《闲话英伦》特辑：English的前世今生－4.国际语言

The History of English (4)

·      In 17th and 18thcenturies, Britain continue to trade around the world but also to colonise andcreate the British Empire.

·      English begun to spread aroundthe world but different forms of English begun to develop

·      American English startedto develop

o   Actually American English iscloser to the English that Shakespeare would have spoken – pronunciation iscloser

o   ‘fall’ and ‘trash’ are wordsthat Shakespeare use instead of ‘autumn’ and ‘rubbish’

o   Spelling is different –Webster’s Dictionary at the beginning of the 19thCentury – createdmany of the American spellings partly to separate from Britain (the USArecently became independent)

·     Did it go to other countries? In 18thCentury, Britain started to colonise Australia

o   At first, prisoners from all over Britain were transported there –their accents came together –there is a strong influence of 18thCentury London accent

o   There are some differences in pronunciation – stress, vowel soundsand intonation

o   Closer to British English thanAmerican English – but some important difference (thongs!)

·      One of the hardestaccents for Chinese learners to understand is Indian English

·      Indian English – Britainconquered modern-day India and Pakistan in 18thand 19thCenturies

o   English is still one of theofficial languages of India and still used in many schools – used as a linguafranca

o   Pronunciation is affected bylocal languages so there is no standard Indian pronunciation

o   There are differences invocabulary – lots of words from Indian languages are used and many of these areused in British English

§  Bungalow

§  Jungle

§  Veranda

§  Shampoo

·      These different formsmeans that there is no such thing as a standard English – it’s not like Chinesewhere there is Putonghua

o   Do you decide which is standardbased on where English comes from? (England)

o   Do you decide based where themost native speakers are? (the USA - 231 million people)

o   Does that make other Englishnative speakers wrong?

o   The most important thing isbeing able to understand each other