Once upon a time on an island far, far away
a language was born. Brough up by West Germanic
influenced by Vikings and shaped by the Normans
English is now one of the most spoken languages
in the whole world
but how and why exactly has the language spread?
and why do we hear such different accents now
to answer this question, we have to go back to
little baby English and its upbringing
up until the end of the Roman Empire, Latin
used to be a huge influence
on the Celtic languages, which were spoken
by the majority of the population at that time. With the end of the Romans, came the end of the Latin influence
In the middle of the 5th century, Germanic tribes
from what's now West Denmark, the Netherlands
and North West Germany settled in the British Isles
naturally, they brought their Anglo-Frisian dialects along with them
and together coined the term 'Anglo-Saxon'
The Anglo-Saxon language, now known as Olde English was a welcome change, as it introduced
much more simple and relevant
language, like horse, day, woman and man
and also named a bunch of weekdays. Way to leave a legacy
of course the young language went through a few more phases of being
influenced from the outside before becoming the popular
popular grown-up it is now. In the 8th and 9th century
Scandinavian vikings conquered
parts of Britain. They spoke North Germanic which became asignificant influence on Olde English
The vikings might have violently pillaged and plundered
but they also simplified grammar. Thanks!
and left a few hundred words behind like
ugly, knife and most importantly; cake.
so you can't stay mad at them forever. Eventually, the vikings set sail towards some new adventures
and shortly after, wouldn't you know it the Normans arrived
ready to conquer England
in 1066
Soon some fancy new words graced the English language, and
made spelling a little harder again. But because
the upper classes
were happy speaking speaking Anglo-Norman and the vikings had no interest
interest in come back to save England from the inevitable lexical influence of French, words like sovereign, parliament,
clerk and about 9,997 loan words are in our vocabulary
to this day. This stage gave way to
Middle-English, spoken to the late 15th century
after England had finally managed to free itself from
from French ruling. The whole freeing thing took a bit longer than
expected, 116 years
to be precise. But by the point, neither side could count anymore
especially not in French and when the 100 year
war finally came to an end in 1453
the English language took over again
that is also around the time that the system of orthography
was established, largely the same system that we use today
however, by the beginning of the 16th century
early modern English was established. The language of
William Shakespeare. Speaking of, I'm sure Shakespeare
wold have been delighted to hear that about 500 years later
he is believed to have added 2,000
new words to the English dictionary. "They have
have been at a great feast of languages and
and stolen the scraps." But
all that glitters is not gold. Let's get one thing straight
in reality, William Shakespeare was probably just
the first person to write those words down. It's highly
likely that some of these words were part of
everyday discourse already. However, he certainly did create
a lot of words himself, a lot of which we still use to this day
except that with a bit over 400 words
the list is much shorter than some people think.
"Lord what fools these mortals be." Between
the late 16th and early 18th century, the kingdom
of England conquered, colonised and otherwise
acquired a variety of overseas territory
also known as the English Colonial Empire
At its height, it was the largest empire
in history and in its peak held sway
over 23% of the world population
at the time and covered 24%
of the earth's total land area. As a result
As a result mother-tongue English speakers from England, Scotland
and Ireland migrated
to North America, the Caribbean, Australia, South Africa
and New Zealand and England's linguistic legacy
spread even more. And this is where the story
of English dialects begins. "Hold on
dialects? Don't you mean accents?" Thanks for asking!
Even though they somewhat overlap, there is indeed a
difference between dialects and accents. An accent
has to do with sounds. It's about the way
the way pronounce things based on the region or country we're from.
So an accent is basically the difference in
how you pronounce the 'a' in 'bath', for example.
Dialects however, are a local variety of a language
that are different in wording and phrasing. So the difference
between saying popsicle and ice lolly is a dialect
so technically the English spoken in the United States
is actually a dialect.
The major native dialects of English are often divided
into 3 main categories. The dialects
of the British Isles, those of North America and those
of Australasia and within those dialects we usually
find a number of different accents. But
it's not that definite. Most people speak some sort of mish mash
version of dialects based on their
individual experience, so everyone has their very own
idiolect which is unique to the, a linguistic
finger print so to say. There is an estimated total
160 distinct dialects
spoken worldwide. But American
English and British English are the reference norms for how
it is written, spoken and taught in the rest of the world.
"Standard British English sounds like this. We drink tea all day
say 'bloody', 'blimey' and 'bollocks' and enjoy our football.
Get us down to the boozer and let's have a pint"
"And here's what American English sounds like. We love burgers
say 'like' and 'really' a lot and
and love watching Nascar racing." In most of the former
British Empire countries where English is
not normally spoken natively, British English forms are the norm.
Though mixed with numerous American English usages
conversely, places historically influenced by
the United States closely follow the American English form.
3rd and 4th in the number of native speakers
rank the Canadian and Australian English dialects.
Whilst featuring many British forms, Canadian English shares
vocabulary with American english. Australian
English shares many British and American English phrasings
alongside numerous unique Australianisms
though the spelling stays
closer to British English. "G'day mate. Us Aussies love a good
barbie. Hooroo!" Rank 5 in the number of
rank 5 in the number of English speakers is South Africa English followed by
followed by New Zealand and Ireland.
"How's it going? What's the craic?"
Many of the territories influenced by the United Kingdom or the United States
have developed their own unique dialects which are now known as world Englishes.
Not to be confused with the term 'world English'. World English
means English as a lingua franca. World Englishes
refers to the different varieties of English
developed in different areas of the world. See
it really is the small things that matter. Currently, there are about
75 territories where English is spoken either as
a 1st language or unofficially as a 2nd language
in areas like government, education or law
and because we love structure, world Englishes
are classified into 3 distinct groups of speakers
depending on their use of English. The inner-circle
quite literally refers to regions where English
where English is used as a primary native language
and speaking it originated during the centuries
of colonisation and migration. The outer-circle
was produced during Great Britain's imperial expansion
in Asia and Africa and includes a whopping number of
150 to 300 million speakers.
English is not the native tongue in these regions but
but serves as an important common language. Official
areas like higher education, the commercial industry and law
are all carried out predominantly in English.
The outer-circle
includes India, Nigeria, Bangladesh,
Pakistan, Malaysia, Kenya, The Phillippines
and others. The expanding circle includes
basically most of the rest of the world's population
where English is widely used for International communication
but doesn't play a historical or governmental role. This
includes territories such as China, Nepal, Russia
Japan, Egypt, Nordic countries,
non-Anglophone Europe and many others
To make a long story short, English exists in
various forms around the world. Billions of people speak it
some natively, others close to it and many as a
foreign language. And most importantly, everyone
speaks with an accent. It's part of who we are
where we're from and where we've been. Ready to hear your accent
in a new language? Then Busuu could be for you. Start
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