List of dialects of English
This article is an overview list of dialects of English. Dialects are linguistic varieties which may differ in pronunciation, vocabulary, spelling and grammar. For the classification of varieties of English in terms of pronunciation only, see Regional accents of English.
Dialects can be defined as "sub-forms of languages which are, in general, mutually comprehensible".[1] English speakers from different countries and regions use a variety of different accents (systems of pronunciation), as well as various localized words and grammatical constructions; many different dialects can be identified based on these factors. Dialects can be classified at broader or narrower levels: within a broad national or regional dialect, various more localized sub-dialects can be identified, and so on. The combination of differences in pronunciation and use of local words may make some English dialects almost unintelligible to speakers from other regions.
The major native dialects of English are often divided by linguists into three general categories: the British Isles dialects, those of North America, and those of Australasia.[2] Dialects can be associated not only with place, but also with particular social groups. Within a given English-speaking country, there will often be a form of the language considered to be Standard English – the Standard Englishes of different countries differ, and each can itself be considered a dialect. Standard English is often associated with the more educated layers of society.
List
Europe
England
- Received Pronunciation (sometimes erroneously called "the Queen's English" or Standard British English)
- Northern (In the North East, local speech is akin to Scots)[3]
- Cheshire
- Cumbrian (Cumbria including Barrovian in Barrow-in-Furness)
- Geordie (Tyneside)
- Hartlepudlian (Hartlepool)
- Lancastrian (Lancashire)
- Mackem (Sunderland)
- Mancunian (Manchester)
- Northumbrian (rural Northumberland and County Durham)
- Pitmatic (former mining communities of Northumberland and County Durham)
- Scouse (Liverpool)
- Smoggie (Teesside)
- Yorkshire
- East Midlands
- West Midlands
- Black Country
- Brummie (Birmingham)
- Potteries (north Staffordshire)
- Coventry
- East Anglian
- Southern
- Cockney (working-class London and surrounding areas)
- Essaxon (Essex)
- Pompey dialect (Portsmouth)
- Kentish (Kent)
- Multicultural London (London)
- Sussex
- West Country
- Anglo-Cornish
- Bristolian
- Janner (Plymouth)
- Dorset
Scotland
- Scottish English comprising varieties based the Standard English of England.
- Scots is either considered one of the ancient varieties of English with its own distinct dialects or a distinct Germanic language separate from (Scottish) English.[4]
Wales
Isle of Man
Channel Islands
Gibraltar
Ireland
- Ulster
- Belfast
- Derry
- South Ulster
- Ulster Scots dialects
- West Donegal
- Leinster
- Dublin
- Dublin 4 (D4)
- Inner city
- Suburban Dublin
- Dundalk
- Wexford town
- Dublin
- Connacht
- Galway city
- Mayo
- Sligo town
- Munster
- Cork city
- Kerry
- Tipperary
- Limerick city
Extinct
- Forth and Bargy dialect (also known as Yola), thought to have been a descendant of Middle English, spoken in County Wexford[5][6]
- Fingallian, another presumed descendant of Middle English, spoken in Fingal[5]
North America
United States
- Cultural and ethnic American English
- African American English ("Ebonics")
- Boontling
- Cajun Vernacular English
- Hawaiian Pidgin
- Latino Vernacular Englishes
- Pennsylvania Dutch English
- Yeshiva English
- General American English
- General American: the "standard" or "mainstream" spectrum of American English.
- Regional and local American English
- Eastern New England
- Boston and Maine: Greater Boston, including most of eastern Massachusetts
- Rhode Island
- Southeast super-region
- Mid-Atlantic (Delaware Valley)
- Midland
- North Midland: Omaha, Lincoln, Columbia, Springfield, Muncie, Columbus, etc.
- South Midland: Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Topeka, Wichita, Kansas City, St. Louis (in transition), Decatur, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Dayton, etc.
