English as a Global LanguageFor more than half a century, immigrants from the Indian subcontinent and the West Indies have added variety and diversity to the rich patchwork of accents and dialects spoken in the UK. British colonisers originally exported the language to all four corners of the globe and migration in the 1950s brought altered forms of English back to these shores. Since that time, especially in urban areas, speakers of Asian and Caribbean descent have blended their mother tongue speech patterns with existing local dialects producing wonderful new varieties of English, such as London Jamaican or Bradford Asian English. Standard British English has also been enriched by an explosion of new terms, such as balti (a dish invented in the West Midlands and defined by a word that would refer to a 'bucket' rather than food to most South Asians outside the UK) and bhangra (traditional Punjabi music mixed with reggae and hip-hop).
The recordings on this site of speakers from minority ethnic backgrounds include a range of speakers. You can hear speakers whose speech is heavily influenced by their racial background, alongside those whose speech reveals nothing of their family background and some who are ranged somewhere in between. There are also a set of audio clips that shed light on some of the more recognisable features of Asian English and Caribbean English.
SlangAs with the Anglo-Saxon and Norman settlers of centuries past, the languages spoken by today’s ethnic communities have begun to have an impact on the everyday spoken English of other communities. For instance, many young people, regardless of their ethnic background, now use the black slang terms,nang (‘cool,’) and diss (‘insult’ — from ‘disrespecting’) or words derived from Hindi and Urdu, such as chuddies (‘underpants’) or desi (‘typically Asian’). Many also use the all-purpose tag-question, innit — as in statements such as you’re weird, innit. This feature has been variously ascribed to the British Caribbean community or the British Asian community, although it is also part of a more native British tradition - in dialects in the West Country and Wales, for instance — which might explain why it appears to have spread so rapidly among young speakers everywhere.
Original influences from overseasThe English Language can be traced back to the mixture of Anglo-Saxon dialects that came to these shores 1500 years ago. Since then it has been played with, altered and transported around the world in many different forms. The language we now recognise as English first became the dominant language in Great Britain during the Middle Ages, and in Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From there it has been exported in the mouths of colonists and settlers to all four corners of the globe. ‘International English’, ‘World English’ or ‘Global English’ are terms used to describe a type of ‘General English’ that has, over the course of the twentieth century, become a worldwide means of communication.
American EnglishThe first permanent English-speaking colony was established in North America in the early 1600s. The Americans soon developed a form of English that differed in a number of ways from the language spoken back in The British Isles. In some cases older forms were retained — the way most Americans pronounce the <r> sound after a vowel in words like start, north, nurse andletter is probably very similar to pronunciation in 17th century England. Similarly, the distinction between past tense got and past participle gotten still exists in American English but has been lost in most dialects of the UK.
But the Americans also invented many new words to describe landscapes, wildlife, vegetation, food and lifestyles. Different pronunciations of existing words emerged as new settlers arrived from various parts of the UK and established settlements scattered along the East Coast and further inland. After the USA achieved independence from Great Britain in 1776 any sense of who ‘owned’ and set the ‘correct rules’ for the English Language became increasingly blurred. Different forces operating in the UK and in the USA influenced the emerging concept of a Standard English. The differences are perhaps first officially promoted in the spelling conventions proposed by Noah Webster in The American Spelling Book (1786) and subsequently adopted in his later work, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). Both of these publications were enormously successful and established spellings such as center and color and were therefore major steps towards scholarly acceptance that British English and American English were becoming distinct entities.
Influence of EmpireMeanwhile, elsewhere, the British Empire was expanding dramatically, and during the 1700s British English established footholds in parts of Africa, in India, Australia and New Zealand. The colonisation process in these countries varied. In Australia and New Zealand, European settlers quickly outnumbered the indigenous population and so English was established as the dominant language. In India and Africa, however, centuries of colonial rule saw English imposed as an administrative language, spoken as a mother tongue by colonial settlers from the UK, but in most cases as a second language by the local population.
