The main variants of the English language
At the same time quite a number of words lost in BE have survived on the other continents and conversely, certain features of earlier BE that have been retained in England were lost in the new varieties of the language, changed their meaning or acquired a new additional one.
For example, Chaucer used to guess in the meaning of to think, so do the present day Americans; the English however abandoned it centuries ago and when they happen to hear it today they are conscious that it is an Americanism. The same is true of the words to loan for to lend, fall for autumn, homely for ugly, crude, etc.
The word barn designated in Britain a building for storing grain (the word was a compound in Old English consisting of bere—'barley' and aern—'house'); in AE it came also to mean a place for housing stock, particularly cattle. Similarly, corn was applied in America to an altogether different cereal (maize) and lost its former general meaning 'grain'. The word station acquired the meaning of 'a sheep or cattle ranch', the word bush—the meaning of 'wood’ and shrub (AuE scrub)— .'any vegetation but wood' in AuE. Modern times are characterized by considerable levelling of the lexical distinctions between the variants due to the growth of cultural and economic ties between nations and development of modern means of communication.
For example, a large number of Americanisms have gained currency in BE, some becoming so thoroughly naturalized that the dictionaries in England no longer mark them as aliens (e.g. reliable, lengthy, talented, belittle). Others have a limited sphere of application (e.g. fan— colloq. 'a person enthusiastic about a specific sport, pastime, or performer', to iron out—'smooth out, eliminate'). The influx of American films, comics and periodicals resulted in the infiltration of American slang, e.g. gimmick—'deceptive or secret device', to root—'support or encourage a contestant or team, as by applauding or cheering', etc.
Certain uses of familiar words, which some 50 years ago were peculiar to the US, are now either completely naturalized in Britain or evidently on the way to naturalization. Numerous examples will be found by noting the words and meanings indicated as American in dictionaries at the beginning of the century and in present days.
At the same time a number of Briticisms have passed into the language of the USA, e.g. smog which is a blend of smoke and fog, to brief— 'to give instructions'. This fact the advocates of the American language theory deliberately ignore. Sometimes the Briticisms adopted in America compete with the corresponding American expressions, the result being the differentiation in meaning or spheres of application, for example, unlike the American store, the word shop, taken over from across the ocean at the beginning of the 20th century is applied only to small specialized establishments (e.g. gift shop, hat shop, candy shop), or specialized departments of a department store. British luggage used alongside American baggage in America differs from its rival in collocability (luggage compartment, luggage rack, but baggage car, baggage check, baggage room). In the pair autumn—fall the difference in AE is of another nature: the former is bookish, while the latter colloquial.
Local Variants in the British Isles and in the USA
Local Dialects in the British lsles
In the British Isles there exist many speech varieties confined to particular areas. These local dialects traceable to Old English dialects may be classified into six distinct divisions: 1) Lowland (Scottish pЈ Scotch, North of the river Tweed), 2) Northern (between tne rivers Tweed and Humber), 3) Western, 4) Midland and 5) Eastern (between the river Humber and the Thames), 6) Southern (South of tne Thames). Their sphere of application is confined to the oral speech of the rural population in a locality and only the Scottish dialect can be said to have a literature of its own with Robert Burns as its greatest representative.
Offspring’s of the English national literary language, the British local dialects are marked off from the former and from each other by some phonetic, grammatical and lexical peculiarities.
Careful consideration of the national and the dialect vocabularies discloses that the most marked difference between them lies in the limited character of the dialect vocabularies. The literary language contains many words not to be found in dialects, among them technical and scientific terms.
1. Local lexical peculiarities, as yet the least studied, are most noticeable in specifically dialectal words pertaining to local customs, social life and natural conditions: laird—'landed proprietor in Scotland', burgh—'Scottish chartered town', kirk—'church1, loch—'Scottish lake or landlocked arm of the sea', etc. There are many names of objects and processes connected with farming, such as the names of agricultural processes, tools, domestic animals and the like, e.g. galloway—'horse of small strong breed from Galloway, Scotland', kyloe—'one of small breed of long-horned Scotch cattle', shelty—'Shetland pony'. There is also a considerable number of emotionally coloured dialectal words, e.g. §cot. bonny—'beautiful, healthy-looking', braw—'fine, excellent', daffy—'crazy, silly', cuddy—'fool, ass', loon—'clumsy, stupid person'.
In addition, words may have different meanings in the national language and in the local dialects, e.g. in the Scottish dialect the word to call is used in the meaning of 'to drive', to set—'to suit', short—'rude', silly—'weak', etc.
Dialectal lexical differences also embrace word-building patterns. For instance, some Irish words contain the dimmutіve suffixes -an -een, -can, as in bohaun—'cabin' (from Irish both—'cabin'); bohereen— 'narrow road' (from Irish bothar—'road'); mearacaun—'thimble' (from Irish mear—'finger'); etc. Some of these suffixes may even be added to English bases, as in girleen, dogeen, squireen (squirrel), etc. Some specifically dialectal derivatives are formed from standard English stems with the help of standard English affixes, e.g. Scot, flesher—'butcher', Sudden ty—'suddenness’.
A great number of words specifically dialectal appeared as a result of intense borrowing from other languages, others are words that have disappeared from the national literary language or become archaic, poetical, such as gang—'go', OE sangan; bairn—.'child', OE beam, etc. Thus, the lexical differences between the English national language and its dialects are due to the difference in the spheres of application, different tempos of development, different contacts with other peoples, and deliberate elaboration of literary norms.