- "Hoi Toider"
- New Orleans
- Southern
- Southern Appalachian: Linden, Birmingham, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Asheville, and Greenville
- Texas Southern: Lubbock, Odessa, and Dallas
- New York City
- Northern
- Inland Northern: Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, Western New York, the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, and most of the U.S. Great Lakes region
- Western New England: Connecticut, Hudson Valley, western Massachusetts, and Vermont
- North Central (Upper Midwestern): Brockway, Minot, Bismarck, Bemidji, Chisholm, Duluth, Marquette, etc.
- Western
- Western Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh)
- Eastern New England
- Extinct or near-extinct American English
Canada
Bermuda
Indigenous North America
Native American English dialects:
- Mojave English
- Isletan English
- Tsimshian English
- Lumbee English
- Tohono O'odham English
- Inupiaq English
Caribbean, Central, and South America
Anguilla
Antigua
The Bahamas
Barbados
Belize
Colombia
Falkland Islands
Guyana
Honduras
Jamaica
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
- Vincentian English
Trinidad and Tobago
Asia
Brunei
Burma
Hong Kong
- Hong Kong English (similar to British English)
Pakistan
India
- Standard Indian English
- Indian English: the "standard" English used by administration and educated people.
- Regional and local Indian English
- East Region
- West Region
- North Region
- South Region
Nepal
Malaysia
- Malaysian English (Manglish) (similar to British English)
Philippines
- Philippine English (PhE) (similar to American English)
Singapore
- Singapore English (SE) (similar to British English)
Sri Lanka
- Sri Lankan English (SLE)
Africa
Cameroon
Ghana
Kenya
Liberia
- Liberian English (similar to American English)
Malawi
Namibia
Nigeria
- Nigerian English (similar to American English)
- Nigerian Pidgin
South Africa
- South African English (similar to Australian English and British English)
- Black South African English
- Acrolect
- Mesolect
- Cape Flats English
- Indian South African English
- White South African English
- Broad accent
- General accent
- Cultivated accent
- Black South African English
South Atlantic
- South Atlantic English spoken on Tristan da Cunha and Saint Helena[7]
Uganda
Oceania
Australia
Australian English (AusE, AusEng):
New Zealand
New Zealand English (NZE, en-NZ)
Creoles
Pidgins and creoles exist which are based on, or incorporate, English, including Chinook Jargon (a mostly extinct trade language), American Indian Pidgin English, and Manglish (Malaysian English-Malay-Chinese-Tamil).
A pan-Asian English variation called Globalese has been described.[8]
Constructed
Several constructed languages exist based on English, which have never been adopted as a vernacular. Language scholars have stated that constructed languages are "no longer of practical use" with English as a de facto global language.[9]
Manual encodings
These encoding systems should not be confused with sign languages such as British Sign Language and American Sign Language, which, while they are informed by English, have their own grammar and vocabulary.
Code-switching
The following are portmanteaus devised to describe certain local varieties of English and other linguistic phenomena involving English. Although similarly named, they are actually quite different in nature, with some being genuine mixed languages, some being instances of heavy code-switching between English and another language, some being genuine local dialects of English used by first-language English speakers, and some being non-native pronunciations of English. A few portmanteaus (such as Greeklish and Fingilish) are transliteration methods rather than any kind of spoken variant of English.
- Anglish (English stressing words of Germanic origin)
- Arabish (Arabic English, mostly chat romanization)
- Army creole (military dialect of acronyms and profanity)
- Benglish (Bengali English)
- Bislish (Bisaya English)
- Chinglish (Chinese English)
- Czenglish (Czech English)
- Danglish (Danish English)
- Dunglish (Dutch English)
- Engrish (Japanese English) - most popularly refers to broken English used by Japanese in attempts at foreign branding.