English around the worldLike American English, English in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa has evolved such that they are distinct from British English. However, cultural and political ties have meant that until relatively recently British English has acted as the benchmark for representing ‘standardised’ English — spelling tends to adhere to British English conventions, for instance. Elsewhere in Africa and on the Indian subcontinent, English is still used as an official language in several countries, even though these countries are independent of British rule. However, English remains very much a second language for most people, used in administration, education and government and as a means of communicating between speakers of diverse languages. As with most of the Commonwealth, British English is the model on which, for instance, Indian English or Nigerian English is based. In the Caribbean and especially in Canada, however, historical links with the UK compete with geographical, cultural and economic ties with the USA, so that some aspects of the local varieties of English follow British norms and others reflect US usage.
An international languageEnglish is also hugely important as an international language and plays an important part even in countries where the UK has historically had little influence. It is learnt as the principal foreign language in most schools in Western Europe. It is also an essential part of the curriculum in far-flung places like Japan and South Korea, and is increasingly seen as desirable by millions of speakers in China. Prior to WWII, most teaching of English as a foreign language used British English as its model, and textbooks and other educational resources were produced here in the UK for use overseas. This reflected the UK's cultural dominance and its perceived ‘ownership’ of the English Language. Since 1945, however, the increasing economic power of the USA and its unrivalled influence in popular culture has meant that American English has become the reference point for learners of English in places like Japan and even to a certain extent in some European countries. British English remains the model in most Commonwealth countries where English is learnt as a second language. However, as the history of English has shown, this situation may not last indefinitely. The increasing commercial and economic power of countries like India, for instance, might mean that Indian English will one day begin to have an impact beyond its own borders.
Asian EnglishEnglish in the Indian SubcontinentJust as in the Caribbean, the English Language arrived in South Asia as a result of colonisation. Unlike its history in the Caribbean, however, English has always co-existed in the Indian subcontinent alongside thousands of local languages. So for most of the population, it has only ever been a second language.
The origins of English in IndiaThe British first arrived in India in the early 1600s and soon established trading posts in a number of cities under the control of The East India Company. By 1765 the Company’s influence had grown to such an extent that the British were effectively controlling most parts of the country. This date is often taken as the start of what is referred to as The Raj — a period of British rule in India that lasted until Independence in 1947.
Initially English was only taught to the local population through the work of Christian missionaries — there were no official attempts to force the language on the masses. But by the 1700s, English had firmly established itself as the language of administration and many educated Indians were demanding instruction in English as a means of social advancement. By 1857 universities had opened in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. English was increasingly accepted as the language of government, of the social elite, and of the national press.
After IndependenceAfter Independence, India became a nation state, and it was intended that English would gradually be phased out as the language of administration. But there was no simple solution as to which language should replace it. At first Hindi, the most widely spoken language, seemed the obvious choice, but following violent protests in 1963 in the state of Tamil Nadu against the imposition of Hindi as a national language, opinion has remained divided. In a country with over 900 million people and more than a thousand languages, it is difficult to choose a single national language, as mother tongue speakers of that language would automatically enjoy greater social status and have easier access to positions of power and influence. Even Ghandi, a proponent of a native variety as a national language, accepted that his message was most widely understood if expressed in English. So, although English is not an indigenous language, it remains as an ‘Associate Language’ in India, alongside Hindi, the ‘Official Language of the Union of India’ and eighteen 'National Languages', such as Bengali, Gujurati and Urdu, that have a special status in certain individual states.
English in India todayDespite continued pressure from nationalists, English remains at the heart of Indian society. It is widely used in the media, in Higher Education and government and therefore remains a common means of communication, both among the ruling classes, and between speakers of mutually unintelligible languages. According to recent surveys, approximately 4% of the Indian population use English. That figure might seem insignificant, but out of the total population this represents 35 million speakers — the largest English-speaking community outside the USA and the UK. In addition there are speakers of English in other parts of South Asia, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where English plays a similar role. English is virtually a mother tongue for many educated South Asians, but for the vast majority it remains a second language. This means there are speakers whose spoken English is heavily influenced by speech patterns of their ethnic language, alongside those whose speech reveals nothing of their racial background and some who are ranged somewhere in between.
