The Multiety of English Accents and Dialects
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The multiety of English accents and dialects Project made by Vladimir Verzhbitsky, High School Grade 1, under the guidance of Daria Paramonova Nowadays, English is second wide-spoken language, the first is Chinese This fact affects both of those languages(like Chinese having more than 30 accents!), making the English- speakers from another countries to have quite a lot of dialects and accents. Thesis: even in the borders of UKoGBaNI accents differ that much, that some people can have troubles understanding their countryman ▪Goals: To compare different accents and understand their differences. To proof the thesis. Significance of the project ▪ This project is significant because at the moment the migration is becoming more and more massive nowadays, so the European languages, especially flexible once, become a little deformed. Scientists predict, that in the near future(~100 years) these processes will cause the dramatic changes in English culture, traditions and, most importantly, language. ▪ Now we need to face the past and understand, how the dialects of the same language are formed. Cockney, Da weird and in'eresting Cockney We love a bit of imaginative use of the English language. And as FRIAR TUCK would have it, academics have unearthed a few delightfully descriptive words that we can use when NATTERING to our friends. As senior linguistics lecturer of York University, Dominic Watts says he hopes people will start RABBITING some of these words. - Cockney Official Site Cockney rhyming slang used to be a form of Pidgin English designed so that the working Eastenders could have a right good chin wag without the toffs knowing that they were talking about them. ▪ A dialect found mostly in East London ▪ The principle is to decide what it is you want to say, and then find words which bear no real relation to what you're going to say, but which rhyme loosely with your phrase. These days people just make it up for a laugh, so young streetwise Londoners say things like 'Ah mate, 'ad a right mare I did, got chucked out me pad and now fings wiv the trouble and strife have gone all pete tong!' Any ideas as to the meaning? Also, the pronunciation varies: ▪ 1. ‘th’ ▪ Cockney would replace voiceless ‘th’ /θ/ in words like ‘think’, ‘theatre’, ‘author’, with /f/, so they would be pronounced /fɪŋk/, /fɪəʔə/, /ɔ:fə/: ▪ 2. Glottal Stops /ʔ/ ▪ Cockney speakers will use glottal stops to replace /t/ before consonants and weak vowels ▪ 3. /æ/ replaced with /e/ ▪ Any word producing the front open /æ/ vowel would be pronounced with mid-open /e/ instead ▪ 4. ‘h’ dropping ▪ In cockney, you don’t pronounce /h/ at all. So ‘horrible’ is /ɒrɪbəw/, ‘hospital’ is /ɒspɪʔəw/, ‘who’ is /uː/ and ‘help’ is /ewp/. As we can see… ▪ Cockney is a very strange accent, which is very different from classical English, despite the speakers of Cockney basically being Londoners! So let’s move and see, which dialects do we have in regions… Scottish English refers to the varieties of English spoken in Scotland. The main, formal variety is called Scottish Standard English or Standard Scottish English (SSE). Scottish Standard English may be defined as "the characteristic speech of the professional class [in Scotland] and the accepted norm in schools". IETF language tag for "Scottish Standard English" is en- Scotland. In addition to distinct pronunciation, grammar and expressions, Scottish English has distinctive vocabulary, particularly pertaining to Scottish institutions such as the Church of Scotland, local government and the education and legal systems. Differences in Phonography: ▪ Scottish English is a rhotic accent, meaning /r/ is typically pronounced in the syllable coda. The phoneme /r/ may be a postalveolar approximant [ɹ], as in Received Pronunciation or General American, but speakers have also traditionally used for the same phoneme a somewhat more common alveolar tap [ɾ] or, now very rare, the alveolar trill [r] (hereafter, ⟨r⟩ will be used to denote any rhotic consonant). ▪ There is a distinction between /w/ and /hw/ in word pairs such as witch and which. ▪ In most varieties, there is no /æ/-/ɑː/ distinction; therefore, bath, trap, and palm have the same vowel. ▪ /ɪ/ may be more open [ë̞] for certain speakers in some regions, so that it sounds more like [ɛ] (although /ɪ/ and /ɛ/ do not merge). Other speakers may pronounce it as [ɪ], just as in many other accents, or with a schwa-like ([ə]) quality. Others may pronounce it almost as [ʌ] in certain environments, particularly after /w/ and /hw/. And some Scotticisms: ▪ What a dreich day! meaning "What a dull, miserable, overcast day“ ▪ Ach, away ye go! stock phrase meaning "Oh, I don't believe you" ▪ It's a fair way to Skye from here meaning "It's a good distance to