- Finglish (Finnish English)
- Franglais (French English)
- Denglisch/Pseudo-Anglicism (German English)
- Greeklish (Greek English)
- Heblish (Hebrew English)
- Hinglish (Hindi English)
- Konglish (South Korean English)
- Manglish (Malaysian English)
- Maltenglish (Maltese English)
- Poglish (Polish English)
- Porglish (Portuguese English)
- Runglish (Russian English)
- Sheng (a Swahili-English cant; originated among urban youths Nairobi, Kenya)
- Siculish (Sicilian English)
- Singlish (Singapore English, multiple pidgins)
- Spanglish (Spanish English)
- Swenglish (Swedish English)
- Taglish (Tagalog English)
- Tanglish (Tamil and English)
- Tenglish (Telugu and English)
- Tinglish/Thailish (Thai English)
- Urdish (Urdu and English)
- Vinish (Vietnamese English)
- Wenglish (Welsh English)
- Yeshivish (Yeshiva English)
- Yinglish (Yiddish English)
See also
References
- ↑ Wakelin, Martyn Francis (2008). Discovering English Dialects. Oxford: Shire Publications. p. 4. ISBN 978-0-7478-0176-4.
- ↑ Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, Cambridge University Press, 2003
- ↑ JC Wells, Accents of English, Cambridge University Press, 1983, page 351
- ↑ A.J. Aitken in The Oxford Companion to the English Language, Oxford University Press 1992. p.894
- 1 2 Hickey, Raymond (2005). Dublin English: Evolution and Change. John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 196–198. ISBN 90-272-4895-8.
- ↑ Hickey, Raymond (2002). A Source Book for Irish English (PDF). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 28–29. ISBN 90-272-3753-0.
ISBN 1-58811-209-8 (US)
- ↑ Daniel Schreier, Peter Trudgill. The Lesser-Known Varieties of English: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press, Mar 4, 2010 pg. 10
- ↑ Nunan 2012, p. 186.
- ↑ Fischer 2004, p. 181 "[T]he goal [of constructed languages] is no longer of practical use... Living languages are of far greater influence in the world ... world languages are emerging naturally for the first time in history. Indeed, the English language -- by historical circumstance, not by design -- presently counts more second-language speakers than any other tongue on Earth and numbers are growing."
Further reading
- Hickey, Raymond (ed.) (2004). Legacies of Colonial English. Studies in Transported Dialects. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0521175074.
- Hickey, Raymond (ed.) (2010). Varieties of English in Writing. The Written Word as Linguistic Evidence. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ISBN 9789027249012.
- Hickey, Raymond (2014). A Dictionary of Varieties of English. Malden, MA: Wiley- Blackwell. ISBN 978-0-470-65641-9.
- "English Language§Varieties of English", Encyclopædia Britannica (Fifth ed.), Vol. 6 Earth–Everglades, pp. 883–886, 1974
- Bolton, K. (2002), Hong Kong English: Autonomy and Creativity, Asian Englishes Today, Hong Kong University Press, ISBN 978-962-209-553-3, retrieved 2015-10-22
- Crystal, David (2003). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (Second ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 109. ISBN 0-521-53033-4. Retrieved 2006-07-20.
- Fischer, Steven Roger (2004), History of Language, Reaktion Books, ISBN 978-1-86189-594-3
- Okrent, A. (2010), In the Land of Invented Languages: A Celebration of Linguistic Creativity, Madness, and Genius, Spiegel & Grau Trade Paperbacks, ISBN 978-0-8129-8089-9
- Nunan, David (2012), What Is This Thing Called Language?, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-1-137-28499-0
External links
- Sounds Familiar? Listen to examples of regional accents and dialects from across the UK on the British Library's 'Sounds Familiar?' website
- A national map of the regional dialects of American English
- IDEA – International Dialects of English Archive
- English Dialects – English Dialects around the world
- Dialect poetry from the English regions
- American Languages: Our Nation's Many Voices - An online audio resource presenting interviews with speakers of German-American and American English dialects from across the United States