Asian influenceThere are a number of elements that characterise the more ‘extreme’ forms of South Asian English. In terms of pronunciation, many speakers do not differentiate between the sounds <v> and <w>. They might also replace <th> in words like think and this with a <t> and <d> sound, as no Indian languages contain these consonants. Under the influence of traditional Hindi grammar, speakers often use progressive tenses in statements, such as I am believing you or she is liking music. Anyone who has experience of speech in the UK's Asian communities will also have encountered the phenomenon of code-switching — mixing words, phrases or even whole sentences from two different languages within the same conversation. The occasional or even frequent use of a Hindi (or Urdu, Punjabi, Gujurati etc.) word or expression within an English sentence can communicate a great sense of shared identity or solidarity with other speakers. This characteristic feature of Asian speech has led commentators to coin popular terms, such as Hinglish (i.e. Hindi English) or Pinglish (i.e. Pakistani English).
The table below gives several examples of speakers using a number of pronunciations and grammatical constructions that are typical of speech on the Indian subcontinent. All the audio clips are taken from recent BBC interviews and come from spontaneous conversation and therefore reflect the natural reflexes of South Asian English. The left hand column lists each feature, while the second column gives an explanation. The list is by no means comprehensive, but by clicking on the sound file you can hear an extract from a recording of a speaker using the target feature.
Asian English Phonology
featureexplanationsound fileretroflex tapped R<r> is pronounced by flicking (i.e. tapping) the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth — thus making only very brief and rapid contact — while the tip of the tongue is curled backwards in the mouth
and I was studying for electronicengineering
unaspirated <p>there is no release of air when <p> precedes a vowel in words like pin andpot
and, uh, so what happened, uh, that my parents found a suitable match
unaspirated <t>there is no release of air when <t> precedes a vowel in words like tin andtop
my, our two sisters met in a partyin different town where our parents lived
V~Wmerger<v> and <w> are pronounced interchangeably regardless of spelling
I just realised that, uh, Indian food is becoming so popular that one day it will land on the shelf of the supermarket with vengeance — and it did!
and the housewife — be it British or Caribbean or Indian or anyone — they were able to, with confidence they are able to pick up a pack of Indian food in their trolleys for theirweekly shopping
TH-stopping<th> in words such as thumb and threeis pronounced using a <t> sound and in words such as this and that using a <d> sound — there is often no release of air when <th> precedes a vowel in words likethick and thin
I just could not think that I could marry anybody in this country
rhoticitythe <r> sound is pronounced after a vowel in words like hard, corn and nurse
and I know, I remember when I, when my first visit in early sixtiesthere were hardly a few restaurants in Grafton Way in Central London
Asian English Grammar
featureexplanationsound filecode-switchingalternating (‘switching’) between different languages (‘codes’) as circumstance dictates, often within the same utterance
mum said, “Your father send you piyaar”
we didn’t have car, cardigans, but what we had, eh, shawls, you know, like what they call ‘chador’
and they start picking on those — I said, “Mum, they're picking our chil ghozah, you know — why?”
and, uh, specialised ice cream which you would call it ‘khulfi’
zero articlethe indefinite article, a or an, or the definite article, the, are often omitted
zero past tense markerverbs are left unmarked for tense, although other signals (adverbs of time, such asyesterday, last week etc.) often give linguistic clues about the timing of an event
so they send me photograph, which I approved and m, m, my wife, uh, pinched, uh, one photograph from the album, so obviously she like_, uh, the photograph
lack of subject-verb concordsingular nouns are sometimes assigned a plural verb or plural nouns a singular verb
my marriages was typical arrangedmarriages
simplified syntaxall unnecessary semantic content is omitted, but basic meaning is still communicated effectively
declarative word order in interrogative construction‘normal’ subject + verb word order is retained in statements using the question words who, what, when, where, why, howetc.
you know, when we see all these white people, you think, “Oh my God — who they are?”
Caribbean EnglishFrom Pidgin to CreoleThe varieties of English spoken in the West Indies give us a fascinating insight into the way languages emerge and evolve when people from different cultures come into contact. From the early 1700s, thousands of people were transported as slaves to the Caribbean, particularly from West Africa. As a result a number of pidgin languages developed. A pidgin language is a linguistically simplified means of communication that emerges naturally when speakers of two or more languages need to understand each other. Initially workers on the colonial plantations in the Caribbean would have spoken a variety of ethnic languages, but the language imposed on them by slave owners was English. Among the workers themselves, however, a pidgin language would have been used, based on the sounds, vocabulary and grammatical structures of all the contributing languages.