Skye from here" ▪ His face is tripping him meaning "He's looking fed up" ▪ I kent his faither, stock phrase meaning "he started off as humbly as the rest of us before achieving success" ▪ He's a right sweetie-wife meaning "He likes a good gossip" Scottish accent is ▪ Similar to all the Nordic accents of English, yet is original and charming. The Scottish humorous phrases might add your speech a bit of vivity. Also, in my opinion, you can call Russian accent similar to Scottish with it’s rhotic r. Welsh English Welsh English refers to the dialects of English spoken by Welsh people. The dialects are significantly influenced by Welsh grammar and often include words derived from Welsh. In addition to the distinctive words and grammar, a variety of accents are found across Wales, including those of north Wales, the Cardiff dialect, the South Wales Valleys and west Wales. In the east and south east, it has been influenced by West Country dialects due to immigration, while in North Wales, the influence of Merseyside English is becoming increasingly prominent. Some basic changes ▪ The vowel of cat /æ/ is pronounced as a more central near-open front unrounded vowel [æ̈]. In Cardiff, bag is pronounced with a long vowel [aː]. In Powys, a pronunciation resembling its New Zealand and South African analogue is sometimes heard, i.e. trap is pronounced /trɛp/ The vowel of end /ɛ/ is a more open vowel and thus closer to cardinal vowel [ɛ] than RP ▪ The vowel of "kit" /ɪ/ often sounds closer to the schwa sound of above, an advanced close-mid central unrounded vowel [ɘ̟ ] ▪ The vowel of hot /ɒ/ is raised towards [ɔ] and can thus be transcribed as [ɒ̝ ] or [ɔ̞ ] ▪ The vowel of "bus" /ʌ/ is pronounced [ɜ] and is encountered as a hypercorrection in northern areas for foot. It is sometimes manifested in border areas of north and mid Wales as an open front unrounded vowel /a/ or as a near-close near-back rounded vowel /ʊ/ in northeast Wales, under influence of Cheshire and Merseyside accents. ▪ In accents that distinguish between foot and strut, the vowel of foot is a more lowered vowel [ɤ̈ ], particularly in the north ▪ The schwi tends to be supplanted by an /ɛ/ in final closed syllables, e.g. brightest /ˈbɾəi.tɛst/. The uncertainty over which vowel to use often leads to 'hypercorrections' involving the schwa, e.g. programme is often pronounced /ˈproː.ɡrəm/ Also, about the grammar ▪ Aside from lexical borrowings from Welsh like bach (little, wee), eisteddfod, nain and taid (grandmother and grandfather respectively), there exist distinctive grammatical conventions in vernacular Welsh English. Examples of this include the use by some speakers of the tag question isn't it? regardless of the form of the preceding statement and the placement of the subject and the verb after the predicate for emphasis, e.g. Fed up, I am or Running on Friday, he is. ▪ In South Wales the word "where" may often be expanded to "where to", as in the question, "Where to is your Mam?". The word "butty" ("byti" in Welsh orthography, probably related to "buddy") is used to mean "friend" or "mate" ▪ There is no standard variety of English that is specific to Wales, but such features are readily recognised by Anglophones from the rest of the UK as being from Wales, including the (actually rarely used) phrase look you which is a translation of a Welsh language tag. ▪ The word "tidy" has been described as "One of the most over-worked Wenglish words" and can have a range of meanings including - fine or splendid, long, decent, and plenty or large amount. A "tidy swill" is a wash involving at least face and hands. ▪ It is also common for Welsh to double the negative: I didn’t see no one on the street. Hiverno-English There’s the last, but not the least notable dialect of British English ▪ Ulster English (or northern Irish English) here refers collectively to the varieties of the Ulster province, including Northern Ireland and neighbouring counties outside of Northern Ireland, which has been influenced by Ulster Irish as well as the Scots language, brought over by Scottish settlers during the Plantation of Ulster. Its main subdivisions are mid Ulster English as well as Ulster Scots English, the latter of which is more directly and strongly influenced by the Scots language. All Ulster English has more obvious pronunciation similarities with Scottish English than other Irish English dialects. Ulster varieties distinctly pronounce: ▪ An ordinarily grammatically structured (i.e. non-topicalized) declarative sentences, often, with a rising intonation at the end of the sentence (the type of intonation pattern that other English speakers usually associate with questions). ▪ /ɪ/ as lowered, in the general vicinity of [ë~ɘ~ɪ̈]. ▪ /ʌ/ as fronted and slightly rounded, more closely approaching [ɞ]. ▪ /uː/ and /ʊ/ both in the general vicinity of [ʉ].