accent to accent; for example, for many speakers, /æ/ is approximately realized as [eə] before nasal consonants. In some accents, particularly those from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City, [æ] and [eə] contrast sometimes, as in Yes, I can [kæn] vs. tin can [keən].

                   The flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ to alveolar tap [ɾ] before unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/ (bottle), as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else, whatever). Thus, for most speakers, pairs such as ladder/latter, metal/medal, and coating/coding are pronounced the same. For many speakers, this merger is incomplete and does not occur after /aɪ/; these speakers tend to pronounce writer with [əɪ] and rider with [aɪ]. This is a form of Canadian raising but, unlike more extreme forms of that process, does not affect /aʊ/. In some areas and idiolects, a phonemic distinction between what elsewhere become homophones through this process is maintained by vowel lengthening in the vowel preceding the formerly voiced consonant, e.g., [ˈlæːɾɹ̩] for "ladder" as opposed to [ˈlæɾɹ̩] for "latter".

                    T glottalization is common when /t/ is in the final position of a syllable or word (get, fretful: [ɡɛʔ], [ˈfɹɛʔfəl]), though this is always superseded by the aforementioned rules of flapping

                    Both intervocalic /nt/ and /n/ may be realized as [n] or [ɾ̃], making winter and winner homophones. Most areas in which /nt/ is reduced to /n/, it is accompanied further by nasalization of simple post-vocalic /n/, so that /Vnt/ and /Vn/ remain phonemically distinct. In such cases, the preceding vowel becomes nasalized, and is followed in cases where the former /nt/ was present, by a distinct /n/. This stop-absorption by the preceding nasal /n/ does not occur when the second syllable is stressed, as in entail.

                    The pin–pen merger, by which [ɛ] is raised to [ɪ] before nasal consonants, making pairs like pen/pin homophonous. This merger originated in Southern American English but is now also sometimes found in parts of the Midwest and West as well, especially in people with roots in the mountainous areas of the Southeastern United States.

Australian English

Australian English (AusE, AuE, AusEng, en-AU) is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language.

English is the primary language spoken throughout Australia.

Despite being given no official status in the constitution, English is Australia's de facto official language and is the first language of, and is used exclusively by, the vast majority of the population.

Australian English was distinctly recognisable as different from British English shortly after the founding of the colony of New South Wales in 1788. It arose from the intermingling of children of early settlers from a great variety of mutually intelligible dialectal regions of the British Isles and quickly developed into a major variety of English.

Phonological features

Australian diphthongs

                  Australian English is a non-rhotic accent that is highly distinctive from other varieties of English. It shares most similarity with other Southern Hemisphere accents, in particular New Zealand English. Like most dialects of English it is distinguished primarily by its vowel phonology.

o                   The vowels of Australian English can be divided into two categories: long and short vowels. The short vowels, consisting only of monophthongs, are similar to the lax vowels in British and North American English.

o                   The long vowels, consisting of both monophthongs and diphthongs, mostly correspond to its tense vowels and centring diphthongs. Unlike most varieties of English, it has a phonemic length distinction: that compresses, shortens or removes these features.

o                   The Australian English vowels /ɪ/, /e/,/æ/,/ɜː/,/ə/, and /oː/ are noticeably closer (higher tongue position) than their RP (British Received Pronunciation) equivalents. The centring diphthongs are accordingly also closer in AE than RP.

Monophthongs

      A long /æː/ sound is found in the adjectives bad, mad, glad and sad, before the /ɡ/ sound (for example, hag, rag, bag) and also in content words before /m/ and /n/ in the same syllable (for example, ham, tan, plant).

o                   In some speakers, especially those with the Broad accent, the vowel in words like dad, back and lag will be shifted toward [ɛ].

o                   In some varieties of Australian English, bad (with long [æː]) and lad (with short [æ]) do not rhyme (see bad–lad split).

o                   For many speakers, the /æː/ sound is flatter than the British /æː/.

o                   There is æ-tensing before a nasal consonant—The nasal sounds create changes in preceding vowels because air can flow into the nose during the vowel. Nasal consonants can also affect the articulation of a vowel. So for several speakers, the /æː/ vowel in words like "jam", "man", "dam" and "hand" will be shifted towards [e].