From pidgin to creoleCrucially a pidgin language is not a mother tongue. This means it has no native speakers. But if the pidgin remains the main means of communication within a community for a significant length of time — as, for example, on the plantations of the Caribbean - then it becomes the first language of children within the community. At this point it begins to increase in complexity as it is spoken in a wider range of contexts and adapts to serve the purposes of a fully-fledged language. This process produces what linguists call a creole. A creole is a pidgin that has expanded in structure and vocabulary and has all the characteristics of other languages. This means it demonstrates two important factors:
Caribbean creoleIn its most extreme form, a Caribbean Creole can appear unintelligible to outsiders. As with dialects there are fine shades of differences between speakers, although there are a number of elements that characterise most forms of Caribbean English. The lack of the verb ‘to be’ in statements such asshe dreaming, where Standard English requires she’s dreaming, is typical of the type of structure that occurs in a creole. Similarly, pronouns may not be marked for subject/object distinctions and verbs might not always carry a tense marker as in the statement him tell me dat yesterday for he told me that yesterday. The meaning is always clear, despite the apparent simplification - in fact creoles are just as rule-governed as dialects and languages. Finally, there are common elements of Caribbean vocabulary, such as pickney, meaning ‘young child’. This word is particularly intriguing, as it is known to exist in several pidgin and creole languages across the world. It is thought to originate from the Portuguese word pequeno, meaning ‘small’, and perhaps illustrates the role played by Portuguese sailors and merchants in the early trade routes down the West African coast at the time when The Slave Trade was at its height.
The table below gives several examples of speakers using a number of pronunciations and grammatical constructions that are typical of speech in the West Indies and among speakers in the UK’s Caribbean communities. All the audio clips are taken from recent BBC interviews and come from spontaneous conversation. They therefore reflect the natural reflexes of Caribbean English. The left hand column lists each feature, while the second column gives an explanation. The list is by no means comprehensive, but by clicking on the sound file you can hear an extract from a recording of a speaker using the target feature.
Minority Ethnic
Caribbean English Phonology
featureexplanationsound fileTH-stopping<th> in words such as think and three is pronounced using a <t> sound and in words such as this and thatusing a <d> sound
so with me having, getting that bit of knowledge, thingscomes easy to me
H-droppinginitial <h> is deleted in words such as happy and house
they were in the process of, uhm, finding homesfor people that just arriving, new arrival in this country and, uh,helping them settle down and finding jobs
consonant cluster reductioncomplex strings of consonants are often simplified by deleting the final sound, so that best becomes ‘bes’,respect becomes ‘respeck’ and land becomes ‘lan’
you realise how adetached house is,semi-detached and
rhoticitythe <r> sound is pronounced after a vowel in words likehard, corn and nurse
I start working as aconductor — I was one of the first blackperson to, uhm, startit on the Sheffield Tramway
unreduced vowel in weak syllablesvowels in unstressed syllables are not reduced, so that speakers use a comparatively strong vowel on words such as about, bacon or arrival and on grammatical function words, such as in the phrases lot of work, in afew days and in the kitchen - a very subtle feature that contributes to the characteristic rhythm or ‘lilt’ of Caribbean English
and then you just automatic,automatically got into the swing and accept what you've seen here
FACEvowela similar vowel sound as that used by speakers in Scotland, Wales and the North East of England on words such as game, tray, plain, reign, they and great
back home in Jamaicaeach individual have their own home andspaces
GOATvowela similar vowel sound as that used by speakers in Scotland, Wales and the North East of England on words such as home, show, boat and toe
we all have our own home — nice littlehome and we have great deal of land
Caribbean English Grammar
featureexplanationsound filezero indefinite articlethe indefinite article, a or an, is occasionally omitted
in _ couple of days I foun, I got my own, I got a job
zero past tense markerverbs are left unmarked for tense, although other signals (adverbs of time, such as yesterday, last week etc.) often give linguistic clues about the timing of an event
I work_ on that job for a few months
zero plural markernouns are left unmarked for plurality
my relative_, they were involve in this Community Association business
The recordings on this site of speakers from minority ethnic backgrounds include a range of speakers. You can hear speakers whose speech is heavily influenced by their racial background, alongside those whose speech reveals nothing of their family background and some who are ranged somewhere in between. There are also a set of audio clips that shed light on some of the more recognisable features of Asian English and Caribbean English.
