British English (or UK English) is a collective term
for the forms of English spoken in the British Isles. When used by British speakers, it often refers to the written
Standard English and the sociolect known as Received Pronunciation (RP).
The people who live in the British Isles do not use the term often, although they do refer to Scottish English, Welsh English and Irish English, and dialects thereof. According to Tom McArthur
in the Oxford Guide to World English (p. 45), the phrase British English shares "all the ambiguities and
tensions in the word British, and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly,
within a range of blurring and ambiguity."
Broad use of the term
The broader use refers to the language of the entirety of the United
Kingdom.
Here, the term (unless qualified) covers all varieties of the language—standard and non-standard, formal and
informal, at all times, in all regions, at all social levels. It is unlikely, however, to cover Lowland and Ulster
Scots, which in this context is usually taken, explicitly or
implicitly, to be distinct ...
Narrow use
The narrower use refers to:
The form of Standard English used in Britain, or in England, or in south-east England: traditionally the medium of the upper
and (especially professional) middle class. The term may be expanded into the more or less synonymous forms British Standard
English and Standard British English. Although not limited to one accent (most notably in recent decades), it has been associated since at least the late 19th century
with the accent that, since the 1920, has been called Received Pronunciation (RP), and with the phrases the Queen's English, the
King's English, Oxford English, and BBC English.
Peter Trudgill in Language in the British Isles used British English only for the wider sense of the phrase and
introduced the term English English (EngEng) for the narrower
sense. The term English English is now generally recognized in academic writing in competition with Anglo-English and
English in England, though it is still not greatly used.
Written language
History and distinctions
The written language is normally Standard English, which dates back to the early 16th century. It is primarily based on dialects from the south-east of England and is used by newspapers and
official publications. Although standard written English is similar in every English-speaking country, there are differences in
spelling - such as colo(u)r, travel(l)er - punctuation and vocabulary. For examples, see American English, Canadian English, Australian English,
South African English and New Zealand English for comparison.
Pam Peters (2004, British English) notes: "The characteristic written features of British English owe much to
C18 and C19
linguistic movements, which were not felt so strongly elsewhere."
Use of -ise and -ize
Words of the sort organize/organise and their derivatives can be spelt with either s or z. The
-ize forms are promoted by the Oxford
English Dictionary and are the forms used by most publications issued by the Oxford University Press and in much other academic publishing. This is sometimes known as OED
spelling and may be marked by the registered IANA language tag en-GB-oed. It is the
spelling used by the Encyclopędia
Britannica, by the United Nations (mostly), and by the majority
of international standards groups. The -ize forms are also given priority in all dictionaries issued by Oxford, Cassell, Collins, Longman, and Penguin, and also in dictionaries issued by Chambers for
international use. These forms were used by The Times until the
mid-1980s. The -ise forms are now generally used by the British government, within
the European Union, by Cambridge University publications, by the media and is taught in the British school system. The
-ise forms are preferred in dictionaries from Reader's Digest (UK) and by Chambers in their native-speaker dictionaries
and are used by most British publishers and in most British newspapers. Pam Peters (2004, -ize/-ise) relates that British
National Corpus data indicates the ratio of popularity for -ise forms to -ize forms in Britain is 3:2. The
-ize forms were introduced by Noah Webster in the USA in his
American Spelling Book and subsequent dictionary.
Dialects
The British Isles is one of the most linguistically diverse areas in the English-speaking world. Significant changes in
dialect (pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary) may occur within
one region. The four major divisions are normally classified as Southern English dialects, Midlands English dialects and Northern
English dialects, and Scottish English and the closely related dialects of Scots and Ulster Scots (varieties of
Scots spoken in Ulster). There is also Hiberno-English (English as spoken in Ireland) and the form of
English used in Wales. The various English dialects differ in the words they have
borrowed from other languages. The Scottish and Northern dialects include many words originally borrowed from Old Norse; the Scottish dialects include words borrowed from Scots and Scottish Gaelic. Hiberno-English includes words derived from Irish.
There are thus many differences between the various English dialects. These can be a major impediment to understanding between
people from different areas. However, modern communications and mass media have reduced these differences significantly. In
addition, speakers of very different dialects may modify their pronunciation and vocabulary, towards Standard English.
British Dialects:
- England
- Northern English
- Midlands English
- East
- Derbyshire
- Nottingham
- Lincolnshire
- Leicestershire
- West
- East Anglian
- Southern English
- Scotland
- Wales
- Northern Ireland
See: List of
dialects of the English language
Accent
The accent best known to many people outside the
United Kingdom as British English is that of Received
Pronunciation. This sociolect is defined as the educated, spoken English of
southeastern England. Until recently, it was widely believed that it was more educated than other accents and was referred to as
the King's (or Queen's) English, or even "BBC English". However, for several decades, regional accents have been accepted and are
frequently heard, their use in broadcasting now encouraged by the BBC. English spoken with a Scottish accent has a reputation for
being especially easy to understand.
Accents throughout Britain are influenced by the phoneme inventory of the
dialects mentioned above. Through this, native English speakers can often tell from what area a person comes. Cockney and Caribbean speech influence the London accent. The relatively recent spread of
Estuary English is influencing accents throughout the south east.
See Regional accents of
English speakers
English outside the British Isles
American English, Canadian English, Australian English,
New Zealand English, Caribbean English, Indian English, and Pidgin English are among the many dialects that have emerged since the period
of emigration from the British Isles during the expansion of the British Empire. Dialect differences are not, in general, an impediment to
understanding, as the dialects are, for the most part, linguistically close to one other since, apart from Pidgin, they are
mainly based on Standard English. A literate, educated English speaker will generally know many forms. Due to the wide reach of
the US media and the Internet, knowledge of American English in Britain is more common than the reverse.
Literature
- Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052162181X.
- McArthur, Tom (2002). Oxford Guide to World English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198662483 hardback, ISBN 0198607717 paperback.
- Trudgill, Peter (1984). Language in the British Isles. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521284090.
- Wells, J. C. (1982). Accents of English 2: The British Isles. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521285402.
External links
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