                  The /aː/ sound, an open unrounded vowel, is used in words like car, bath, ask, father and pass. So the words like trap and bath wouldn't have the same vowel (see Trap–bath split).

o                   However, words like chance, plant, branch, sample (words containing the suffix -mand, -ant, -anch, -ance) mostly have an /æ/ vowel as in cat but there are some speakers who use the vowel in cart (/aː/) for these words, particularly in South Australia, which had a different settlement chronology and type than other parts of the country.

Comparatively, most of the British accents use the back /ɑː/ sound.

                  The /e/ sound, which is a high-mid front unrounded vowel, is predominantly used in words like, dress, pet, bed and head. Comparatively, in most of American and British English, an [ɛ] sound is used instead, which is a low-mid front vowel.

                  The /ɪ/ sound, used in tin, bit and sit, tends to be tenser than in other varieties of English, and may sometimes sound like it's shifted to /i/ in the foreign ear. Thus, words like pin and kin will sound almost similar to peen and keen in the foreign ear. The final vowel in words like “happy” and “city”, which is typically /i/, is elongated to an /i:/ sound, so both will sound like happee and citee, respectively. Some of these aforementioned features are present in Chicano English.

                  Diphthongs

                  For many speakers, the vowel in words like "town" and "now" is [æʊ].

                  The vowel in words like "neat" and "feet" is [ei] sound where, for example, "neat" will be [neiʔ].

                  The vowel in "fate" is [æɪ] for several speakers, so words like that will sound like [fæɪʔ].

                  The vowel in "high" may be [ɑɪ] for those with the Broad accent, so "buy" might sound like "boy" in the foreign ear. This is a direct influence from the Cockney accent. Some of these features aforementioned are also present in the New York accent.

                  Non-rhoticity

                  Australian accent is R-less; in other words, the [r] sound does not appear at the end of a syllable or immediately before a consonant. A final -er is pronounced as lowered [ɐ] in most speakers, or [ə] for some. So the words butter [bɐɾə], here [hɪɐ] and park [paːk] will not contain the /r/ sound.

                  Intervocalic alveolar flapping

                  Intervocalic /t/ and /d/ undergoes voicing and flapping to the alveolar tap [ɾ] after the stressed syllable and before unstressed vowels (as in butter, party) and syllabic /l/, though not before syllabic /n/ (bottle vs button [batn]), as well as at the end of a word or morpheme before any vowel (what else, whatever). There will be a homophony if some words are flapped, for example, metal and petal will sound like medal and pedal. In formal speech /t/ is retained.

When coating becomes coatin' , the t remains voiceless, thus [kʌutn]. The cluster [nt] can also be flapped/tapped. As a result, in quick speech, words like winner and winter can become homophonous. This is a quality that Australian English shares most notably with North American English.

                  Linking and intrusive R or epenthetic /r/

                  The /r/ sound can occur when a word that has a final “r” in the spelling comes before another word that starts with a vowel. For example, in “car alarm” the sound /r/ can occur in “car” because here it comes before another word beginning with a vowel. The words “far”, “far more” and “farm” do not contain an /r/ but “far out” will contain the linking /r/ sound because the next word starts with a vowel sound.

                  An intrusive /r/ may be inserted before a vowel in words that do not have “r” in the spelling. For example, "drawing" will sound like "draw-ring", "saw it" will sound like "sore it", "the tuner is" and "the tuna is" will both be /ðə tjʉːnərɪz/.

                  For some speakers, a subtle epethentic /r/ may be added after the əʉ (M.-D. /oʊ/) sound in words like "no" [nəʉr], "hello" [həˈləʊr], "don't" [dəʊ-rnt] and "low" [ləʊr].

                  Yod coalescence

                  Yod coalescence occurs in /dj/, /sj/ and /tj/ into /dʒ/, /ʃ/ and /tʃ/, producing standard pronunciations such as [t͡ʃʰʉːn] for tune, /ʃɹiˈlæŋkə/ for Sri Lanka and /dʒɹɔː/ for draw.