SlangAs with the Anglo-Saxon and Norman settlers of centuries past, the languages spoken by today’s ethnic communities have begun to have an impact on the everyday spoken English of other communities. For instance, many young people, regardless of their ethnic background, now use the black slang terms,nang (‘cool,’) and diss (‘insult’ — from ‘disrespecting’) or words derived from Hindi and Urdu, such as chuddies (‘underpants’) or desi (‘typically Asian’). Many also use the all-purpose tag-question, innit — as in statements such as you’re weird, innit. This feature has been variously ascribed to the British Caribbean community or the British Asian community, although it is also part of a more native British tradition - in dialects in the West Country and Wales, for instance — which might explain why it appears to have spread so rapidly among young speakers everywhere.
Original influences from overseasThe English Language can be traced back to the mixture of Anglo-Saxon dialects that came to these shores 1500 years ago. Since then it has been played with, altered and transported around the world in many different forms. The language we now recognise as English first became the dominant language in Great Britain during the Middle Ages, and in Ireland during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. From there it has been exported in the mouths of colonists and settlers to all four corners of the globe. ‘International English’, ‘World English’ or ‘Global English’ are terms used to describe a type of ‘General English’ that has, over the course of the twentieth century, become a worldwide means of communication.
American EnglishThe first permanent English-speaking colony was established in North America in the early 1600s. The Americans soon developed a form of English that differed in a number of ways from the language spoken back in The British Isles. In some cases older forms were retained — the way most Americans pronounce the <r> sound after a vowel in words like start, north, nurse andletter is probably very similar to pronunciation in 17th century England. Similarly, the distinction between past tense got and past participle gotten still exists in American English but has been lost in most dialects of the UK.
But the Americans also invented many new words to describe landscapes, wildlife, vegetation, food and lifestyles. Different pronunciations of existing words emerged as new settlers arrived from various parts of the UK and established settlements scattered along the East Coast and further inland. After the USA achieved independence from Great Britain in 1776 any sense of who ‘owned’ and set the ‘correct rules’ for the English Language became increasingly blurred. Different forces operating in the UK and in the USA influenced the emerging concept of a Standard English. The differences are perhaps first officially promoted in the spelling conventions proposed by Noah Webster in The American Spelling Book (1786) and subsequently adopted in his later work, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828). Both of these publications were enormously successful and established spellings such as center and color and were therefore major steps towards scholarly acceptance that British English and American English were becoming distinct entities.
Influence of EmpireMeanwhile, elsewhere, the British Empire was expanding dramatically, and during the 1700s British English established footholds in parts of Africa, in India, Australia and New Zealand. The colonisation process in these countries varied. In Australia and New Zealand, European settlers quickly outnumbered the indigenous population and so English was established as the dominant language. In India and Africa, however, centuries of colonial rule saw English imposed as an administrative language, spoken as a mother tongue by colonial settlers from the UK, but in most cases as a second language by the local population.
English around the worldLike American English, English in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa has evolved such that they are distinct from British English. However, cultural and political ties have meant that until relatively recently British English has acted as the benchmark for representing ‘standardised’ English — spelling tends to adhere to British English conventions, for instance. Elsewhere in Africa and on the Indian subcontinent, English is still used as an official language in several countries, even though these countries are independent of British rule. However, English remains very much a second language for most people, used in administration, education and government and as a means of communicating between speakers of diverse languages. As with most of the Commonwealth, British English is the model on which, for instance, Indian English or Nigerian English is based. In the Caribbean and especially in Canada, however, historical links with the UK compete with geographical, cultural and economic ties with the USA, so that some aspects of the local varieties of English follow British norms and others reflect US usage.