The Relationship Between the English National Language and British Local Dialects
The local dialects in Britain are sharply declining in importance at the present time; they are being obliterated by the literary language. This process is two-fold. On the one hand, lexical units of the literary language enter local dialects, ousting some of their words and expressions. On the other hand, dialectal words penetrate into the national literary language. Many frequent words of common use are dialectal in origin, such as girl, one, raid, glamour, etc. Some words from dialects are used as technical terms or professionalisms in the literary language, e.g. the Scotch cuddy—'ass' is used in the meaning of jack-screw and lug—'ear' in the meaning of handle.
Dialect peculiarities (phonetic, grammatical, but mainly lexical) modify in varying degrees the language spoken in different parts of Britain. These speech-forms are called regional variants of the national language and they are gradually replacing the old local dialects. It should be noted that the word dialect is used in two meanings nowadays: to denote the old dialects which are now dying away, and to denote the regional variants, i.e. a literary standard with some features from local dialects.
The most marked difference between dialects and regional variants in the field of phonetics lies in the fact that dialects possess phonemic distinctions, while regional variants are characterized by phonetic distinctions. In matters of vocabulary and grammar the difference is in the greater number and greater diversity of local peculiarities in the dialects as compared with the regional variants.
lexical dialect english language
Local Dialects in the USA
The English language in the United States is characterized by relative uniformity throughout the country. One can travel three thousand miles without encountering any but the slightest dialect differences. Nevertheless, regional variations in speech undoubtedly exist and they have been observed and recorded by a number of investigators.
The following three major belts of dialects have so far been identified, each with its own characteristic features: Northenr Midland and Southern, Midland being in turn divided into North Midland and South Midland.
The differences in pronunciation between American dialects are most apparent, but they seldom interfere with understanding. Distinctions in grammar are scarce. The differences in vocabulary are rather numerous, but they are easy to pick up. Cf., e.g., Eastern New England sour-milk cheese. Inland Northern Dutch cheese, New York City pot cheese for Standard American cottage cheese (творог).
The American linguist "O. F. Emerson maintains that American English had not had time to break up into widely diverse dialects and he believes that in the course of time the American dialects might finally become nearly as distinct as the dialects in Britain. He is certainly greatly mistaken. In modern times dialect divergence cannot increase. On the contrary, in the United States, as elsewhere, the national language is tending to wipe out the dialect distinctions and to become still more uniform.
Comparison of the dialect differences in the' British Isles and in the USA reveals that not only are they less numerous and far less marked in the USA, but that the very nature of the local distinctions is different. What is usually known as American dialects is closer in nature to regional variants of the literary language. The problem of discriminating between literary and dialect speech patterns in the USA is much more complicated than in Britain. Many American linguists point out that American English differs from British English in having no one locality whose speech patterns have come to be recognized as the model for the rest of the country.
Conclusions
1. English is the national language of England proper, the USA, Australia and some provinces of Canada. It was also at different times imposed on the inhabitants of the former and present British colonies and protectorates as well as other Britain- and US-dominated territories, where the population has always stuck to its own mother tongue.
2. British English, American English and Australian English are variants of the same language, because they serve all spheres of verbal communication. Their structural peculiarities, especially morphology, syntax and word-formation, as well as their word-stock and phonetic system are essentially the same. American and Australian standards are slight modifications of the norms accepted in the British Isles. The status of Canadian English has not yet been established.
3. The main lexical differences between the variants are caused by the lack of equivalent lexical units in one of them, divergences in the semantic structures of polysemantic words and peculiarities of usage of some words on different territories.
4. The so-called local dialects in the British Isles and in the USA .are used only by the rural population and only for the purposes of oral communication. In both variants local distinctions are more marked in pronunciation, less conspicuous in vocabulary and insignificant in grammar.
5. The British local dialects can be traced back to Old English dialects. Numerous and distinct, they are characterized by phonemic and structural peculiarities. The local dialects are being gradually replaced by regional variants of the literary language, i. e. by a literary standard with a proportion of local dialect features.
6. Local variations in the USA are relatively small. What is called by tradition American dialects is closer in nature to regional variants of the national literary language.
References
Wells, J. C. (1982). Accents of English 2: The British Isles.
Moore, B 2008, Speaking our language: the story of Australian English, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, p. 69.
Wells 2006. Accents of English. P.595/
Concise Oxford companion to the English language, pp. 96–102. 2005.
Crystal, David (2003). The Cambridge encyclopedia of the English language (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Dictionary
uniformity [] одноманітність; однаковість
set off 1) відзначати 2) відкладати ) протиставляти
reveal I [] 1) відкривати, викривати
scarce [] 1. 1) убогий, недостатній 2) рідкісний; дефіцитний
fragmentary [] 1) уривчастий; фрагментарний
designation [] 1) вказівка 2) призначення, ціль
pedestrian [] 1. 1) пішохід 2) учасник змагань із спортивної ходьби
marginal []) граничний 4) мінімальний
tangible [] 1. 1) відчутний (на дотик) ; що сприймається дотиком; матеріальний
intricate [] заплутаний, складний; скрутний
barn [] 1) комора; сарай; клуня, стодола 2) стайня; корівник
grain [] 1. 1) зерно 2) хлібні злаки
shrub [] кущ, чагарник
influx [] 1) місце впадання (притоки в річку) 2) приплив
infiltration [] 1) просочування, інфільтрація 2) проникання
advocate 1. [] 1) прихильник, прибічник; оборонець
elaboration [] 1) розробка; уточнення 2) вироблення; переробка; опрацювання
obliterate [] 1) стирати, викреслювати; знищувати 2) згладжувати(ся)
oust [] 1) виганяти, займати (чиєсь) місце; витісняти
penetrate [] 1) проникати всередину, пронизувати, проходити крізь
diversity [] 1) відмінність, несхожість; різниця, різноманітність 2) строкатість
conspicuous [] показний; помітний; що впадає у вічі
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