The sound /j/ occurs in Australian English at the beginning of words like "yellow" and "yes" and it also occurs in words like "new" and "tube". An affricate also occurs in "dune", where it will be pronounced exactly like "June". In the case of /dʒ/, this palatalisation can lead to additional homophony where dew, due, and Jew come to be pronounced identically.

                  High rising intonation

                  Australian English speakers commonly use a form of upward inflection in their speech that is not associated with asking questions. In English, upward inflection (a rise in the pitch of the voice at the end of a sentence) typically signals a question. However, some speakers also use upward inflection as a way of including their conversational partner in the dialogue. This is also common in Californian English.

Canadian English

Canadian English (CanE, CE, en-CA[1]) is the variety of English spoken in Canada. English is the first language, or "mother tongue", of approximately 24 million Canadians (77%), and more than 28 million (86%) are fluent in the language. 82% of Canadians outside Quebec speak English natively, but within Quebec the figure drops to just 7.7% as most are native speakers of Canadian French.

Canadian English contains elements of British English and American English in its vocabulary, as well as many distinctive "Canadianisms". In many areas, speech is influenced by French, and there are notable local variations. Canada has very little dialect diversity compared to the United States. The phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon for most of Canada are similar to that of the Western and Midland regions of the United States. The Canadian Great Lakes region has similarities to that of the Upper Midwest & Great Lakes region and/or Yooper dialect (in particular Michigan which has extensive cultural and economic ties with Ontario), while the phonological system of western Canadian English is virtually identical to that of the Pacific Northwest of the United States, and the phonetics are similar. As such, Canadian English and American English are sometimes classified together as North American English. Canadian English spelling is largely a blend of British and American conventions.

Spelling and dictionaries

Canadian spelling of the English language combines British and American conventions.

                    French-derived words that in American English end with -or and -er, such as color or center, retain British spellings (colour, honour and centre). While the United States uses the Anglo-French spelling defense (noun), Canadians use the British spellings defence and offence. (Note that defensive and offensive are universal.)

                    In other cases, Canadians and Americans differ from British spelling, such as in the case of nouns like curb and tire, which in British English are spelled kerb and tyre.

                    Words such as realize and paralyze are usually spelled with -ize or -yze rather than -ise or -yse. (The etymological convention that verbs derived from Greek roots are spelled with -ize and those from Latin with -ise is preserved in that practice.)

                    Some nouns take -ice while matching verbs take -ise – for example, practice is a noun and practise is a verb; in addition, licence is a noun and license is a verb. (Note that prophecy and prophesy are universal.)

                   Canadian spelling sometimes retains the British practice of doubling consonant when adding suffixes to words even when the final syllable (before the suffix) is not stressed.

Compare Canadian (and British) travelled, counselling, and controllable (always doubled in British, more often than not in Canadian) to American traveled, counseling, and controllable (only doubled when stressed). (Both Canadian and British English use balloted and profiting.)

Canadian spelling conventions can be partly explained by Canada's trade history. For instance, the British spelling of the word cheque probably relates to Canada's once-important ties to British financial institutions. Canada's automobile industry, on the other hand, has been dominated by American firms from its inception, explaining why Canadians use the American spelling of tire and American terminology for the parts of automobiles (for example, truck instead of lorry, gasoline instead of petrol, trunk instead of boot).

Canada's political history has also had an influence on Canadian spelling. Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, once issued an order-in-council directing that government papers be written in the British style.

A contemporary reference for formal Canadian spelling is the spelling used for Hansard transcripts of the Parliament of Canada (see The Canadian Style in Further reading below).

Many Canadian editors, though, use the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, often along with the chapter on spelling in Editing Canadian English, and, where necessary (depending on context), one or more other references. (See Further reading below.)

The first Canadian dictionaries of Canadian English were edited by Walter Spencer Avis and published by Gage Ltd. The Beginner's Dictionary (1962), the Intermediate Dictionary (1964) and, finally, the Senior Dictionary (1967) were milestones in Canadian English lexicography. Many secondary schools in Canada use these dictionaries. The dictionaries have regularly been updated since: the Senior Dictionary was renamed Gage Canadian Dictionary and exists in what may be called its 5th edition from 1997. Gage was acquired by Thomson Nelson around 2003. The latest editions were published in 2009 by HarperCollins.

