Project of the day: Varieties of the English Language

English has evolved vastly over the last century. This has led to the huge variety of different types of English we have today. I worked together with two guys in my class. We took one type each and wrote a little about said version of English. We picked South African English, Jamaican English and Hong Kong English.

South Africa

South African English is a non-rhotic language with additions from Afrikaans (working class). Non-rothic means that the speaker only pronounces rhotic consonants if they are followed by a vowel. South Africa has been settled by Dutchmen and invaded by Englishmen. Due to this, their language is influenced by both Dutch and English.

South African English is influenced more by English than American due to the invasion by Great Britain in the 1800s. This is clearly shown in the South African English vocabulary. The Dutch has influenced South African English mostly on pronunciation.

South Africa has 11 different languages which are used, so their English are influenced greatly from other languages. Including, English, Indian, Dutch, Afrikaans, Zulu etc. Especially the African languages have had a major impact on the South African English. Here is an example sentence “The old lady has been tuning me grief all avie, coz I bust her tjor going yooees with the okes in Bez Valley"The two main phonological indicators of South African English are the behavior 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.

Hong Kong

Hong Kong English is a form of the English language which is quite similar to the British English which is spoken in one of the core English areas. The similarities we find between the two are spelling, pronunciation and vocabularies. These resemblances are all huge, but there need not to be big differences in a language to be called for example a dialect.

However we also find several inequalities as well as likenesses. In Hong Kong they have people they call returnees, a word that might be mixed with refugees. The only difference is that returnees are people from Hong Kong that have been abroad to learn English and then return, which causes the language to be influenced not just by British English, but also by Australian and Canadian English. As well as Australian and Canadian influence the language has some of its vocabulary from India and Malaysia, with words like: chop, shroff, nullah and godown, for example.

Still the biggest difference is probably the accent among the Cantonese people, which are people that are native Honkongers. Many people also pronounce some of the words differently from British, Australian and Canadian English. For example they say: "three" as "free", "shree" or even "fee". They also confuse the endings of words that end with d,g and b and they say t,k and p instead. For example: "bad" as "bat". Also they confuse Tr and Ch which often make "train" sounding like "chain" for example. I believe they confuse many English sounds, because they in their native language they don't have the same sounds at all.

Jamaica

Jamaica is located in the Caribbean. More specifically it is an island located south from Cuba; witch is right underneath the port of Miami, USA. Once known as Santiago, a Spanish possession, it was later to be called Jamaica after British colonies taking over the island. Today it is still remains as a Commonwealth realm with Queen Elizabeth II as head of state.

Jamaican English has a much mixed up vocabulary, as it is influenced by mostly British English, but still uses a lot of American English words in both handwriting and in colloquially of the Jamaican English speaker. The Jamaican English vocabulary will mostly contain British words, like “sleeping policeman” which means “speed bump” as we call it. According to Wikipedia, when asking a Jamaican if he or she can pronounce a word or sentence in Jamaican English, that person would reply that it is more natural to let him speak in Irish English. The reason for this, again according to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, would be that this form of English comes more natural to the Jamaican rather than pronouncing it in what we would call a Jamaican English accent. As it is hard to explain how the Jamaicans speak English, this link is a small taste of how most Jamaicans talks with their accent. The clip is a interview of the world famous song artist Jean Paul, who is known to both sing and rap in English with his Jamaican accent.

And last but not least I would like to thank my two buddies that I have worked with for our Project of the day task! Seriously, it was awesome working with ya'll <3

Kristoffer

Joachim