English Language

I

Introduction

English Language, primary language of the majority of people in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, other former colonies of Britain, and territories of the United States. It is also an official or semiofficial language of many countries with a colonial past, such as India, Nigeria, Pakistan, and South Africa. Even in countries where English is not a primary or official language, it is taught as a foreign language and used as the language of technology and diplomacy. English is spoken in more parts of the world than any other language and by more people than any other language except Chinese.

English is classified as an Indo-European language. It is part of the Germanic subfamily and is grouped with its most closely related language, Frisian, as part of the Anglo-Frisian group. Other related languages include Dutch, Flemish, and the Low German dialects, and, more distantly, Modern High German (see Germanic languages).

II

Vocabulary

The English vocabulary has changed continually over more than 1,500 years of development. The most nearly complete dictionary of the language, the Oxford English Dictionary (second edition, 20 volumes, 1989), contains more than 600,000 words, including obsolete forms and variant spellings. It has been estimated, however, that the present English vocabulary consists of more than 1 million words, including slang and dialect expressions and scientific and technical terms, many of which only came into use after the middle of the 20th century. The English vocabulary is more extensive than that of any other language in the world, although some other languages—Chinese, for example—have a word-building capacity equal to that of English.

Internal processes have led to the creation of many new words as well as to the establishment of patterns for further expansion. For example, the process of onomatopoeia, or the imitation of natural sounds, has created such words as burp and beeper. Affixation, or the addition of prefixes and suffixes, such as mis-, ex-, -ness, and –ist, has given English such words as mislead, exchange, forgetfulness, and machinist. The process of combining or blending parts of words produces new words such as in brunch, composed of parts of breakfast and lunch. The formation of compounds yields such words as lighthouse and downpour. Back formation, or the formation of new words from previously existing words, suggests that the verb jell, for example, was formed from jelly. Functional extension, or the use of one part of speech as if it were another, for example, turned the noun shower into a new verb, to shower. The processes that have probably added the largest number of words to English are affixation and functional extension.

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Throughout its history English has come into contact with a great number of languages. Extensive, constant borrowing from every major language—especially from Latin, Greek, French, and the Scandinavian languages—has also provided numerous words. From Latin, English has taken the words cheese, street, campanile, and exodus. From French, it has taken café, lingerie, envelope, and avalanche. Borrowings from Scandinavian languages include the words sky, egg, sister, birth, and smorgasbord. From Spanish have come the words pueblo, guacamole, fajita, and macho. The languages of India have given English the words chutney, bungalow, pajamas, amok, and polo (see Indian Languages). Native American languages have provided chipmunk, moccasin, tipi (also spelled teepee), skunk, squash, and quinine. From languages of the Pacific, English has taken sarong, ketchup, koala, and kiwi. From Japanese have come hibachi, sushi, bonsai, and origami.

III

Spelling

Both native English speakers and nonnative speakers regard the spelling of English as one of its most difficult characteristics. The English spelling system is not based on a phonetic correspondence between sounds and letters, as is the spelling of Spanish and certain other languages. Instead, English spelling reflects the historical development of the language. The same combination of letters can produce different pronunciations. Similarly, different combinations of letters can produce the same pronunciation.

The six different pronunciations of ough provide an outstanding example of the discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation, as in bough, cough, thorough, thought, through, and rough. The spellings are retained from a time when gh represented a consonant that was pronounced. Another discrepancy is the many different spellings of the sh sound, as for example in anxious, fission, fuchsia, and ocean.

The correspondence between sound and spelling in English is not phonetically exact for two main reasons. First, spelling changes did not keep pace with changes in the sound system after the development of printing and of conventions for spelling. For example, the k in knife and the gh in right are relics of the Middle English period (from about 1100 to about 1500), when they were pronounced as separate sounds. Second, some imported spelling conventions persist. For example, during the 16th century the b was inserted in doubt (formerly spelled doute) on the authority of the Latin source of the word, dubitare, although the b was not pronounced in English.

American English developed its own spelling conventions, largely as a result of the work of spelling reformer Noah Webster. Webster attempted to remove some of the irregularities from the English spelling system and distance American English from British English.

IV

Role of Phonemes

Phonemes can be regarded as the simplest sound elements that distinguish one word from another. Theoretically, they should indicate precisely the sound characteristics of the language in question. For example, in English, at contains two phonemes, mat three, and mast four. Very frequently, however, the spelling of English words does not conform to the number of phonemes. Enough, for example, which has four phonemes (enuf), is spelled with six letters, as is breath, which also has four phonemes (breθ) and six letters. See Phonetics.

The main vowel phonemes in English include those represented by the italicized letters in the following words: bit, beat, bet, bate, bat, but, botany, bought, boat, boot, book, and burr. These phonemes are distinguished from one another by the position of the tongue and lips during speech. There are four complex vowel sounds, or diphthongs, in English formed when the tongue glides from a low position to a higher one. These diphthongs are the i of bite (a glide from o of botany to ea of beat), the ou of bout (from o of botany to oo of boot), the oy of boy (from ou of bought to ea of beat), and the u of butte (from ea of beat to oo of boot). The exact starting point and ending point of the glide varies for different speakers of English within the English-speaking world. The examples given are consistent with standard American English pronunciation.

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