In 1997, the ITP Nelson Dictionary of the Canadian English Language was another product, but has not been updated since.

In 1998, Oxford University Press produced a Canadian English dictionary, after five years of lexicographical research, entitled The Oxford Canadian Dictionary. A second edition, retitled The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, was published in 2004. Just as the older dictionaries it includes uniquely Canadian words and words borrowed from other languages, and surveyed spellings, such as whether colour or color was the more popular choice in common use. Paperback and concise versions (2005, 2006), with minor updates, are available.

The scholarly Dictionary of Canadianisms on Historical Principles (DCHP) was first published in 1967 by Gage Ltd. It was a partner project of the Senior Dictionary (and appeared only a few weeks apart from it). The DCHP can be considered the "Canadian OED", as it documents the historical development of Canadian English words that can be classified as "Canadianisms". It therefore includes words such as mukluk, Canuck, bluff and grow op, but does not list common core words such as desk, table or car. It is a specialist, scholarly dictionary, but is not without interest to the general public. After more than 40 years, a second edition has been commenced at UBC in Vancouver in 2006.

Throughout most of the 20th century, Canadian newspapers generally adopted American spellings for example, color as opposed to the British-based colour. The use of such spellings was the long-standing practice of the Canadian Press perhaps since that news agency's inception, but visibly the norm prior to World War II. The practice of dropping the letter u in such words was also considered a labour-saving technique during the early days of printing in which movable type was set manually. Canadian newspapers also received much of their international content from American press agencies, therefore it was much easier for editorial staff to leave the spellings from the wire services as provided.

More recently, Canadian newspapers have adopted the British spelling variants such as -our endings, notably with The Globe and Mail changing its spelling policy in October 1990. Other Canadian newspapers adopted similar changes later that decade, such as the Southam newspaper chain's conversion in September 1998. The Toronto Star adopted this new spelling policy in September 1997 after that publication's ombudsman discounted the issue earlier in 1997.

The Star had always avoiding using recognized Canadian spelling, citing the Gage Canadian Dictionary in their defence. Controversy around this issue was frequent. When the Gage Dictionary finally adopted standard Canadian spelling, the Star followed suit.

South African English

The term South African English (SAfrE, SAfrEng, SAE, en-ZA) is applied to the first-language dialects of English spoken by South Africans, with the L1 English variety spoken by Zimbabweans, Zambians and Namibians, being recognised as offshoots.

There is some social and regional variation within South African English. Social variation within South African English has been classified into three groupings: Cultivated, closely approximating Received Pronunciation and associated with upper class; General, a social indicator of the middle class, and Broad, associated with the working class and/or Afrikaans descent, and closely approximating the second-language Afrikaans-English variety. This is similar to the case in Australian English.

Pronunciation

Like British English in Southern England, South African English is non-rhotic (except for some Afrikaans-influenced speakers, see below) and features the trap–bath split.

The two main phonological indicators of South African English are the behaviour of the vowels in kit and bath. The kit vowel tends to be "split" so that there is a clear allophonic variation between the close, front [ɪ] and a somewhat more central [ɪ̈]. The bath vowel is characteristically open and back in the General and Broad varieties of SAE. The tendency to monophthongise both /aʊ/ and /aɪ/ to [ɑː] and [aː] respectively, are also typical features of General and Broad SAE.[citation needed]

Features involving consonants include the tendency for voiceless plosives to be unaspirated in stressed word-initial environments, [tj] tune and [dj] dune tend to be realised as [tʃ] and [dʒ] respectively (See Yod coalescence), and /h/ has a strong tendency to be voiced initially.

New Zealand English

New Zealand English (NZE, en-NZ) is the dialect of the English language used in New Zealand.