An international languageEnglish is also hugely important as an international language and plays an important part even in countries where the UK has historically had little influence. It is learnt as the principal foreign language in most schools in Western Europe. It is also an essential part of the curriculum in far-flung places like Japan and South Korea, and is increasingly seen as desirable by millions of speakers in China. Prior to WWII, most teaching of English as a foreign language used British English as its model, and textbooks and other educational resources were produced here in the UK for use overseas. This reflected the UK's cultural dominance and its perceived ‘ownership’ of the English Language. Since 1945, however, the increasing economic power of the USA and its unrivalled influence in popular culture has meant that American English has become the reference point for learners of English in places like Japan and even to a certain extent in some European countries. British English remains the model in most Commonwealth countries where English is learnt as a second language. However, as the history of English has shown, this situation may not last indefinitely. The increasing commercial and economic power of countries like India, for instance, might mean that Indian English will one day begin to have an impact beyond its own borders.
Asian EnglishEnglish in the Indian SubcontinentJust as in the Caribbean, the English Language arrived in South Asia as a result of colonisation. Unlike its history in the Caribbean, however, English has always co-existed in the Indian subcontinent alongside thousands of local languages. So for most of the population, it has only ever been a second language.
The origins of English in IndiaThe British first arrived in India in the early 1600s and soon established trading posts in a number of cities under the control of The East India Company. By 1765 the Company’s influence had grown to such an extent that the British were effectively controlling most parts of the country. This date is often taken as the start of what is referred to as The Raj — a period of British rule in India that lasted until Independence in 1947.
Initially English was only taught to the local population through the work of Christian missionaries — there were no official attempts to force the language on the masses. But by the 1700s, English had firmly established itself as the language of administration and many educated Indians were demanding instruction in English as a means of social advancement. By 1857 universities had opened in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. English was increasingly accepted as the language of government, of the social elite, and of the national press.
After IndependenceAfter Independence, India became a nation state, and it was intended that English would gradually be phased out as the language of administration. But there was no simple solution as to which language should replace it. At first Hindi, the most widely spoken language, seemed the obvious choice, but following violent protests in 1963 in the state of Tamil Nadu against the imposition of Hindi as a national language, opinion has remained divided. In a country with over 900 million people and more than a thousand languages, it is difficult to choose a single national language, as mother tongue speakers of that language would automatically enjoy greater social status and have easier access to positions of power and influence. Even Ghandi, a proponent of a native variety as a national language, accepted that his message was most widely understood if expressed in English. So, although English is not an indigenous language, it remains as an ‘Associate Language’ in India, alongside Hindi, the ‘Official Language of the Union of India’ and eighteen 'National Languages', such as Bengali, Gujurati and Urdu, that have a special status in certain individual states.
English in India todayDespite continued pressure from nationalists, English remains at the heart of Indian society. It is widely used in the media, in Higher Education and government and therefore remains a common means of communication, both among the ruling classes, and between speakers of mutually unintelligible languages. According to recent surveys, approximately 4% of the Indian population use English. That figure might seem insignificant, but out of the total population this represents 35 million speakers — the largest English-speaking community outside the USA and the UK. In addition there are speakers of English in other parts of South Asia, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where English plays a similar role. English is virtually a mother tongue for many educated South Asians, but for the vast majority it remains a second language. This means there are speakers whose spoken English is heavily influenced by speech patterns of their ethnic language, alongside those whose speech reveals nothing of their racial background and some who are ranged somewhere in between.
Asian influenceThere are a number of elements that characterise the more ‘extreme’ forms of South Asian English. In terms of pronunciation, many speakers do not differentiate between the sounds <v> and <w>. They might also replace <th> in words like think and this with a <t> and <d> sound, as no Indian languages contain these consonants. Under the influence of traditional Hindi grammar, speakers often use progressive tenses in statements, such as I am believing you or she is liking music. Anyone who has experience of speech in the UK's Asian communities will also have encountered the phenomenon of code-switching — mixing words, phrases or even whole sentences from two different languages within the same conversation. The occasional or even frequent use of a Hindi (or Urdu, Punjabi, Gujurati etc.) word or expression within an English sentence can communicate a great sense of shared identity or solidarity with other speakers. This characteristic feature of Asian speech has led commentators to coin popular terms, such as Hinglish (i.e. Hindi English) or Pinglish (i.e. Pakistani English).
