British English

Origins English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was generally speaking Common Brittonic—the insular variety of Continental Celtic, which was influenced by the Roman occupation. This group of languages (Welsh, Cornish, Cumbric) cohabited alongside English into the modern period, but due to their remoteness from the Germanic languages, influence on English was notably limited. However, the degree of influence remains debated, and it has recently been argued that its grammatical influence accounts for the substantial innovations noted between English and the other West Germanic languages. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon, eventually came to dominate. The original Old English was then influenced by two waves of invasion: the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who settled in parts of Britain in the eighth and ninth centuries; the second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman. These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it was never a truly mixed language in the strictest sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication). The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive English is, the more it is from Anglo-Saxon origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more it contains Latin and French influences, e.g. swine (like the Germanic ) is the animal in the field bred by the occupied Anglo-Saxons and pork (like the French ) is the animal at the table eaten by the occupying Normans. Another example is the Anglo-Saxon meaning cow, and the French meaning beef. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English; the later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a very large vocabulary. == Dialects ==

Dialects and accents vary amongst the four countries of the United Kingdom, as well as within the countries themselves. The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England (which is itself broadly grouped into Southern English, West Country, East and West Midlands English and Northern English), Northern Irish English (in Northern Ireland), Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh language), and Scottish English (not to be confused with the Scots language or Scottish Gaelic). Each group includes a range of dialects, some markedly different from others. The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. Around the middle of the 15th century, there were points where within the 5 major dialects there were almost 500 ways to spell the word though. Research Following its last major survey of English Dialects (1949–1950), the University of Leeds has started work on a new project. In May 2007 the Arts and Humanities Research Council awarded a grant to Leeds to study British regional dialects. The team are sifting through a large collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by the "Voices project" run by the BBC, in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout the country. The BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles about how the British speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information will also be collated and analysed by Johnson's team both for content and for where it was reported. "Perhaps the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the English language is as diverse as ever, despite our increased mobility and constant exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio". (also called "the King's English", "Oxford English" and "BBC English"), that is essentially region-less. It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in London in the early modern period. although the extent of its use is often somewhat exaggerated. Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors. Estuary English has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of RP and some of Cockney. Immigrants to the UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to the country and particularly to London. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered more than 125 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's schoolchildren. Notably Multicultural London English, a sociolect that emerged in the late 20th century spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London. Since the mass internal migration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and given its position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of various accent developments. In Northampton the older accent has been influenced by overspill Londoners. There is an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a transitional accent between the East Midlands and East Anglian. It is the last southern Midlands accent to use the broad "a" in words like bath or grass (i.e. or ). Conversely crass or plastic use a slender "a". A few miles northwest in Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the town of Corby, north, one can find Corbyite which, unlike the Kettering accent, is largely influenced by the West Scottish accent. == Features ==

Phonological features characteristic of British English revolve around the pronunciation of the letter R, as well as the dental plosive T and some diphthongs specific to this dialect. T-glottalling Once regarded as a Cockney feature, in a number of forms of spoken British English, has become commonly realised as a glottal stop when it is in the intervocalic position, in a process called T-glottalisation. National media, being based in London, have seen the glottal stop spreading more widely than it once was in word endings, not being heard as "no" and bottle of water being heard as "bole of waer". It is still stigmatised when used in word-medial positions, such as later. Other consonants subject to this usage in Cockney English are p, as in paer and k as in baer. This is to treat them as plural when once grammatically singular, a perceived natural number prevails, especially when applying to institutional nouns and groups of people. The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment: A sports team can be treated likewise: This tendency can be observed in texts produced already in the 19th century. For example, Jane Austen, a British author, writes in Chapter 4 of Pride and Prejudice, published in 1813: However, in Chapter 16, the grammatical number is used. Negatives Some dialects of British English use negative concords, also known as double negatives. Rather than changing a word or using a positive, words like nobody, not, nothing, and never would be used in the same sentence. While this does not occur in Standard English, it does occur in non-standard dialects. The double negation follows the idea of two different morphemes, one that causes the double negation, and one that is used for the point or the verb. == Standard British English ==

Standard English in the United Kingdom, as in other English-speaking nations, is widely enforced in schools and by social norms for formal contexts but not by any singular authority; for instance, there is no institution equivalent to the with French or the Royal Spanish Academy with Spanish. Standard British English differs notably in certain vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation features from standard American English and certain other standard English varieties around the world. British and American spelling also differ in minor ways. The accent, or pronunciation system, of standard British English, based in southeastern England, has been known for more than a century as Received Pronunciation (RP). However, due to language evolution and changing social trends, some linguists argue that RP is losing prestige or has been replaced by another accent, one that the linguist Geoff Lindsey for instance calls Standard Southern British English. Other scholars suggest that more regionally-oriented standard accents are emerging in England. Outside of England, namely in Scotland and Northern Ireland, RP exerts very little influence, particularly in the 21st century. RP, while long established as the standard English accent around the globe due to the spread of the British Empire, is distinct from the standard English pronunciation in some parts of the world; most prominently, RP notably contrasts with standard North American accents. As of the 21st century, dictionaries such as the Oxford English Dictionary, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, the Chambers Dictionary, and the Collins Dictionary record actual usage rather than attempting to prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other varieties of English, and neologisms are frequent. History of standardisation For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the ninth century, the form of language spoken in London and the East Midlands became standard English within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accepted use in the law, government, literature and education in Britain. The standardisation of British English is thought to be from both dialect levelling and a thought of social superiority. Speaking in the Standard dialect created class distinctions; those who did not speak the standard English would be considered of a lesser class or social status and often discounted or considered of a low intelligence. By the early 20th century, British authors had produced numerous books intended as guides to English grammar and usage, a few of which achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in print for long periods and to have been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most notably of all, Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers. Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication is included in style guides issued by various publishers including The Times newspaper, the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press. The Oxford University Press guidelines were originally drafted as a single broadsheet page by Horace Henry Hart, and were at the time (1893) the first guide of their type in English; they were gradually expanded and eventually published, first as ''Hart's Rules, and in 2002 as part of The Oxford Manual of Style. Comparable in authority and stature to The Chicago Manual of Style'' for published American English, the Oxford Manual is a fairly exhaustive standard for published British English that writers can turn to in the absence of specific guidance from their publishing house. == Relationship with Commonwealth English ==

British English is the basis of, and very similar to, Commonwealth English. Commonwealth English is English as spoken and written in the Commonwealth countries, though often with some local variation. This includes English spoken in Australia, Malta, New Zealand, Nigeria, and South Africa. It also includes South Asian English used in South Asia, in English varieties in Southeast Asia, and in parts of Africa. Canadian English is based on British English, but has more influence from American English, often grouped together due to their close proximity. British English, for example, is the closest English to Indian English, but Indian English has extra vocabulary and some English words are assigned different meanings. == See also ==