The English language was established in New Zealand by colonists during the 19th century. It is one of "the newest native-speaker variet[ies] of the English language in existence, a variety which has developed and become distinctive only in the last 150 years" (p. 300). The most distinctive influences on New Zealand English have come from Australian English, British English in Southern England, Irish English, Scottish English, the prestige Received Pronunciation, and the Māori language. New Zealand English is similar to Australian English in pronunciation, with some key differences. One of the most prominent differences is the realisation of /ɪ/: in New Zealand English, as in some South African varieties, this is pronounced as a schwa.

Pronunciation

Vowels

The short front vowels

                    In New Zealand English the short-i of KIT is a central vowel not phonologically distinct from schwa /ə/, the vowel in unstressed "the". It thus contrasts sharply with the [i] vowel heard in Australia. Recent acoustic studies featuring both Australian and New Zealand voices show the accents were more similar before the Second World War and the KIT vowel has undergone rapid centralisation in New Zealand English. Because of this difference in pronunciation, some New Zealanders claim Australians say "feesh and cheeps" for fish and chips while some Australians counter that New Zealanders say "fush and chups".

                    The short-e /ɛ/ of YES has moved to fill in the space left by /ɪ/, and it is phonetically in the region of [ɪ]. This was played for laughs in the American TV series Flight of the Conchords, where the character Bret's name was often pronounced as "Brit," leading to confusion.

                    Likewise, the short-a /æ/ of TRAP is approximately [ɛ], which sounds like a short-e to other English speakers.

Conditioned mergers

                    The vowels /ɪə/ as in near and /eə/ as in square are increasingly being merged, so that here rhymes with there; and bear and beer, and rarely and really are homophones.

This is the "most obvious vowel change taking place" in New Zealand English. There is some debate as to the quality of the merged vowel, but the consensus appears to be that it is towards a close variant, [iə].

                    Before /l/, the vowels /iː/:/ɪə/ (as in reel vs real), as well as /ɒ/:/oʊ/ (doll vs dole), and sometimes /ʊ/:/uː/ (pull vs pool), /ɛ/:/æ/ (Ellen vs Alan) and /ʊ/:/ɪ/ (full vs fill) may be merged

Other vowels

                    /ɑr/-/ɑː/ as in start, bath, and palm is a near-open central-to-front vowel [ɐː] or [ɐ̟ː]. The phonetic quality of this vowel overlaps with the quality for /ʌ/ as in strut. The difference between the two is entirely length for many speakers.

                    The vowel /ɜ/ (as in bird and nurse) is rounded and often fronted in the region of [ɵː~œː~øː].

Consonants

                    New Zealand English is mostly non-rhotic (with linking and intrusive R), except for speakers of the so-called Southland burr, a semi-rhotic, Scottish-influenced dialect heard principally in Southland and parts of Otago. Among r-less speakers, however, non-prevocalic /r/ is sometimes pronounced in a few words, including Ireland and the name of the letter R itself.

                    /l/ is dark in all positions, and is often vocalised in the syllable coda. This varies in different regions and between different socio-economic groups; the younger, lower social class speakers vocalise /l/ most of the time.

Other consonants

                    The distinction between /w/ as in witch and /hw/ as in which, retained by older speakers, now seems to be disappearing.

                    The intervocalic /t/ may be flapped.

Other features

                    New Zealand English has the trap–bath split; words like dance, chance, plant and grant have /ɑː/, as in Southern England and South Australia.

                    As in Australian English, some New Zealanders will pronounce past participles such as grown, thrown and mown with two syllables, inserting an additional schwa /-oʊ.ən/. By contrast, groan, throne and moan are all unaffected, meaning these word pairs can be distinguished by ear.

                    The trans- prefix is commonly pronounced /træns/. This produces mixed pronunciation of the as in words like "transplant" (/trænzplɑːnt/) whereas in northern (but not southern) British English the same vowel is used in both syllables (/trænzplænt/).

                    The name of the letter H is usually /eɪtʃ/, as in North America, but it can be the aspirated /heɪtʃ/ of Hiberno-English origin also found in Australian English. (The /heɪtʃ/ pronunciation of 'h' is now widespread in the United Kingdom, being used by approximately 24% of British people born since 1982.

Caribbean English

Caribbean English is a broad term for the dialects of the English language spoken in the Caribbean, most countries on the Caribbean coast of Central America, and Guyana.