The table below gives several examples of speakers using a number of pronunciations and grammatical constructions that are typical of speech on the Indian subcontinent. All the audio clips are taken from recent BBC interviews and come from spontaneous conversation and therefore reflect the natural reflexes of South Asian English. The left hand column lists each feature, while the second column gives an explanation. The list is by no means comprehensive, but by clicking on the sound file you can hear an extract from a recording of a speaker using the target feature.
Asian English Phonology
featureexplanationsound fileretroflex tapped R<r> is pronounced by flicking (i.e. tapping) the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth — thus making only very brief and rapid contact — while the tip of the tongue is curled backwards in the mouth
and I was studying for electronicengineering
unaspirated <p>there is no release of air when <p> precedes a vowel in words like pin andpot
and, uh, so what happened, uh, that my parents found a suitable match
unaspirated <t>there is no release of air when <t> precedes a vowel in words like tin andtop
my, our two sisters met in a partyin different town where our parents lived
V~Wmerger<v> and <w> are pronounced interchangeably regardless of spelling
I just realised that, uh, Indian food is becoming so popular that one day it will land on the shelf of the supermarket with vengeance — and it did!
and the housewife — be it British or Caribbean or Indian or anyone — they were able to, with confidence they are able to pick up a pack of Indian food in their trolleys for theirweekly shopping
TH-stopping<th> in words such as thumb and threeis pronounced using a <t> sound and in words such as this and that using a <d> sound — there is often no release of air when <th> precedes a vowel in words likethick and thin
I just could not think that I could marry anybody in this country
rhoticitythe <r> sound is pronounced after a vowel in words like hard, corn and nurse
and I know, I remember when I, when my first visit in early sixtiesthere were hardly a few restaurants in Grafton Way in Central London
Asian English Grammar
featureexplanationsound filecode-switchingalternating (‘switching’) between different languages (‘codes’) as circumstance dictates, often within the same utterance
mum said, “Your father send you piyaar”
we didn’t have car, cardigans, but what we had, eh, shawls, you know, like what they call ‘chador’
and they start picking on those — I said, “Mum, they're picking our chil ghozah, you know — why?”
and, uh, specialised ice cream which you would call it ‘khulfi’
zero articlethe indefinite article, a or an, or the definite article, the, are often omitted
zero past tense markerverbs are left unmarked for tense, although other signals (adverbs of time, such asyesterday, last week etc.) often give linguistic clues about the timing of an event
so they send me photograph, which I approved and m, m, my wife, uh, pinched, uh, one photograph from the album, so obviously she like_, uh, the photograph
lack of subject-verb concordsingular nouns are sometimes assigned a plural verb or plural nouns a singular verb
my marriages was typical arrangedmarriages
simplified syntaxall unnecessary semantic content is omitted, but basic meaning is still communicated effectively
declarative word order in interrogative construction‘normal’ subject + verb word order is retained in statements using the question words who, what, when, where, why, howetc.
you know, when we see all these white people, you think, “Oh my God — who they are?”
Caribbean EnglishFrom Pidgin to CreoleThe varieties of English spoken in the West Indies give us a fascinating insight into the way languages emerge and evolve when people from different cultures come into contact. From the early 1700s, thousands of people were transported as slaves to the Caribbean, particularly from West Africa. As a result a number of pidgin languages developed. A pidgin language is a linguistically simplified means of communication that emerges naturally when speakers of two or more languages need to understand each other. Initially workers on the colonial plantations in the Caribbean would have spoken a variety of ethnic languages, but the language imposed on them by slave owners was English. Among the workers themselves, however, a pidgin language would have been used, based on the sounds, vocabulary and grammatical structures of all the contributing languages.
From pidgin to creoleCrucially a pidgin language is not a mother tongue. This means it has no native speakers. But if the pidgin remains the main means of communication within a community for a significant length of time — as, for example, on the plantations of the Caribbean - then it becomes the first language of children within the community. At this point it begins to increase in complexity as it is spoken in a wider range of contexts and adapts to serve the purposes of a fully-fledged language. This process produces what linguists call a creole. A creole is a pidgin that has expanded in structure and vocabulary and has all the characteristics of other languages. This means it demonstrates two important factors:
- Regional variation — hence the difference between, say, Jamaican Patois (often called Patwa locally) and Barbadian Creole (known locally as Bajan)
- Social variation — so we can define one speaker as using a broader variety of patois than another.
Caribbean creoleIn its most extreme form, a Caribbean Creole can appear unintelligible to outsiders. As with dialects there are fine shades of differences between speakers, although there are a number of elements that characterise most forms of Caribbean English. The lack of the verb ‘to be’ in statements such asshe dreaming, where Standard English requires she’s dreaming, is typical of the type of structure that occurs in a creole. Similarly, pronouns may not be marked for subject/object distinctions and verbs might not always carry a tense marker as in the statement him tell me dat yesterday for he told me that yesterday. The meaning is always clear, despite the apparent simplification - in fact creoles are just as rule-governed as dialects and languages. Finally, there are common elements of Caribbean vocabulary, such as pickney, meaning ‘young child’. This word is particularly intriguing, as it is known to exist in several pidgin and creole languages across the world. It is thought to originate from the Portuguese word pequeno, meaning ‘small’, and perhaps illustrates the role played by Portuguese sailors and merchants in the early trade routes down the West African coast at the time when The Slave Trade was at its height.
The table below gives several examples of speakers using a number of pronunciations and grammatical constructions that are typical of speech in the West Indies and among speakers in the UK’s Caribbean communities. All the audio clips are taken from recent BBC interviews and come from spontaneous conversation. They therefore reflect the natural reflexes of Caribbean English. The left hand column lists each feature, while the second column gives an explanation. The list is by no means comprehensive, but by clicking on the sound file you can hear an extract from a recording of a speaker using the target feature.
Minority Ethnic
- Asian English
- Caribbean English
Caribbean English Phonology
featureexplanationsound fileTH-stopping<th> in words such as think and three is pronounced using a <t> sound and in words such as this and thatusing a <d> sound
so with me having, getting that bit of knowledge, thingscomes easy to me
H-droppinginitial <h> is deleted in words such as happy and house
they were in the process of, uhm, finding homesfor people that just arriving, new arrival in this country and, uh,helping them settle down and finding jobs
consonant cluster reductioncomplex strings of consonants are often simplified by deleting the final sound, so that best becomes ‘bes’,respect becomes ‘respeck’ and land becomes ‘lan’
you realise how adetached house is,semi-detached and
rhoticitythe <r> sound is pronounced after a vowel in words likehard, corn and nurse
I start working as aconductor — I was one of the first blackperson to, uhm, startit on the Sheffield Tramway
unreduced vowel in weak syllablesvowels in unstressed syllables are not reduced, so that speakers use a comparatively strong vowel on words such as about, bacon or arrival and on grammatical function words, such as in the phrases lot of work, in afew days and in the kitchen - a very subtle feature that contributes to the characteristic rhythm or ‘lilt’ of Caribbean English
and then you just automatic,automatically got into the swing and accept what you've seen here
FACEvowela similar vowel sound as that used by speakers in Scotland, Wales and the North East of England on words such as game, tray, plain, reign, they and great
back home in Jamaicaeach individual have their own home andspaces
GOATvowela similar vowel sound as that used by speakers in Scotland, Wales and the North East of England on words such as home, show, boat and toe
we all have our own home — nice littlehome and we have great deal of land
Caribbean English Grammar
featureexplanationsound filezero indefinite articlethe indefinite article, a or an, is occasionally omitted
in _ couple of days I foun, I got my own, I got a job
zero past tense markerverbs are left unmarked for tense, although other signals (adverbs of time, such as yesterday, last week etc.) often give linguistic clues about the timing of an event
I work_ on that job for a few months
zero plural markernouns are left unmarked for plurality
my relative_, they were involve in this Community Association business