Caribbean English is influenced by the English-based Creole varieties spoken in the region, but they are not the same. In the Caribbean, there is a great deal of variation in the way English is spoken. Scholars generally agree that although the dialects themselves vary significantly in each of these countries, they all have roots in 17th-century English and African languages.

Overview

Examples of the English in daily use in the Caribbean include a different set of pronouns, typically, me, meh, or mi, you, yuh, he, she, it, we, wi or alawe, allyuh or unu, and dem or day. I, mi, my, he, she, ih, it, we, wi or alawe, allayu' or unu, and dem, den, deh for "them" with Central Americans. The so-called "dropping the 'h'" or th-stopping in th- words is common. Some might be "sing-songish" (Trinidad, Bahamas), rhotic  (Bajan, Guyanese), influenced by Irish English dialects (Jamaican), or have an accent influenced by any of these, as well as Spanish and indigenous languages in the case of the Central American English dialects such as the Belizean Creole (Kriol), or the Mískito Coastal Creole and Rama Cay Creole spoken in Nicaragua. However, the English used in media, education and business and in formal or semi-formal discourse is the International Standard variety with an Afro-Caribbean cadence.

Standard English - Where is that boy? ( /hwɛər ɪz ðæt bɔɪ/)

                    Barbados - 'Wherr dat boi?' ([hwer ɪz dæt bɔɪ]) (Spoken very quickly, is choppy, rhotic, and contains glottal stops)

                    Jamaica, and Antigua and Barbuda- 'Whierr daht bwoy dey?' ([hweɪr ɪz dɑt bʷɔɪ]) (Distinctive, sporadic rhoticity; Irish and Scottish influence)

                    Trinidad and Bahamas - 'Wey iz dat boy?' ([weɪ ɪz dæt bɔɪ]) (Very similar to the accents of south western England and Wales; Have no rhoticity)

                    Guyana and Tobago - 'Weyr iz daht boy/bai?(urban), Wey dat boy dey?(rural)' ([weɪɹ ɪz dɑt baɪ]) (Many variations dependent on urban/rural location, Afro or Indo descent or area, and competency in standard English; Sporadic rhoticity )

                    Saint Vincent and the Grenadines -- 'Wey dat boy dey?' ([weɪ dæt bɔɪ deɪ]) (Non-rhotic)

                    Belize, Nicaragua, The Bay Islands, Limón, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands - 'Wehr iz daht booy?' ([weɹ ɪz dɑt buɪ]) (Distinct, sporadic rhoticity, pronunciation becomes quite different from "Creole" pronunciation.)

The written form of the English language in the former and current British West Indies conforms to the spelling and grammar styles of Britain.

СПИСОК ВИКОРИСТАНОЇ ЛІТЕРАТУРИ

1.                  "British English; Hiberno-English". Oxford English Dictionary (2 ed.). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. 1989.

2.                  Phonological Atlas of North America at the University of Pennsylvania

3.                  Harrington, J., F. Cox, and Z. Evans (1997). "An acoustic phonetic study of broad, general, and cultivated Australian English vowels". Australian Journal of Linguistics 17 (2): 155–84. doi:10.1080/07268609708599550.

4.                  Robert Mannell (2009-08-14). "Australian English - Impressionistic Phonetic Studies". Clas.mq.edu.au. Retrieved 2011-07-26.

5.                  Robert Mannell and Felicity Cox (2009-08-01). "Phonemic (Broad) Transcription of Australian English (MD)".

6.                   Labov, William, Sharon Ash, and Charles Boberg (2006). The Atlas of North American English. Berlin: Mouton-de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-016746-8.

7.                  Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62181-X.

8.                  Walt Wolfram and Ben Ward, editors (2006). American Voices: How Dialects Differ from Coast to Coast. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 140, 234–236. ISBN 1-4051-2108-4.

9.                  Canadian Raising: O'Grady and Dobrovolsky, Contemporary Linguistic Analysis: An Introduction, 3rd ed., pp. 67–68.

10.             Canadian English: Editors' Association of Canada, Editing Canadian English: The Essential Canadian Guide, 2nd ed. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2000).